Monday, June 24, 2013

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

What a crazy (appropriately so) book!

It's summer so my access to the school library has been barred - I'm working my way through my birthday-present-books (thank you, lovely friends).

Set in a mental asylum run by a indomitable nurse, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is at once dystopian and fanatical. Its protagonist, the egregious McMurphy, is determined to distort the prudently-maintained equilibrium of the ward and restore the spirit of revolution to the forlorn patients who have been subjugated under the hegemony of the unrelenting, macho nurse Ratched for too long.

The writing may seem to run away at times and the plot may seem wildly paced, yet Kesey does a swell job of squashing Nurse Ratched's inherent feminism and magnifying McMurphy's innate eccentricities.

Narrated by the furtively astute Chief Bromden, One Flew over the cuckoo's nest is ultimately and inevitably humorous, yet darkly satirical.

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