One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Books

I felt that this book was extremely well written. I enjoyed the entire book from start to finish. I liked how Kesey used McMurphy to make all the characters stronger, and I really liked when the Chief finally broke his silence. I felt that was very important, and it showed that McMurphy had a positive effect on the people around him. I enjoyed the end of the book when the Chief escaped by throwing the control panel through the window, a seemingly impossible feat. When he smothered McMurphy it made sense because McMurphy would have never wanted the nurse to get the better of him, he'd rather be dead. I rank this book a 5 and i would recommend it to any reader who enjoys to read.

Great book. I hadn't read it since the 60's!
So much better than the movie. It was our book club's September reading. A wide range of women from 40-75. It was all agreed upon that this book was worth reading again.

This book deserves to be a classic and may remain one for quite a long time. The first reason is that it is an adventure book in a strange country, beyond all frontiers and borders, in a psychic world, that of an asylum. It is full of suspense and typically the fight between two people, an inmate, a man, on one hand, a nurse, a woman, on the other hand. Both white with the rest of the personnel being black and the rest of the inmates being europeans, except for one who is an Indian. Clear cut adventure and action with blood, violence, wit and enough sex to be appealing. The second reason is that it is an extremely detailed trip down into the psychiatric health system, into the institutionalizing of all displeasing people, all disrupting people, all disquieting people, in one word people that cannot live in society without causing some kind of a stir. All types are studied here and all cases are refused as being the results of some repressed personal sexual drive. It may be the case, but most of the time it is just plain repressed individuals, rejected individualities, refused personalities. They are locked up away from society for this society to go on thinking all its members are beautiful, clever and brilliantly aware of what the future will be and what they have to do to make it come faster. But that is not all. The novel is an allegory too, an allegory of what changing a society may be, of what historical change may mean. The allegory follows a pattern. Change can only come from the rebellion of the victims of the dominant social order, the Combine as Chrief Bromden calls it. This is the typical revolutionary pattern. But Kesey adds the fact that this rebellion of the main victims can only come if some particular person arrives among them and wakes up in them the energies they need to become rebellious, to recapture their freedom from the Combine. The pattern of the Savior, the guru, etc. But this pattern is defeated in a way because the Combine's strategy will be to isolate this leader, victimize him in order to reduce his influence, or even destroy him if necessary, in this case with a good old lobotomy that leaves him a vegetable for everyone to admire in fear and awe. And yet things will fail for the Combine, because in any modern democratic society people are individuals and they use their individual rights to vote with their feet against the Combine. In a word the Combine fails because everyone runs away from it and leves it alone in the battlefield which is no longer a battlefield but a plain empty wasteland. That's how the Combine is forced to accept change and to change. This optimistic ending is contained in the symbolic last scene or episode, that of the self-liberation and escape of the Indian Chief. He finds out and we find out with him that nothing was wrong with him, except that his presence was disruptive for the plans of the Combine that required his village to be bought up and its inhabitants to be scattered and taken care of with good old fire-water. And that is the last level of allegory : the repressed past of a country, people, culture, individual will always finds its way to freedom and regeneration, and then the whole world will have to make do with it. The Combine, the establishment of any society, can always sacrifice some people, leaders or not, on the altar of their established power, sooner or later this established power will crumble under the pushing from those it has repressed and exploited since it took over from another establishment before it. Cyclical instating of one establishment against another and of its falling down in front of a third one. Is there any meaning in these historical cycles ? No one knows and no one can know, though quite too many people pretend to know and have a ball of crystal in the back of their eyes.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne

This is in no way the play in three acts it pretends to be. It is the standard two act version. It is of course as good as good can be and has the same shortcomings as the play in two acts. It is necessary to have it to know how a myth was created and a cult started.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

This book was sent to me in great condition. i'm very happy with my purchase

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.

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.

"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.

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.

This book deserves to be a classic and may remain one for quite a long time. The first reason is that it is an adventure book in a strange country, beyond all frontiers and borders, in a psychic world, that of an asylum. It is full of suspense and typically the fight between two people, an inmate, a man, on one hand, a nurse, a woman, on the other hand. Both white with the rest of the personnel being black and the rest of the inmates being europeans, except for one who is an Indian. Clear cut adventure and action with blood, violence, wit and enough sex to be appealing. The second reason is that it is an extremely detailed trip down into the psychiatric health system, into the institutionalizing of all displeasing people, all disrupting people, all disquieting people, in one word people that cannot live in society without causing some kind of a stir. All types are studied here and all cases are refused as being the results of some repressed personal sexual drive. It may be the case, but most of the time it is just plain repressed individuals, rejected individualities, refused personalities. They are locked up away from society for this society to go on thinking all its members are beautiful, clever and brilliantly aware of what the future will be and what they have to do to make it come faster. But that is not all. The novel is an allegory too, an allegory of what changing a society may be, of what historical change may mean. The allegory follows a pattern. Change can only come from the rebellion of the victims of the dominant social order, the Combine as Chrief Bromden calls it. This is the typical revolutionary pattern. But Kesey adds the fact that this rebellion of the main victims can only come if some particular person arrives among them and wakes up in them the energies they need to become rebellious, to recapture their freedom from the Combine. The pattern of the Savior, the guru, etc. But this pattern is defeated in a way because the Combine's strategy will be to isolate this leader, victimize him in order to reduce his influence, or even destroy him if necessary, in this case with a good old lobotomy that leaves him a vegetable for everyone to admire in fear and awe. And yet things will fail for the Combine, because in any modern democratic society people are individuals and they use their individual rights to vote with their feet against the Combine. In a word the Combine fails because everyone runs away from it and leves it alone in the battlefield which is no longer a battlefield but a plain empty wasteland. That's how the Combine is forced to accept change and to change. This optimistic ending is contained in the symbolic last scene or episode, that of the self-liberation and escape of the Indian Chief. He finds out and we find out with him that nothing was wrong with him, except that his presence was disruptive for the plans of the Combine that required his village to be bought up and its inhabitants to be scattered and taken care of with good old fire-water. And that is the last level of allegory : the repressed past of a country, people, culture, individual will always finds its way to freedom and regeneration, and then the whole world will have to make do with it. The Combine, the establishment of any society, can always sacrifice some people, leaders or not, on the altar of their established power, sooner or later this established power will crumble under the pushing from those it has repressed and exploited since it took over from another establishment before it. Cyclical instating of one establishment against another and of its falling down in front of a third one. Is there any meaning in these historical cycles ? No one knows and no one can know, though quite too many people pretend to know and have a ball of crystal in the back of their eyes. One flaw however at the beginning of Part IV: Chief Bromden loses his grip on the narrator's point of view and suddenly knows the private thoughts of our dear Queen Ratched.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne

The book One Flew over the cooko's nest was a really good book. The way that the author wrote it through the mind of one of the characters I think was pretty cool. My favorite part of the book was when McMurpy taught Cheif and all of the other men how to stand up for themselves and not let Nurse Ratched control them or their decitions.

I like how the story functions as a metaphorical apologia and still have an exacting terra incognita. When Broom describes the way Pete's hand turning into ball, he says that with a feeling like that was an excrescence, or an abnormal growth. He says everything like it was sweet as a cyclamen and cheap as a flophouse. In recapulation, the book was great. It shows a man's look from the outside of a place where he shouldn't be.

This book may not be uplifting, but is masterfully written because it grabs hold of the reader and does not let go. I could hardly put this book down, and when I did, the only thing I could think about was how much I hated the Big Nurse. She is truly one of the worst villains I have ever encountered in literature. She needed psychological help perhaps more than any of her mental patients. The symbolism and imagery used throughout the book was wonderful and I thought about this book long after I finished it. The ending was bittersweet, yet satisfying. I would recommend this book to just about anyone.

The book, One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest, written through the point of view of an Native American, named Bromden, who has a sophisticated way of looking at things. He sees right through the facade of the physical and into the hearts of man. The subtleties are not to decieve this simple man, but they do imprison him. He lives in an asylum for rehabilitation into society, yet their life affirming egoes are put down by the "Big Nurse" whom acts as if conforming is to be spiritually dead. To change all of this is R.S. McMurphy, a country wit who has the biggest ego of em all, boasting to win every bet even life. He doesn't plan to stay in this nut house, he is saner than any man could possibly be; he loves to be alive. By being in the asylum, he contradicts all activity that occurs, he laughs and sings, and everyone else, is dead.

McMurphy's antics disrupt the Nurses control over the asylum, and they start what can be called a psychological war. The Nurse is declared savior of the asylum, yet through Bromdens insight we clearly see the opposite, as the men in the asylum are destroyed by the pressure placed on their minds. These two dominating charachters create two choices for the men; to stand up for their identities and gamble them in life, or to leave their minds to be molded in the Nurses structure. The antics of both maintain the book full of thrills and anticipation as the showdown between the Nurse and McMurphy comes to hand. The ending will move you. This has the benefits of genius, Ken Kessey writes so that every detail be investigated, and he affirms that with every defeat comes a more intricate victory.

This play follows more closely the book than the movie, the dialouge is a little flat at times, but ultimately stays true to the authors story.

How many works of art have three hit incarnations?

This was an outstanding novel, an outstanding movie, and is an outstanding play as well.

Randle McMurphy seems like the kind of boisterous rowdy that you could love or hate after meeting him in a bar. He is full of vitality and humor, and is never afraid to stand up to any authority he perceives as being wrong-headed.

When he's sentenced to an asylum, and comes into conflict with the wonderfully wicked Nurse Ratched, a war ensures that escalates beyond all reason. Ratched is determined to preserve her dictatorial authority over the ward, and McMurphy is equally determined to rebel.

The story line also features a cast of unforgettable supporting characters, from the strong and stoic Chief Bromdem to the pathetically vulnerable Billy Bibbit. Their background noise, and their status as pawns in the ongoing chess match between McMurphy and Ratched, breathe life into the play and elevate it above other plays.

While the issue of patient abuse in mental wards has long since become old news (thanks in part to the novel), the universal issues of human dignity and compassion are what ultimately makes this play tick.

I recommend this play, both to prospective readers and to theater folks trying to decide on their next production. This is a story that doesn't get stale.

I saw this play last night, and I have to say, it was probably the most powerful and moving experience I've ever had. It is, of course, also, one of the most depressing and terrifying things I've seen. I was still shaking the next morning. Absolutely incredible. If you see a performance advertised, SEE IT.

I enjoyed this book very much. It gave a wonderful yet somewhat depressing look into the lives of mental patients during the sixties. It also showed how rebellion only got you deeper into the hand's of the government. Through the main character's eyes, you got to know and maybe even understand each and every one of these patients on a different level of intensity. Some made it passed the system and others did not. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Set in a mental hospital, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a fiction novel by Ken Kesey, describes how R.P. McMurphy, a very spirited patient, takes over not only his ward, but the Head Nurse and other patients as well. He takes extreme measures to make the other patients basically come out of their shells and stand up to Nurse Ratched. The story is told by a schizophrenic patient called Chief Bromden, who all of the other patients and authoritative figures believe to be both deaf and dumb. The battles between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched are what bring the story its most interesting points.
I found this book to be quite hard to read. The words got kind of confusing at times, and the descriptions of different things seemed drawn out. Most people find this book fun to read, and I think I would have too if I wouldn't had had to read it for school. That always seems to make a difference. I would recommend One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to anyone who enjoys books involving mental hospitals, interesting plots, medical studies, or the main character always fighting for what he believes in.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a powerful book that reveals the cold hard truth about life in a mental institution. Seeing the ward through the eyes of the main character, Chief Bromden, gives new prospective to what you think you know. The thing that makes it most interesting is the fact that it is so real you feel as though you are there on the ward, forced to be part of their daily rituals. Ken Kesey paints a picture that makes you want to believe that what Chief Bromden is experiencing is what is actually happening. But at the same time the language Kesey uses makes it hard to decide whether or not things are really happening to Chief. You find yourself thinking, 'This is all a hallucination...isn't it?'
You begin to form an almost personal relationship with each of the characters throughout the book. The relationship between the two main characters is powerful and intriguing. The problems each character is experiencing are problems we have all had, just not to the same extent. This familiarity is what makes the book so easy to relate to, it takes what we all experience and expands to an almost unbelievable level.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a novel written by Ken Kesey regarding a mental instituion. The story is told from the point of view of one of the patients named Chief. Chief is a Chronic, meaning he is in the ward for life. Chief, along with the other patients, live out their days at the hospital under the close watch of Nurse Rached. Everyday was routine; nothing changed. Things were so montonous that the patients had even forgot how to laugh and be happy.

Things all changed one day though when McMurphy came to the ward. People say he wasn't really crazy; he just thought that a mental instution would be a good place to relax for a few months. A bed to sleep, free food to eat. Right from the start, he began to challenge the nurse and the rules of the institution. McMurphy fought back againist their way of life and their restrictions. Pretty soon, a power struggle erupts between McMurphy and the Big Nurse.

At first it started just as a game, but as McMurphy slowly realized the more horrific side of the hospital, things began to get rough. The other patients don't know what to do. They like the way McMurphy makes them feel about themselves, but they are scared too. They are scared of the power that the Big Nurse possesses. More importantly, they are scared of what will happen if McMurphy wins.

Seeing this book on the shelf for many years, I had a preconceived idea of what it may be like. I thought it was going to be detailed, dry reading about those living in a mental institution. I couldn't be more wrong. This story was told as a first person narrative and gave the reader the opportunity to drop any stereotypes he or she may have concerning mental illness. The characterization was fantastic. The ending, for me, was quite a surprise. The characters and story will stay with me for quite some time.

One Flew Under the Cuckoo's nest is a dark commentary on the dismal state of mental health care in modern society. The book follows Bernie as she battles through a schizophrenic fugue trying to make sense of her own mental state. She struggles through her treatment trying to make sense of her life, her passions, and her circumstances. Over medicated, undertreated, she is caged like a beautiful bird beating her wings against the constraints of the facility in which she has been placed.
Bernie's fight to free herself from her illness takes her on a journey through a system filled with caregivers, misguided family members, and health care professionals who are each sympathetic to her problems. What is missing is any empathy for her loss of rational thinking.
The ward is filled with those who are ill and require the help of those who are trained to help them. The working conditions and the feeling of hopelessness of those who are in a position to treat the mentally ill become themselves ill in the process. Do they treat the ill because they themselves are ill or is the madness like a virus and "catching" and they become mad themselves? The fruitless work, the ineffective therapies, and the failure of the public health care system to effectively care for the mentally ill are all dynamically presented in One Flew Under the Cuckoo's Nest.
The cacophony of the sterile hospital environment leads the reader to ponder what is causing more damage to the patients? The never ending cycle of medication, psychotherapy, and shock therapy leave the reader to feel the despair and desolation of the patients. Do the treatment and the environment of the ward cocoon the patients or lead them further down into the depths of their individual madness?
Amara's frighteningly realistic depiction of the book's characters leaves one wondering if the world has truly gone mad. Her work thoughtfully addresses the very real stigma associated with mental illness in modern society. The mentally ill sit locked away behind a door, unseen and in deafening silence waiting for release from their illness. Their release is often into the only community left open to them in their fragile mental state...the society of the disenfranchised, the Society of the Perpetually Homeless and Hopeless.
This book raises multiple issues about the care of our mentally ill members of society as well as the troubling trend in the collapse of the mental health care infrastructure. Seeing the plight of the ill through their own eyes leaves the reader with the conviction that more must be done. It also leaves one with a feeling of despair that we really do not have a clear notion of what that `more' is that must be done.

If u can follow this, and @ times it gets difficult, u can see why its classic. The observations reming me of 1984 and Animal Farm. Big Brother movin in to control us all, put us in our little molds, and if we dont fit... who knows where this world will lead us, eh?

All part of the great american adventure. Randall P. McMurphy is my new hero . Very enlightining because we always think about the movie but what I liked about the book was, it was chief's story as much as macks. I feel the movie was censored. I must admit when McMurpy spoke it was with Jack Nicholson's voice

This review is for the Penguin Books paperback edition, 2003, with illustrations by Ken Kesey and introduction by Robert Faggen. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, first published in 1962, was Ken Kesey's debut novel.

The setting is a ward at a hospital for the mentally ill, probably in the late fifty's. Chief Nurse Ratched has absolute control over her ward. Through insinuation and intimidation, she has oppressed the patients, aides, junior nurses and even the ward doctor into wimps. We see this through the eyes of the narrator, Big Chief Bromden Jr., a half-Indian who pretends he is a deaf-mute. The staff ignores him, and allows him to clean the staff room during their meetings. He's the all knowing fly on the wall.

Enter the new admission, Randal Patrick McMurphy, the roughneck gambler who got himself transferred to a mental hospital to escape the rigors of a prison work farm. McMurphy considers most of the patients essentially sane, and cannot understand why they have allowed Nurse Ratched to dominate and humiliate them. McMurphy rallies his fellow inmates towards mutiny in a long battle to undermine Nurse Ratched's authority.

Weaved into ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST is a social commentary on the mid-century ideas for treatment of those who could not or would not conform to normality. The novel, and the subsequent movie and play, undoubtedly helped popularize the need for change. Although that is behind us, this entertaining and often hilarious read remains.

One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest by Ken Kasey *****


One of the most important pieces of literature ever, and not just for American literature. One Flew Over The Cuckoos nest is simply put....perfect. It is the classic tail of good versus evil as told through the eyes of an Indian Cheif as he watches his once comfortable solitude be interupted by a one McMurphy who is just claiming insanity to escape a court ordered work farm. The head nurse, Nurse Racthed is maybe the most hanious villion in all of American literature. The book cronicles the up rising of the insane wards 'inmates' and their struggle to maintain their new found power. Easily one of the five best novels ever written.

I knew this book as one of the anthems of the sixties, bringing to the fore the themes of rebellion against arbitrary authority and the rejection of conformity. But I did not actually read the book till recently.

I found that Kesey's "sixties" novel passes the test of great literature. It transcends its moment in time and gains universality. The struggle between the individual and the demands of society is nowhere portrayed as sharply and brilliantly as in this novel. McMurphy is a bit extreme, as is Nurse Ratched, but the interplay of extremes is fascinating.

Do not ignore the fact that Bromden, the narrator, actually shows serious signs of mental illness. His constant references to the "Combine" and his fear of the "fog" are paranoid delusions. It's an amazing tribute to Kesey's skill that he chose to tell the story this way rather than in a more conventional mode of narration, and that he succeeded.