A review by andrewspink
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

5.0

Years ago I saw the film and my daughter studying the book for her final year in secondary school gave me the opportunity to read the book. In a lot of ways, the film followed the book quite closely, at least as far as I can remember after quite some years. But of course one of the distinctive aspects of the book is that the narrator is also one of the main characters, which in this case means it is told from the point of view of a person with mental illness. Sensibly, the film didn't try that, proving that once again no amount of special effects can match the imagination of a reader. I would like to think that the abuse of patients in mental hospitals no longer happens in the way that the book so graphically describes, though it would be naive to think that new methods haven't come in their places. Nevertheless, the challenge that Kesey faces us with as to what our attitude is to people with mental illness and how much we might go along with societal problems being out of sight and so out of mind and so conveniently not in need of a solution, are just as valid today.