Customer Reviews
Put simply; a great book. - By: , 21 Jan 2004 
There's no need for me to go on too long about this book, because my point is quite simple; this is a great book.
What most people find surprising, having seen the film version of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', is that the book's narrator is Chief Bromden, the big American Indian fella. From such a narrative perspective, at times it's uncertain how much of what we are told we can genuinely believe, but this itself adds to the experience & depiction of the institute & Bromden's state of mind. Bromden's experience of the institute is one of 'machines' & 'fog', which is both scary & intruiging.
The author, Ken Kesey, has created a series of strong, believable characters, particularly Nurse Ratched, McMurphy, & Billy Bibbet, all of which are difficult to forget, & trigger different emotional responses. This is one of the few books that I have read that I closed & thought 'bloody hell, that was good.'
For old & young readers alike, I can't recommend this book enough.
Budget price classic. - By: Jason Parkes, 22 Jan 2003 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the classic books of the 20th century, standing out at a key pointin American literature alongside works such as Catch 22, Herzog & Slaughterhouse-Five. This edition is a wonderful budget edition of a book that is coming up for its 41st birthday.
As with the orange-coloured Picador edition that has been reprinted since the late 70's, the cover image stems from the Milos Forman film. The book is very different to the filmin a number of ways- partly due to the, admitidly brilliant film, being written by two screenwriters from a theatrical adaptation by Dale Wasserman. Kesey was reportedly unhappy that his book had become so associated with the film; still, it was seeing the film that made me want to read this book...
The language has a distinct modernist meets beat feel, Kesey not afraid to experiment- though the perspective is givenin a disembodied first person by Chief Bromden. The characters are quite different- Cheswick an ambulance chaser, Harding more likeable & closer to McMurphy & there is more made of the staff- from the student doctors making pseudo-psychological defintions to the black staff forced to carry out the chump work.
The book is a much darker prospect than the film, though it shares a heavy dose of black comedy- such as some of McMurphy's acts of revenge on Nurse Ratched (the insults backwards & placed under the seat killed me. Several times...). Kesey offers a bleak crystalline prosein this novel, which was writtenin a Keroauc-inspired spell of a few days. Having just re-read this for the second time, I'm blown away- the book has a definite power & relevance to the world we livein now, or have donein the past (e.g. "carein the community", Vietnam...).
Many of the reviews of the orange-Picador edition were disturbingly mediocre- whether this was because they were written by Manics-fans I can't say (only suggest...) They did read the book as being about the reader - which I think misses the point. I see it as a book about a system, a machine that overwhelms like the fog machine here or thatin Kafka's The Castle. Another reviewer suggested that it was about outsiders, whereas I feel it's about 'insiders'...Still, there are correlations with other worksin terms of theme- from Catch 22 to The Catcherin the Rye- which is recalled from an asylum like Samuel Beckett's Watt, to Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son to Patrick McGrath's Spider (recently adapted by David Cronenberg).
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a true American classic, probably Kesey's best work- though the epic Sometimes a Great Notion is well worth reading if feeling more adventerous. At this price?- a deep dark must...
