Customer Reviews

Futher Inquiry

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"Are you on the bus or off the bus?" That was the crucial question posed by proto-hippies Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady and their band of Merry Pranksters who toured the country in the original Magic Bus on the first Magical Mystery Tour, most famously recounted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In The Further Inquiry, Kesey examines the trip 25 years after the fact through a surreal courtroom drama. While the text itself is not as engrossing as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Kesey's first book which catapulted him to early fame at 23), devotees of Beat will find the bus tramscript snippets of interest and the layout and full-color pages throughout make this big bad hardback a treasure worth hunting.

The exceptionally good design anticipates hypertext in a way which few printed books have done (the collaborations of McCluhan and Fiore being other notable examples). With color photographs, film stills, and other enhanced imagery, the book is a visual feast with many whimsical touches, including a black-and-white flipbook movie of a dancing Cassady in the right margin. It is less an inquiry than a celebration. As one character proclaims of Cassady: "He was joyous. He could take social and emotional and cosmic changes just like he could take ninety-degree corners...on four wheels or two. My god, didn't you ever read On the Road? He was a living legend!"

This book is about the ghost of Neal Cassady being put on trial for his part in the Merry Prankster bus trip. Kesey wrote a pretty funny book which touches on the highlights of the famous bus trip told through a courtroom drama with various Pranksters testifying. The book has a lot of interesting photographs taken from the trip. Do not read this book looking for a lot of detail about the trip and the Pranksters(Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool Aid Test" covers that). This book is a fun, quick read.

In a recent DVD review of the late Dennis Hopper's role as a fugitive radical in the 1990 comedy on the subject of the 1960s counter-culture, "Flashback", I noted, no I exclaimed, no I shouted out that I was not to blame for this reach back but that the reader should blame it on Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters (including "beatnik" holdover/ bus driver Neal Cassady). Or blame it on a recently re-read of Tom Wolfe's classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test that pays "homage" to Kesey, his Pranksters, their psychedelically-painted bus "Further", and their various adventures and misadventures. Or, better, blame it on Jack Kerouac and that self-same central character Cassady (as Dean Moriarty) for his "On The Road". The same sentiment can serve here in reviewing Ken Kesey's concept book on the occasion of the 25th anniversary (1989) of the famous coast to coast (West to East, if you can believe that) bus ride/drug trip/self-awareness adventure/madcap escape that Tom Wolfe chronicled in the above-mentioned novel.

I used the word concept book here in exactly the right sense. Kesey, although having apparently exhausted himself in the literary field after his early successes with "One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest" and "Sometimes A Great Notion" still had enough savvy in him to come up with an appropriate way to celebrate his most well-known adventure. The book is set up in the form of a trial transcript. Wait a minute who is on trial at this late date? Ken Kesey, for cooking up the perhaps ill-advised adventure, or some belatedly-revealed drug charge? No. Is it the WASP West Coast college students out on a romp who formed the core of the Merry Pranksters finally get their comeuppance from the neo-con counter-revolutionaries ? No. Here is the funny part. It's the bus driver, stupid-Neal Cassady-the refugee from the "beat generation, and one of the fathers of the 1960s cultural uprising. And what is the charge (or charges)? Well, the modern day version of "corrupting the youth." That makes sense, right? He should have pleaded guilty, very guilty, and be done with it.

Along the way we get plenty of contrite testimony about the evil genie out of the bottle Cassady, heart-rending tales about the spell he put on those "innocent" young people, about his non-stop spiel, and about his fantastic, if unorthodox, driving habits. We also get plenty of testimony in his defense, as well. And all of this is accompanied by over one hundred photographs from the old "family" album, including many, many photos of the arch-villain Cassady himself. Just a point here though. You should read Wolfe's book before you try to read this one-this is strictly for aficionados of the "beat" and "hippie" cultural movements.

what the hell?? i can't beleive the book's out of print, this bokk is amazing!! a work of pure genius!!!!!! ken kesey retells the entire story of the pranksters and the further bus in script form, with over 100 color pics!!!!!!!!!! get this book!!!!!!