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A review by savaging
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
3.0
This book tore me apart.
On one side was its astonishing depiction of mental illness, trauma and post-traumatic stress, the brutality of attempts to control other people, and the centrality of rebellion in being a full human. Characters with severe mental disorders are revealed as full, beautiful humans, deserving of dignity and autonomy, without being sentimentalized. Yes, hooray, yes.
On the other side was the book's relentless misogyny and anti-black racism, warping societal power structures into a kind of Nietzschian whine that the lady-folk are cutting off our balls. Every woman is an evil, controlling force (except for those with names like Candy, obedient sex objects who go through immense risks to give any guy a good time, and thank strangers for the cat calls. The good woman is, as her name suggests, entirely sweet and edible). Every black person in the book is a lackey to a wicked-woman and waiting to murder or rape someone. In addition to being offensive, and promoting a societal analysis which only scapegoats other people at the bottom of the ladder, this is bad writing, filled with flattened caricatures of some boogey(wo)man. Seeing Kesey's talent of showing depth of character in neuro-atypical people, it kind of makes you wish he had flexed that literary muscle for any woman or black person in the book.
I found my brain automatically switching the gender and race of the characters in the book. Give it a try -- it makes the story ten times better.
On one side was its astonishing depiction of mental illness, trauma and post-traumatic stress, the brutality of attempts to control other people, and the centrality of rebellion in being a full human. Characters with severe mental disorders are revealed as full, beautiful humans, deserving of dignity and autonomy, without being sentimentalized. Yes, hooray, yes.
On the other side was the book's relentless misogyny and anti-black racism, warping societal power structures into a kind of Nietzschian whine that the lady-folk are cutting off our balls. Every woman is an evil, controlling force (except for those with names like Candy, obedient sex objects who go through immense risks to give any guy a good time, and thank strangers for the cat calls. The good woman is, as her name suggests, entirely sweet and edible). Every black person in the book is a lackey to a wicked-woman and waiting to murder or rape someone. In addition to being offensive, and promoting a societal analysis which only scapegoats other people at the bottom of the ladder, this is bad writing, filled with flattened caricatures of some boogey(wo)man. Seeing Kesey's talent of showing depth of character in neuro-atypical people, it kind of makes you wish he had flexed that literary muscle for any woman or black person in the book.
I found my brain automatically switching the gender and race of the characters in the book. Give it a try -- it makes the story ten times better.