One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Ken Kesey (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Kesey, Ken

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141187883 ISBN 13: 9780141187884

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2005

Synopsis

Pitching an extraordinary battle between cruel authority and a rebellious free spirit, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel that epitomises the spirit of the sixties. This Penguin Classics edition includes a preface, never-before published illustrations by the author, and an introduction by Robert Faggen.

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electroshock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy - the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. The subject of an Oscar-winning film starring Jack Nicholson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

If you enjoyed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, you might like Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'A glittering parable of good and evil'
The New York Times Book Review

'A roar of protest against middlebrow society's Rules and the Rulers who enforce them'
Time

'If you haven't already read this book, do so. If you have, read it again'
Scotsman

About this title

Review:

aA glittering parable of good and evil.a a"The New York Times Book Review"

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: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0141187883
• ISBN 13: 9780141187884
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320