Paperback, 320 pages
English language
Published May 4, 2005 by Penguin Books.
Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.
--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.
