118/1001 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' by Ken Kesey- or 'American Rebellion Books, You're Doing It Right!'

Written during my brief hiatus from 'The House of Book'. I wrote most of this as a draft post, but for some reason never finished it. Well a jolly Sunday afternoon has been spent drinking a mug of tea, stroking the Tabby on my lap, and finishing this baby off. Though I finished this book a couple of months ago, I've really enjoyed going back to it, I guess this is one of the bonuses of a blog!

So, in an attempt to actually increase my 'read' number, which has been languishing at 117 for months now (thanks, Victor Hugo) I picked up 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest', a fairly thin (250 pages), well established classic that I already happened to own. A win win right? My only real hesitation was its standing as a American 20th century classic, which anyone who has read my post about 'On The Road' will realize  is not really the sort of book I get along with.

I principally loath the whole 'freedom', 'America is the home of the rebel', 'stick it to the man-ness' of them. I dunno what it is about America and their obsession with their foundation. We British have firmly go over it, and lets face it, when it comes to the final result we were the more injured party! I see no indication that Americans are any more free than anyone else in the western world, in fact the irony of these books seems to be that they feature Americans rebelling against, well, established America! These rebels either come off as whiney bitches (I'm looking at you Holden Caulfield) or pathetic wasters (that would be you Dean Moriarty). These guys really are rebels without causes, 'oh no I live in a prosperous western country where my liberty is not particularly infringed, where education is free (but we have no interest in it) and I have the opportunity to be whatever I want to be'. Poor baba.

Which is exactly why I actually quite liked 'One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest'. Randle McMurphy, redheaded rebel as he is, has a damn good reason to rebel. Nurse Ratched (great, Dickens type name) is really, really fucking vile. You love to hate her, and you love McMurphy BECAUSE he stands up to all her crap and makes everyone else stand up too.  The guys in the hospital are treated in a pretty shitty way, and as the book goes on this escalates further and further. You love to hate this establishment because it is grossly unfair, and McMurphy is awesome at sticking it to the man.

Boo! Hiss!

Things gradually escalate through the course of the book as McMurphy continues to challange Nurse Ratched's authority and she continually punishes the inmates further and further, and you are dying, dying for a great 'stick it to the man' happy ending. AND IT DOESN'T HAPPEN. The ending (spoiler alert) is totally brutal and ugly and isn't particularly satisfying. But that's awesome because that is life, you cannot always break the system. McMurphy ends up dead, after one of the inmates takes his own life in a most horrific manner, and the nurse, slightly battered, retains her post. There is no grand victory, only a subtle change among the remaining inmates, the glorious revolution McMurphy aims for does not happen, but he at least gets the other guys thinking.

Realistically, most of the people who really make a difference in this world, the Martin Luther Kings' and Gandhi's, don't life to see the fulfillment of the ideas they promote. Their remarkable lives cause ripples with long lasting implications, but they rarely get to live to see the change the promote. McMurphy, though we don't really see it, profoundly changes all the mens lives even though his campaign fails. It's deep. It's real. It kicks all those daft American rebels butts!