ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST By Ken Kesey

"Ting. Tingle, tingle, tremble toes, she's a good fisherman, catches hens, puts 'em inna pens . . . wire blier, limber lock, three geese inna flock . . . one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo's nest . . . O-U-T spells out . . . goose swoops down and plucks you out."

Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest compelled me with its excellence to read it completely in three days, all 617 pages. This may not be viewed as something to be proud of, but as I haven't read a book that thick in so short a time in a while, I'm proud.

This book is set in a bleak insane asylum (not much color is ever present, other than white, and the only variations between rooms are the furniture/appliances), told through the perspective/mind of Chief Broom, A.K.A. Chief Bromden, A.K.A. The Chief, a massive Indian who is deaf and mute. Though he could be argued to be the main character, since his psyche is closely evaluated while reading this book, since the book is his thoughts, Randle Patrick McMurphy could just as easily be viewed as the same, if not just the protagonist. The Big Nurse is THE bad guy, with several cronies and wards to aid her in suppressing the patients. McMurphy is a late arrival to the hospital, but with him comes hope, amongst other things that change everybody affiliated with the hospital permanently.

Cuckoo's Nest, despite being placed in a serious setting with serious undertones, is actually a very funny book at times. Being told by a "mentally unstable" Indian who does nothing but observe and has nothing but time to pay attention, with all seriousness in retelling the story, comedy is prevalent occasionally. Hardly any, IF any, details are omitted in the "retelling" of the story; details so vivid exist that there was no need for a movie to be made, if only the potential viewers could have the determination to read the whole book and the understanding required to experience it fully (this being a somewhat complicated book to follow at times, to say the least). This book is unlike others, in the sense that dramatic irony is hardly, if ever, present. The Chief tells the story as it goes, only foreshadowing occasionally; the readers never know (much of) anything about other characters until the potential things have happened/are happening. If the sentence, "The dog runs," was present in the book, it would be written something like: "Four legs bounding through the dew, the beast, our best friend, flees from the light of the moon," That is to say that there is never a lack of detail and the meaning of a sentence is not always spelled out. Sometimes the readers must be able to piece together the given information to understand a section, which pulls the reader in more, makes us more involved in the reading. And because the narrator is indeed a mental patient, some of the "unexplainable" events that take place are explained by Bromden, who is full of paranoia and fear ("the fog machine").

Because the narrator knows all the characters on a personal basis, and is not merely an observer nor the creator of them, the characters are told in the same manner as if you were to read a short biography of them, if The Chief's descriptions are not more detailed. Even the Vegetables (each group of patient is labeled by the caretakers), who are what their title suggests, are explained with enough detail to make the reader feel as though he is looking at them, knows them enough to consider them an "acquaintance."

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is indeed a critical necessity to any (Viking's) library. I have been lucky enough this year to have the following statement follow many, most, of my reviews: this book is worth reading a good several times.