Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (Barron's Book Notes) (Paperback)

by Ken Kesey (Author), Peter Fish (Author), Tessa Krailing (Author) "The opening scene is constructed to introduce the reader to two major characters, to hint at themes that will be developed later in the book,..." (more)
Key Phrases: tangle toes, guts ball, tub room, Nurse Ratched, Chief Bromden, Billy Bibbit (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A guide to reading "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" with a critical and appreciative mind. Includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list.

Product Details

• Paperback: 121 pages
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series (October 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812034333
• ISBN-13: 978-0812034332
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,672,047 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the greatest book of all time, February 6, 2000

By	jamie stewart (Stockport, England) - See all my reviews

The Chief sees. He sees the combine and he sees the truth. He sees R P McMurphy enter the sterilised world of the ward and he sees him wage total war on The Big Nurse. The story he tells is at once tragic, hilarious and life affirming. Ken Kesey is a visionary and a radical who saw through the facades and lies and produced a book that no free thinking individual can do without. This is a literary classic and I urge you to read it. It will change your life.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Look at the world inside-out!, December 31, 1997

By A Customer

What is the world you see when you read this book? It may not be real, but that doesn't make it any less true. Here is a place where feelings become sensations and overpower the "real world". On the face of it, the action takes place in a lunatic asylum. It could just as well be our world. It's populated by a lot of characters that feel more sane than the keepers of the place. The maker of all the rules - the Big Nurse - is the scariest of all, in her confidence that this is entirely her world, run as she likes. Enter Randall Patrick Macmurphy. Rules? What rules? They don't exist as far as he's concerned. This world is just another to be moulded to his liking. Within a minute of his entry, he's run up against the Nurse. Every inmate sees something new about life- it's possible not to follow someone else's rules and live to tell the tale. The Nurse's world cracks up, bit by bit. R.P.Mcmurphy too realizes the extent to which it's possible to fall into the games life creates. This is one character you'll remember forever - and the lesson he preaches. All the inmates - you included - learn that the game is a game only as long as you know you're playing it. Get caught up and you're just a token on the board. Ken Kesey talks through Chief Bromden - an indian who plays at being deaf and dumb in an effort to run from the game. Grammar is an easy prey to the Chief's onrushing thoughts as he struggles to keep up with the speed of events around him. The prose sparkles with electricity as he "sees" his feelings and expresses them as events. Hostility in the air becomes a chill, and the sensation of death is falling into a furnace. This is a book that reads like walking through a "hall of crazy mirrors". You look back on yourself and don't know whether to laugh or cry.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book. It's much better than the movie., May 6, 1999

By A Customer

I'm an ninth grade student and this is the best and one of the only novels that I have read. I like how the Chier narrorates the book, unlike the movie. Movie=2 stars Book=5. -Nikko Ganacias Federal Way Wa. [e-mail]