Paperback, 393 pages
English language
Published Sept. 15, 2006 by Penguin Books.
Being "mad" isn't easy...
Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict, unbending routine. Her patients, cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy, dare not oppose her. But everything changes with the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin. McMurphy battles Nurse Ratched and the ward regime, challenging everyone's beliefs about madness... who, of them all, is really insane? --back cover
I get why there was a fuss and it became a classic, and it is well enough written that I finished it. I just didn’t find it that great a book, and although interesting it wasn’t really for me. Literarily valuable perhaps and worthy of consideration as a thing of its time and for a view of how people are, yes, but nothing to rave about - rather like Catcher in the Rye.
This book was quite an amazing read. I loved following the adventures of McMurphy as he bucked against the system and tried to help those around him. Seeing through the eyes of Bromden with his psychedelic descriptions were like watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon and really made this story enjoyable.
Ken Kesey wrote an absolutely perfect story, the plot grips you asking what McMurphy will dare next, written from a perspective that happily contextualizes and compares the exploits of McMurphy, until the very end. This is a must read book for anyone interested psychiatry and a tribute to Ken Kesey's literary power.
