Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

It would have been cool if the film focused more on chief. This books is through his eyes and I didn’t expect that.

But either way….a good insight into the treatment of people in psych facilities in the 70s. The characters are vivid and Nurse Ratched shines as a villain.

Content Warnings

sammirobinson's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

therat8's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Content Warnings

cb1984's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Read for book club. Pretty sure I'd read it before, but with the film confusing things it's a bit hard to remember!

It's clearly a great book. There's a reason it's a classic. I guess I felt like the impact was a bit lessened with the plot being so familiar. It'll probably be a good one for book club discussion though.

I was going to say that there were elements that haven't aged well (the constant casual racism), but in some ways that actually helps develop some of the characters really well, in that it reveals some of their inner horribleness.

Content Warnings

reading_moth's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

asolis's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'm reading classics this month, and I came to this book as a bit of unfinished business. I think I read about 5 pages in high school and not much more. I remember thinking it was strange.

I wonder what I would have gotten out of it if I had read it all the way through back then. But reading it now, its richness was a pleasant surprise, and it is well-deserving of Classic status not just due to age but because of its quality. Now, I appreciate the many layers to this book, and the invitation to consider its themes of race, gender, sexuality, power, and conformity. A remarkable exploration of what it's like to be a kind of person society tries to erase.

By reading it now, I got to connect with the PNW setting, and understand the implications of the various places mentioned. The Native narrator, albeit written by a white man, brings in some exploration of treaties, land rights, and the generational trauma of displacement. This piece is a great companion read to contextualize that aspect of the book: https://commonplace.online/article/ken-kesey-meets-lewis-and-clark/

Many summaries describe Nurse Ratched as the ultimate villain. And while she is the primary adversary, this ignores the whole point that she is only the local arm of the "combine," the societal machine that enforces conformity and compliance. If Professor Umbridge is the evil middle-aged jailer of our (millenial) generation, Nurse Ratched was her literary ancestor. But where the professor is pure evil and as such wholly unsympathetic, the cracks in the nurse's facade, the pain we know shaped her, makes her human. You may not root for her, but at least you understand her.

I felt pain when she was exposed at the end, the gendered violence, but it fit the book.

Content Warnings

vickymcckey's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

angelofthetardis's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I was inspired to add this book to my TBR pile pretty much exactly a year ago, after watching the Netflix drama 'Ratched'. I enjoyed the series, but felt like I was missing something as I hadn't read the source material. Unfortunately, I'm still none the wiser.

I don't know what it is with me and books that are labelled 'classics', but I don't think I've found one yet that I've truly enjoyed. This was no exception - I just couldn't immerse myself in the story or even pick out moments of clarity that stuck with me. While I understand that this is written from the point of view of a mentally ill person confined to a hospital ward, and by choosing this narrator the author has allowed the reader to experience the 'fog' of confusion and twisted logic experienced daily by the patients, it's rambling relaying of events left me more lost than confused. I followed the general plot, but had no inclination to take more care with my reading to study the text and events in depth.

From a modern perspective, the methods outlined in the story are clearly not the right way to treat mental illness. But then I queried whether several of the characters illnesses were all that acute anyway. Yes, some people (the narrator included) clearly did have delusions or other issues that may require in-patient care, but there seemed so little character building on much of the supporting cast that it felt like they were there purely to pad out the cast list.

I guess the author's main aim was to try and make the reader consider whether McMurphy's illness was feigned or genuine. He reminds me a little of Campbell Bain in 'Takin' Over The Asylum' (although I'm sure in reality the latter was in some way influenced by the former); a manic depressive who, after a moment of inspiration, starts to subvert the normal order of things within his environment. But this right here sums up how hard I found the book to relate to; if I'm drawing parallels with the works of David Tennant (rather than just picturing him as my leading man), then you know my mind has wandered to a better place!

I also can't understand where this reputation for Nurse Ratched being one of literature's great villains has come from. To me, she seems like a no-nonsense, firm but fair person who is doing her best to do what must be an incredibly difficult job without letting it affect her, and doing what she thinks is best for her patients based in the knowledge of the time. Yes, it's clear that McMurphy gets under her skin and she does start to become a little vindictive about punishing him for his transgressions, but I just can't equate that with the totally twisted person I had been expecting going into this. I can only suspect that it's because the story is written through the male gaze at a time when women in positions of authority were rare and dangerous creatures...

Not what I was expecting or hoping for, and quite underwhelmed. Never mind. I tried.

Content Warnings

More...