|
|
Whistle Stopper - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
|
List Price: $9.99
Our Price: $4.40
Your Save: $ 5.59 ( 56% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Signet
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780451163967
ISBN: 0451163966
Label: Signet
Manufacturer: Signet
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 1963-02-01
Publisher: Signet
Studio: Signet
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: great quality!
Comment: This book was sent to me in great condition. i'm very happy with my purchase
Customer Rating:
Summary: McMurphy as the Metaphor for the Terrorist Suspect
Comment: Let me first explain that I can no longer write a long review for Amazon: time after time I have spent an hour writing one only to be cut off before I can even preview it. It is no doubt the fault of my own system-- I am not blaming Amazon-- but in any case, if anyone wants I the full text of this review, they must refer to my blogspot. I shall try to put it in a nutshell, if that is possible: McMurphy seems to me to be the perfect metaphor for the terrorist suspect facing US interrogators today. The techniques used by Nurse Ratched are similar to those developed by the CIA in collusion with unscrupulous doctors. The cornerstone of this method is ECT. It is used in combination with narco-hypnosis, but the latter would not be effective without the erasure of memory which ECT causes. I must note that this book, famous for its depiction of ECT, greatly underrates the dangers inherent in the treatment. For one thing, it does not mention the long-term effects on memory. Secondly, it leaves the impression that ECT is going out of fashion, when in fact it is experiencing an upsurge. Some 100,000 people a year receive the treatment, according to Dr. Peter Breggin. But the most sinister thing about ECT is that was found very effective in creating "Manchurian candidates" by the CIA, and may now be being used to create "phony terrorists". Must finish here, if I write any more I will be cut off-- please consult my personal profile for my blogspot.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Tale of emancipation (unless you are a feminist)
Comment: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is Chief Bromden's journey of self- awareness as he transforms from chronic mental illness to freedom and self-emancipation. His lessons on the psychiatric ward parallel his childhood experiences of having the white man coerce the Columbian Indians out of their land. Chief narrates while Randle McMurphy transcends the hegemony of the combine by introducing outrage, empowerment and purpose to the lives of the mental patients on the ward. McMurphy is a charismatic leader who becomes the "bull-goose looney" of the ward through his personal magnetism and moxie.
One lesson of the book is that behaviors of the oppressed contribute to their own dominance. By wanting to remain safe and anonymous, the inpatients retreat like "rabbits" into the fog (anonymity). The ward is sterile of humanity with the daily activities specifically regulated to confront the patient with the futility of life. Nurse Rachted demonstrates the power to make things worse, so why risk emancipatory efforts? However, through McMurphy, the inpatients discover that it is not society or even Nurse Ratched that makes them crazy. As Harding states "though I used to think at one time, a few years ago, my turtleneck years, that society's chastising was the sole force that drove one along the road to crazy, but you've caused me to re-appraise my theory. There's something else that drives people ... down the road...It is us."
Part 4 is largely allegorical. McMurphy is portrayed as a Christ figure, sent to the ward for the sins of others, sent as a man to be slaughtered like a lamb for the sins of all men. According to Chief, "McMurphy was a giant come out of the sky to save us from the combine..." who "...doled out his life for us to live..." When going through his shock treatments, he was given the choice (temptation) that if he rebuked himself and he would be set free. However, McMurphy chose to sacrifice himself for the others and set them free.
One aspect of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that may be an abomination to the feminist movement was the presentation of the climate on the ward as being a matriarchy of repressed sexual libido. Apparently, for Kesey, emancipation entails full expression of sexuality including socially condemned activities such as pornography, rape and prostitution. Many of the men's mental illnesses were deeply rooted in ineffective relationships with women that were exasperated by Nurse Ratched's castrating group therapy sessions. Apparently, for Kesey, the liberation of society comes at the cost of women's liberation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Probably the best novel written during the 1960s
Comment: I think you could make a solid case that this is the best novel written during the 1960s. Differing greatly from the movie, the book is seen through the eyes of the Amerindian character, Chief Broom. McMurphy comes off in a similar, but also different way than the McMurphy in the movie. The biggest difference to me was that in the book McMurphy was the best therapist in the whole hospital, helping various patients get over and deal with their issues. He even makes the head shrink on the ward feel like a real living man again during the fishing trip where the Doctor catches a huge fish. The Chief while showing obvious signs of real mental illness, some of what is used to showcase that, the "Combine" and the "Fog" are also obviously symbolic of some very real things. But I don't want to get into a bunch of mental masterbations about what various things and characters in Cuckoos Nest are representative of. I'll leave that to the eggheads of the world. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is a great book and I'll leave it at that.
But what about Kesey himself? Ken Kesey had LSD experiments done on him at Stanford by the guy that ended up in charge of the CIAs Mkultra mind control program. This really makes me wonder about Kesey. Its more or less accepted history that the first LSD to get out on the street level was what Kesey stole from the medicine chest at his job as a night shift janitor at a mental hospital and distributed it among his elitist friends. So they give out keys to the medicine chest to the nighttime janitor and he knows just what those fancy new fangled drugs that make the crazies act even crazier are called eh? Ha ha! Yeah man give me a break. I believe Kesey was given LSD to dole out by certain people for specific reasons.
Kesey went from writing what was probably the best novel written during the 1960's to, while becoming a counterculture hero, never writing another thing worth reading again. Did doing too much LSD scramble his brains and ruin his creativity or was his creativity nullified by Mkultra programming? Its hard to say for sure but I have to wonder if Kesey was not under some sort of mind control or was being used by the CIA in one way or another. There are a lot of unanswered questions in my mind about Kesey.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing piece of literature
Comment: It would be very difficult for me to say whether the novel or the film is a greater masterpiece, so I guess it would be better to say that the novel is as perfect as could be and the changes made for the film were necessary and added to the perfection of the film. Hearing this story through the eyes of "Chief" Bromden and witnessing his emergence out of the black is truly a moving experience. Nurse Ratched may be the most terrifying villain in the history of literature mainly due to the fact that her subtle torture of the patients is so believable and frustrating.
It is truly an outstanding and timeless work of art.
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
These deluxe editions are packaged with French flaps, acid-free paper, and rough front.
"A glittering parable of good and evil . . . a work of genuine literary merit."--The New York Times
Other Penguin Great Books of the 20th Century:
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
My Antonia by Willa Cather
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
White Noise by Don DeLillo
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
