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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

By: Ken Kesey
Narrated by: Ken Kesey
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Summary

 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is one of the most electrifying, most admired novels of our time. Set in the bleak confines of a state mental hospital and narrated by a half-Indian patient named Chief Bromden, it's the story of a titanic battle of wills between two unforgettable characters.

On one side is Big Nurse, who rules her ward with iron discipline. On the other is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a lustful, brawling, life-loving new inmate who refuses to knuckle under to Big Nurse's soul-destroying methods. In the end, McMurphy pays the ultimate price for his defiance, but not before the rebellious spirit has shown Chief Bromden the way to reclaim his future.

©1962 Ken Kesey; (P)1993 HighBridge Company Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
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Critic reviews

"A glittering parable of good and evil." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the Rulers who enforce them." (Time)
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Finally got round to listening to this classic… recommended by many. A really good listen -over the narration by the author

A true classic

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Kesey has written a well crafted tale that touches upon a deeply understood notion of personal and social freedoms. It is full of humour and pathos and perfectly depicts the dysfunction at the heart of the American ideal.
The mental hospital can be read as a metaphor for modern America, with Big Nurse the authoritarian, life suppressing figure who in sustaining the patients denies them true well being, true selfhood. In the end, the Red Indian, Broom Bromden, breaks free. The true natural American spirit is released. It is a nod to hope for us all

An American Parable

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It's difficult to analyse but I can say that I found it a little disappointing.

The film was superior.

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I have meaning to read/listen to this title for so long and felt ashamed that, as a book lover, I have never read it. You are in a mental institution and you see the cogs in the machine, and the big nurse pulling the lever. Until,that is a new patient arrives and his aim is to break down the whole operation. It is narrated by another patient that you feel yourself cheering for him at the end. A beautiful story about human soul and its obstacles through life and against oneself.

I'm so glad I got this!

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I enjoyed this book. I listened to the author read it on Audible. The story is superb and invites another perspective on mental illness. I felt a little uneasy with some of the prejudices that reflected the less equality informed attitudes of the time. The narrator's perspective - a Native American chief's son added further depth to the material (Kesey says he wrote the first number of pages while high on peyote, and this narrating character was a surprise to him). A classic must read!

Not so cuckoo

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