One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

Expectation: A classic retelling of David and Goliath but set in a mental institution in the 1960s.

Reality: It has not aged well, and I barely finished it.

My Take:

For the first half of Ken Kesey’s lauded “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” I thought it was going to hold the distinction of being the first novel I did not finish (DNF) twice. My first attempt was in high school, and I quickly abandoned the story for Cliff’s Notes after finding it frustratingly verbose and slow moving. 

The writing and pacing weren’t my issues during this reading, but it was a slog none the less. 

First published in 1962, it feels incredibly dated and past its moment, unlike other novels of the time period — like James Baldwin’s “Another Country” and Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” — that still crackle with urgency and relevant social commentary. 

While groundbreaking for its focus on the inhumane treatment of institutionalized individuals and celebrated for its anti-authority message, “Cuckoo’s” is also incredibly misogynistic and racist. 

Frankly, I’ve read enough straight white man’s fantasy drivel to last a lifetime, and I shouldn’t have wasted my time on a novel that degrades women to merely sex objects and treats non-white characters as imbeciles. 

So why didn’t I give up on it? 

Part of it was out of curiosity. I kept trying to find the answer as to why this was required reading at my high school back in the late-1990s. My only conclusion is that it resonated with my teachers — products of the Civil Rights era — and it was assigned as a way to help us grasp the instability and general malaise that plagued the United States. The pages of “Cuckoo’s” ooze with it. 

While it did pick up in the second half, I found that near the end I had zero sympathy for Randle — after all, he reaped what he sowed — and while Nurse Ratched wasn’t exactly a saint, she clearly had to rule with an iron fist (use of lobotomization aside) for the safety of her wards and staff. 

The last few pages — the big reveal — did little to change what felt like a self-important mess. This will be the type of novel that when people tell me they like it, I’m going to judge them. 

Ironically, the audiobook narration by Tom Parker was far more enjoyable than the novel itself. He matched the fraughtness and delirium of the various characters without relying on stereotypical portrayals. An updated recording with John C. Reilly has since been released, but I don’t think he’d give the text the same unhinged enthusiasm.

On a side note, I’ve made it a habit in recent years of re-reading classic novels that I either DNF’d or liked – but didn’t fully grasp – in my youth. It’s been a mixed bag. A few, like George Orwell’s “1984,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” were surprisingly entertaining and engaging. Others, like Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” and Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” were better left collecting dust on the shelf, where I also should’ve kept this “Cuckoo.”

Rating (story): 2/5 stars

Rating (narration): 4/5 stars

Formats: Audiobook (library loan)

Dates read: March 26 – March 31, 2023

Multi-tasking: Good to go. It’s dense prose, but the narration is well done and engaging. Still, if you want to appreciate the few good elements of the story, activities like walking or cleaning would be best.