Book - 36, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)

by

Ken Kesey

Book Read: 02-07 November 2015

Note Written: 09 November 2015

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' was a long-pending movie for me to watch–I didn't know until  recently that it was a novel adaptation. When I knew, I was looking forward to buying a copy; found it in a book sale for cheap price and bought it. After reading 'The Tin Drum', where the experiences of Oskar Matzerath is revealed to us as he narrates his life from a mental institution, I thought why not read another book which is associated with 'disturbed' people. 

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' was not, as I expected told from the perspective of the lead character (McMurphy) or from a neutral, objective one; it's told from the vantage point of Chief Bromden, a silent spectator of the events being unfolded in the mental institution. Bromden is also an example of an 'unreliable narrator' as Oskar Matzerath is, in Tin Drum. Bromden not only gives the accounts of the hospital ward, but also his own life before being admitted to the mental facility, allowing the reader to draw parallels with his past and present. This is something which we never get from the movie version. The writing is intense and engaging, and the characters solid in their representations. McMurphy's charm, Harding's intellect, Nurse Ratched's coldness, Bromden's silence, Billy Bibbit's helplessness are all factors which evoke many emotions and feelings inside us, but mostly pain. The ending was deeply saddening for me. I felt a kind of grief, a void, in me reading the last few pages–the helplessness of us common mortals in front of people and things of power, controlling us with and without our knowledge. I cried a little, after I closed the book.