{"product_id":"one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-isbn-9780140043129","title":"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKen Kesey's bracing, inslightful novel about the meaning of madness and the value of self-reliance, and the inspiration for the new Netflix original series \u003ci\u003eRatched\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, \u003ci\u003eOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest\u003c\/i\u003e chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's revolution against Big Nurse and everything she stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce power struggle with shattering results.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith \u003ci\u003eOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest\u003c\/i\u003e, Kesey created a work without precedent in American literature, a novel at once comic and tragic that probes the nature of madness and sanity, authority and vitality. Greeted by unanimous acclaim when it was first published, the book has become and enduring favorite of readers.\u003c\/p\u003e\"A work of genuine literary merit . . . What Mr. Kesey has done in his unusual novel is to transform the plight of a ward of inmates in a mental hospital into a glittering parable of good and evil.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--The New York Times Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] brilliant first novel . . . a strong, warm story about the nature of human good and evil . . . Keysey has made his book a roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the invisible Rulers who enforce them.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Time\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The final triumph of these men at the cost of a terrifying sacrifice should send chills down any reader's back. . . . This novel's scenes have the liveliness of a motion picture.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--The Washington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An outstanding book . . . [Kesey's] characters are original and real. . . . This is a tirade against the increasing controls over man and his mind, yet the author never gets on a soap box. Nor does he forget that there is a thin line between tragedy and comedy.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Houston Chronicle \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eKen Kesey \u003c\/b\u003ewas born in 1935 and grew up in Oregon. His books include Sometimes a Great Notion,\u003ci\u003e Kesey's Garage Sale\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eDemon Box\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSailor Song\u003c\/i\u003e, and\u003ci\u003e Last Go Round\u003c\/i\u003e (with Ken Babbs). He passed away on November 10, 2001.\u003cb\u003eSketches\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003ePsychedelic sixties. God knows whatever that means it certainly meant far more than drugs, though drugs still work as a pretty good handle to the phenomena.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI grabbed at that handle. Legally, too, I might add. Almost patriotically, in fact. Early psychedelic sixties...\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEight o'clock every Tuesday morning I showed up at the vet's hospital in Menlo Park, ready to roll. The doctor deposited me in a little room on his ward, dealt me a couple of pills or a shot or a little glass of bitter juice, then locked the door. He checked back every forty minutes to see if I was still alive, took some tests, asked some questions, left again. The rest of the time I spent studying the inside of my forehead, or looking out the little window in the door. It was six inches wide and eight inches high, and it had heavy chicken wire inside the glass.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou get your visions through whatever gate you're granted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePatients straggled by in the hall outside, their faces all ghastly confessions. Sometimes I looked at them and sometimes they looked at me. but rarely did we look at one another. It was too naked and painful. More was revealed in a human face than a human being can bear, face-to-face.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSometimes the nurse came by and checked on me. Her face was different. It was painful business, but not naked. This was not a person you could allow yourself to be naked in front of.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSix months or so later I had finished the drug experiments and applied for a job. I was taken on as a nurse's aide, in the same ward, with the same doctor, under the same nurse—and you must understand we're talking about a huge hospital here! It was weird.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut, as I said, it was the sixties.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThose faces were still there, still painfully naked. To ward them off my case I very prudently took to carrying around a little notebook, to scribble notes. I got a lot of compliments from nurses: \"Good for you, Mr. Kesey. That's the spirit. Get to know these men.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI also scribbled faces. No, that's not correct. As I prowl through this stack of sketches I can see that these faces bored their way behind my forehead and scribbled themselves. I just held the pen and waited for the magic to happen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis was, after all, the sixties.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKen Kesey\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300877586661,"sku":"NP9780140043129","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780140043129.jpg?v=1767734167","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest-isbn-9780140043129","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}