However, Cuckoo's nest is not his only book. He wrote a couple of novels with other authors, many stories and essays and two original novels which are less famous by public, but well-appreciated by critics. They are Sailor Song and Sometimes a great notion.
Surprisely, all Kesey's original novels are based on his own experience, in spite of the fact that they touch upon different topics: One flew over the cuckoo's nest is about insane (the author has worked in the night shift of a madhouse for some years, and he talked with the patients), Sailor Song is about sailing and fishermen, Sometimes a great notion - about family interrelations. This last one, which is less known then Cuckoo's Nest, is considered Kesey's masterpiece. It tells us about a family which consists of dad, two brothers, and wife of one of them, and their relations. This book is the best psycological work I've ever read.
Sailor Song is Kesey's hardest to understand book, so on the grounds that I do not have enough life experience to be sure that I understood clearly the book, I won't write my ideas about it; however, it doesn't matter that I advice you not to read it.
All in all, Kesey's books merit your attention, but they require the reader to think, just as Dostoyevski's novels.
I've read "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but I haven't read anything else by Kesey. I assume you've seen the movie by the same name with Jack Nicholson, right? It's one of my favorites. In the U.S., Kesey is probably as well known for being part of the '60s counterculture and for advocating experimentation with LSD as he is for his literary work.
ReplyDeleteI have never read "One flew over the cuckoo's nest". I was twice very near to starting to read this book, but something always stopped me. Probably, it was the fact that none of my friends have read this book. Needless to say, I have not read any other of Kesey's books. Maybe I will at least watch the film that David wrote about during the winter holidays. I did hear that it’s a great film.
ReplyDeleteYour blog post reminded me of the books I prefer to read. Personally, I don't love books which are excessively thought-provoking. You never know what the author means describing characters or items. Neither Kesey's nor Dostoevsky's novels seem fascinating to me because of this factor. I appreciate poems which show the beauty in every sense of the word (written by Pushkin or Lermontov, for example).
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