World's Greatest Classic Books Feature:

Ken Kesey

Featured works:

All Books Written By
Ken Kesey

BOOK LINKS
abebooks.co.uk.
A&E Shop
All-Ink.com
AlphaCraze.com
Amazon.ca
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
BookCloseOuts.com
Booksamillion.com
Chapters.ca
eCampus.com

MUSIC LINKS
Music123
OldGlory.com
PlayCentric
PosterNow
PushPosters
Tower Records

"I think McMurphy knew better than we did that our tough looks were all show, because he still wasn't able to get a real laugh out of anybody. Maybe he couldn't understand why we weren't able to laugh yet, but he knew you can't really be strong until you see a funny side to things. In fact, he worked so hard of pointing out the funny side of things that I was wondering a little if maybe he was blind to the other side, if maybe he wasn't able to see what it was that parched laughter deep inside your stomach." (from One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest)

Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and brought up in Eugene, Oregon. His father worked in creamery business, and eventually gained success after founding the Eugene Farmers Cooperative. Kesey spend his early years hunting, fishing, swimming, and he learned to box and wrestle, and he was a star football player. He studied at the University of Oregon, where he acted in college plays. On graduating he won a scholarship to Stanford University. Kesey soon dropped out and joined the counterculture movement. In 1956 he married his his school sweetheart, Faye Haxby. He began experimenting with drugs and wrote an unpublished novel, ZOO, about the beatniks of the North Beach community in San Francisco. Tom Wolfe described in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Kesey and his friends, called the Merry Pranksters, as they travel the country and use all kinds of hallucinogens. Wolfe compared somewhat mockingly Kesey to the figures of the world's great religions. Their bus, called Further - actually written "Furthur" on the vehicle - was painted in Day-Glo colors. In California Kesey's friends served LSD-laced Kool-Aid to members of their parties.

At a Veterans Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California, Kesey was paid volunteer experimental subject, taking mind-altering drugs and reporting their effects. These experiences as an aide at a psychiatric hospital and LSD sessions formed the background for One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest, which was set in a mental hospital. While writing the work, Kesey took peyote. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden, who is six feet, eight inches tall half-American Indian. He lets people think he is a deaf mute. In his world enters the petty criminal and prankster Randall Patrick McMurphy with his efforts to change the bureaucratic system of a mental hospital. The mental ward is ruled by Big Nurse Ratched. McMurphy is an involuntary and anarchic patient - the others are there more or less voluntarily. Bromden's is a paranoid schizophrenich and through his conscious the confliect between Nurse Ratched and McMurphy becomes a battel of good and evil. McMurphy encourages the Acutes to take charge of their lives but becomes a victim of the oppressive system. McMurphy plans to escape but after a wild party he is given a frontal lobotomy. Bromden smothers him with a pillow and escapes toward Canada. The book suggests that the really dangerous mental cases are those in positions of authority.

'My name is McMurphy, buddies. R.P. McMurphy, and I'm gambling fool.' He winks and sings a little piece of song: '"...and whenever I meet with a deck a cards I lays... my money... down."' and laughs again. (from One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest)

The film adaptation of the book gained a huge success. Kirk Douglas had bought the right to Kesey's novel; he played the role of McMurphy on Broadway in an adaptation by Dale Wasserman. It ran for 82 performances at the Cort Theater during the 1963-64 season. When he failed to interest a studio in the project, he finally turned the package over to his son Michael. Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman refused the role. The film was made in one wing of the Oregon State Hospital. Several actual patients of the hospital played extras. The major change was that while the novel was narrated by Chief Bromden, the film was shot more objectively - Bromden is also the only patient who escapes the hospital. "But Forman does his best to minimize Kesey's misogynist undertones. By making all the characters more fully rounded, he reduces the polarization of good and evil that leaves the novel open to these charges, avoiding the novel's tendency to turn McMurphy into a hero or Christ figure." (from Novels into Film by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, 1997) When the film won five Academy Awards, Kesey was barely mentioned during the award ceremonies, and he made known his unhappiness with the film. He did not like Jack Nicholson, or the script, and sued the producers.

"This guy's scamp who knows he's irresistible to women and, in reality, he expects Nurse Ratched to be seduced by him... This is his tragic flaw. This is why he ultimately fails. I discussed this with Louise - I discussed it only with her. That's what I felt was actually happening with that character. It was one long, unsuccessful seduction which the guy was so pathologically sure of." (Jack Nicholson about McMurphy in Jack Nicholson, the Unauthorised Biography by Barbara & Scott Siegel, 1990)

Kesey's next novel, SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION appeared two years later and was also made into a film, this time directed by Paul Newman. The story was set in a logging community and centered on two brothers and their bitter rivalry in the family. Hank Stamper is a raw and aggressive man of nature, and his opponent is Draeger, an union official attempting to force local loggers into conformity. Hank's half-brother, the introspective Lee, chooses to retreat into intellectualism instead of action. After the work, Kesey gave up publishing novels. He formed a band of 'Merrie Pranksters', set up a commune in La Honda, California, bought an old school bus, and toured America and Mexico with his friends, among them Neal Cassidy, Kerouac's travel companion.

In 1965 Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana. He fled to Mexico, where he faked an unconvincing suicide and then returned to the United States, serving a five-month prison sentence at the San Mateo County Jail. After this tumultuous period he settled down with his wife to raise their four children, and taught a graduate writing seminar at the University of Oregon. In the early 1970s Kesey returned to writing and published KESEY'S GARAGE SALE (1973). His later works include the children's book LITTLE TRICKER THE SQUIRREL MEETS BIG DOUBLE THE BEAR (1990) and SAILOR SONG (1992), a futuristic tale about an Alaskan fishing village and Hollywood film crew. LAST GO ROUND (1994), Kesey's last book, was an account of a famous Oregon rodeo written in the form of pulp fiction. Kesey died of complications after surgery for liver cancer on November 10, 2001 in Eugene, Oregon.

FOR FURTHER READING: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (1968); "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest": The Text and Criticism, ed. by C.J. Pratt (1977); Kesey, ed. by M. Strelow (1977); Ken Kesey by Barry H. Leeds (1981); The Art of Grit by M. Gilbert Porter (1982); Ken Kesey by Stephen L. Tanner (1983); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Gilbert Porter (1989); On the Bus by Ken Babbs (1989); St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, ed. by Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast (1999)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The imaginative characters and innovative story structure made Ken Kesey's debut novel ripe for commentary. Take a closer look at One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which also enjoyed critical success as a play and a film.

Sometimes a Great Notion

Demon Box

Sailor Song

The Sea Lion: A Story of th Sea Cliff People

Last Go Round

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (DVD)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (Special Edition DVD)

Click to Save on Adult Magazines!