Favorite Book

I love One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for a whole array of reasons. I really find mental illness and the history of psychiatric treatments fascinating. The period of time in the 1950’s and 1960’s when 1 in 3 families admitted a member to a psychiatric ward, where the doctors knew very little about how to deal with the patients, really interests me.  It is a unique subject because it shows science going down a dark path with high mortality rates from lobotomies, patient abuse, “brain buring” (electric shock therapy), and other experimental procedures, and then taking a turn for the better as modern science advanced (178). So basically, I just find the content that this novel deals with really interesting. Also, Ken Kesey is the man. I would be lying if I said that the author of this book discovering the Grateful Dead, holding crazy acid parties, hanging out in a insane asylum, and driving a hippie van around the country, did not make me love this book before we even read it. No matter how you look at it, this guy rocks. Also, the writing style depicts another reason why I love this novel. The creeping feeling of doubt in everything the narrator says makes the book seem even more crazy and content appropriate as Kesey brilliantly leaves some facts unclear. This helps his point that “it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen”, and this whole idea really appealed to me (8). Throughout the entire book, a detached, eerie feeling put the audience in the characters shoes as you “float…more lost than ever” through it,  and this made the vibe of the book really unique (136). This novel also prompted some undeniably great class discussions and comments. For example, when Ms. Serensky posed the question, “Does anyone know anything about Cuckoo birds?” and Thomas responded with something like, “Don’t they come out of clocks on the hour?”. Without this book, such an epic interaction could not have taken place. Lastly, something that may sway my personal love of this book is the fact that we concluded studying it by watching Inception…enough said. Overall, I loved the experience of reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.