It was the Psychedelic 60's and the vast drug experimentation of Americans took on another level, the junkies, the sane and insane alike. For the mentally unstable medication through Psycho therapy became a fad like no other.

Wanting to learn more about this unusual behaviour Ken Kessey volunteered himself to take part in a study at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital on the effects of psychoactive drugs. His experiences as a medical guinea pig inspired Kesey to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962.

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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest was set in a fictional mental asylum ruled by a "tyranical" middle aged Nurse Ratched. Narrated by the towering Native-American Chief Bromden a schizophrenic who pretends to be both deaf and dumb.

Through his self-imposed solitude Bromden accurately observed each element of the hospital's surroundings and manages to give readers a full and personal account of the arrival of the rebellious new inmate R.P. McMurphy. ( whose initials can be aptly defined as "revolution per minute").

Enter Randle P. McMurphy, a petty criminal who fakes his own madness in order for him to be admitted in the institution and therefore avoid a lenghty prison term.

Prior to the arrival of McMurphy, the asylum was run by the domineering Nurse Ratched and her assistants ( who were described as black men by Bromden ). The patient's life revolves around a clockwork precision setting bound by the strict rules of the staff members.

McMurphy brought with himself a symbol of resistance and rebellious exuberance against these rules, he finds the "therapeutic techniques" of the staff as non-existent, that medicated drug and the threat of electro shock therapy is not making the patients well, but just a method to keep them scared and forever following authority.

And the ensuing results is a never ending battle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched.

*****

The book represents a much larger aspect other than life in a mental institution, it also paints the over-all battle of the weak and the strong in society as well. The main characters' struggle to regain sanity in the mental institution clearly represented the title "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" which is Chief Bromden's memory of a children's nursery rhyme that depicts a group of geese flying in different directions, continously opposing each other. In the book it is Nurse Ratched, McMurphy, the Chief, the acutes and the chronics who were literally and symbolically representing the wild geese chase.

Ken Kessey's beliefs that most of the patients he encountered as a volunteer and late r on while working in Menlo Park as a nurse assistant, doesn't really fit the typical crazed man. Only he believes that these people were sent to such place making them to believe that professional help and aid of drugs can help them get back to the system's definition of a sane man.

Wherein Kessey's beliefs that these patients were not insane, that society had pushed them out because they did not fit the conventional ideas and ideal stratosphere of how people were supposed to act and live their life.

And the result was a literary gift that critics hailed as one of the best novels of all time.

*****
I haven't seen the movie version, but its hard not to think of Jack Nicholson when reminded of Randall McMurphy, the zest of his character critics describes as a bit Dean Moriarty of Kerouac's "On the Road", which is understandable to think that Ken Kesey is a part of that so called "beat generation". His other novel "Sometimes a Great Notion" was a product of his experiences with the 'muse' of the beatniks, Neal Cassady who introduced Kesey to the other "beatniks" Kerouac, Ginsberg and Timothy Leary.

Randall McMurphy is the character that is not about to impress or be a leader of the pack, he was just this trickster, a joker, gambler, no good man ( according to the norms of society ). But along the way he became this 'personal saviour' of other patients. ( other scholars refers to him as a Christ like figure whose sacrifices left a valuable lesson to the other patients). In a way a rebel with a cause, out to defy authority that subjects its followers as slave. To quote Harding "the strong becomes strong while continously devouring the weak".

McMurphy is the symbol that gives life to an otherwise normal set-up of the Asylum, where-in Ken Kesey's challenges and questions about the state of psycho therapy in America, of the ruler's rule over its followers, in a sense that it asks the question of tyranny, the urge or fetish of creating an order of rules, authority for the so called greater good but at the moment neglecting the proper and just things that makes a human being alive. In doing so, this so called parameters makes a human soul more stagnant than ever before.

Bounded by paralysis, mental anguish and labels such as Acutes, Chronics and other clinical terms.

And after reading this book, you might as well find yourself asking the very same questions that Kesey brought up in this great novel.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" said to be his most popular and distinguished work depicts his real life experience as a prisoner of war during World War II in which while imprisoned in the German city of Dresden he saw first hand the retaliatory air raids conducted by the Allied warplanes which up to now remains as one of the few controversial Allied actions of World War II. It is said that the bombing of Dresden killed more people than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

 

 

Using the initial plot of the Dresden bombing through the eyes of an American Soldier named Billy Pilgrim ( based on Vonnegut's own experience ), Kurt Vonnegut carefully weaved the story with science fiction elements and time travel as a major plot's driving force as we see Pilgrim get caught in a so called "unstuck in time" where he would revisit different events in his life randomly, like being a prisoner of war in Dresden to a practicing optometry in a fictional town called Illium to his eventual abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who exhibit him in a Tralfamadorian zoo with Montana Wildhack, a pornographic movie star.

This is not a conventional novel in terms of storytelling, in case that the Dresden experience of the main character serves only as one of the plot lines but at the same time it stands out among as the main theme of the novel.

The first chapter has Vonnegut as the main narrator, him discussing his passion about writing something about his own experiences in Dresden as a prisoner of war caught in between the fighting Germans who are in their last ditch stand and the growing might of the advancing Russian Forces from Berlin and the carpet bombing insinuated by the Allies towards the end of the war.

Being a humanist Kurt Vonnegut wrote this book not alluding to any side or faults on the outcome that happened in the War like in Dresden. Both sides are guilty of overkill, The Axis started and committed astrocities at a large scale. In this book Vonnegut is just merely telling a story about an event not really known to readers at the time this book was published.

As the novel progresses and Billy Pilgrim shifts from one period of his life to another we encounter colorful characters from Paul Lazzaro, ill-tempered car thief from Cicero, Illinois, Edgar Derby, the oldest among the prisoners, to Kilgore Trout an unsuccessful science-fiction writer who also appears in a number of Vonnegut book.

The descriptions of the Trafalmadorians are of classic Vonnegut humor. Trafalmadorians communicate telepathically through a "sort of electric organ which made Earthling sound".

"Why me?" Billy said.
"Well he we are Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why".

Over-all this book is wonderfully penned by combining fantasy with realism, added with fictionalized memoir, written in a comedic mode as horror is overtaken by a kind of fatalistic yet funny view of life even at the most absurd situations.

Kurt Vonnegut has written a fantasy tale that serves or reminds us the horrors of war, but it's not an anti-war novel because as he says, "there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers...and there would still be plain old death" and "SO IT GOES".

A short time after he and his wife split up, Sal Paradise a young and innocent writer longing for fresh experience, met the eccentric, spontaneous, "slightly crazed" Dean Moriarty on a "breathless, exuberant ride back and forth" life on the road across th highways, from city to city, gas stations, bars, cheap hotels, east west of America.

 

Along the way encountering countless cast of characters ( poet Carlo Marx, Dean's 3 wives, Maryloy, Camille, Inez, Sal's brief romance with a young mexican girl...to a young mexican pimp Victor among others )"Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment though drinks, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom an their own self.

With a vivid description of life on the road. Jack Kerouac blended fiction and real life ( part of the story was based on his real life experiences as a lonesome traveller ) that many critics called "a novel that defined the new beat generation, its tremendous impact....made him famous overnight"

Acclaimed writer William Burroughs adds "On the Road sold a trillion levis and a million espresso machines, and also sent countless kids on the road..the alienation, the restlessness, the dissatisfaction were already there waiting when Kerouac pointed out the road"

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Although this is a tale or an example of the American dream, the message is clear to me, life is meant to be one great adventure, either by staying on one place or continously moving from one place to another, meeting friends and strangers that interest you as Sal Paradise aptly puts it

"because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middles you see the centrelight pop and everybody goes AWW" - on the road ( wow what a powerful paragraph, i like that "burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles" thing )

Reading this book takes you on a massive imaginative journey, from Sal hitchhiking 10,000 miles from NY- Denver ( to meet the gang ) back to NY, joining Dean to SF, New Orleans, Denver, Texas and countless cities culminating in Mexico.

Where Sal describes one moment on the road, while they are all getting high on some Mexican Marijuana

" in muriad pricklings of heavenly radiation, i had to struggle to see Dean's figure, and he looked like God, I was so high i had to lean my head back on the seat, the bouncing of the car sent shivers of ecstasy through me, the mere thought of looking out the window to Mexico" - on the road.

If you are a fan of life and a great piece of literature...this is a must read for you...