One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Kesey, Ken; Faggen, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141181222 ISBN 13: 9780141181226

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2002

Synopsis

Ken Kesey's counterculture classic Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey s One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy s heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome powers that keep them all imprisoned.This edition includes a new foreword by Kesey, a new text introduction by Robert Faggen, and line drawings the author made when writing the book, many never before published. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators."

About this title

Review:

"A work of genuine literary merit . . . What Mr. Kesey has done in his unusual novel is to transform the plight of a ward of inmates in a mental hospital into a glittering parable of good and evil."
--The New York Times Book Review

"[A] brilliant first novel . . . a strong, warm story about the nature of human good and evil . . . Keysey has made his book a roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the invisible Rulers who enforce them."
--Time

"The final triumph of these men at the cost of a terrifying sacrifice should send chills down any reader's back. . . . This novel's scenes have the liveliness of a motion picture."
--The Washington Post

"An outstanding book . . . [Kesey's] characters are original and real. . . . This is a tirade against the increasing controls over man and his mind, yet the author never gets on a soap box. Nor does he forget that there is a thin line between tragedy and comedy."
--Houston Chronicle

Book Description:

Chief Bromden, half American-Indian, whom the authorities believe is deaf and dumb, tells the story of a mental instituion ruled by Big Nurse on behalf of the all-powerful Combine. Into this terrifying grey world comes McMurphy, a brawling gambling man, who wages total war on behalf of his cowed fellow-inmates. What follows is at once hiilarious and heroic, tragic and ultimately liberating. Since its first publication in 1962, Ken Kesey's astonishing first novel has achieved the status of a contemporary classic. 'Kesey can be funny, he can be lyrical, he can do dialogue, and he can write a muscular narrative. In fact there's not much better come out of America in the sixties... If you haven't already read this book, do so. If youhave, read it again' Douglas Eadie, Scotsman

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0141181222
• ISBN 13: 9780141181226
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304