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ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

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by Ken Kesey (1962)

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Everybody thinks the Chief is deaf and dumb. But really it was the clocks that had simply stopped. Then one day Randle McMurphy arrives at the nuthouse, hoping for a better time than he was getting in the jailhouse. McMurphy was the type of big, strong, rough ‘n’ ready guy that could make a stopped clock start ticking again just by looking at it. With an indomitable spirit and a wry sense of humour, McMurphy soon becomes a popular leader among society’s outcasts. With persistent effort and simple activism, McMurphy wins the outcasts some minor privileges that improve their lives, if only briefly. Not everyone is happy about this. Nurse Ratched will do her very best to take McMurphy down, to crush him within the gears of the system, and to drug and electrocute and cut and slice at him. Unafraid of authority, McMurphy pushes on. It was right about then the Chief noticed that time was ticking away once again. Fiction. 281 pages.

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DETAILS:

Title: One flew over the cuckoo’s nest

Year: 1962

Author: Ken Kesey

Pages: 281

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Book review by Keith Salter