Don’t ask me how I know that I read this book for the very first time back in 1995, because that will make me give away one of my small (and, until now at least) harmless passions. What I can say though, is that I’ve recently finished re-reading it. It was easier than the first time. Whenever I read a book again after many years, my mind fumbles through the corners of my memory in search for impressions and feelings that I experienced at my first reading.
About this book, I found, almost choked by the dust of forgetfulness, some bitterness at the lunatics’ defeat, some admiration for the man that invented such a colorful story, but also a trace of certitude that my teenager’s mind wasn’t quite grasping all that Mr. Kesey had to say. Now, exactly 20 years later, I re-discovered a story. One full of bitter humour, grotesque situations, even absurd from time to time. But it’s just a story, with no fancy symbol-bearing ornaments, without mysterious corridors appearing between its lines or words. That’s probably why the movie that was made after the book was one of the best ones of its kind I’ve ever seen, because it loses almost none of the book’s flavor.
It’s obvious that, at the time when it was written, the “Nest” was a manifest against the inhuman way the mentally ill were treated in hospitals which were supposed to cure them. Instead they ended up killing any trace of humanity in their patients, who became so frightened of life itself that they didn’t want to leave the premises ever again. It’s also obvious that today the manifest has become obsolete. But the story remains. And it’s beautiful.
My favorite quote: (about a man) “He was lean and stout like a rifle butt.”
You can buy the book here.
images: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” – first edition (www.thewellreadredhead.com), Ken Kesey (www.rollingstone.com)
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