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Sometimes a Great Notion
The magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...
Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.
Following the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.
628 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
About the author
Ken Kesey
68 books2,621 followersKen Kesey was American writer, who gained world fame with his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962, filmed 1975). In the 1960s, Kesey became a counterculture hero and a guru of psychedelic drugs with Timothy Leary. Kesey has been called the Pied Piper, who changed the beat generation into the hippie movement.
Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, CO, and brought up in Eugene, OR. He spent his early years hunting, fishing, swimming; he learned to box and wrestle, and he was a star football player. He studied at the University of Oregon, where he acted in college plays. On graduating he won a scholarship to Stanford University. Kesey soon dropped out, joined the counterculture movement, and began experimenting with drugs. In 1956 he married his school sweetheart, Faye Haxby.
Kesey attended a creative writing course taught by the novelist Wallace Stegner. His first work was an unpublished novel, ZOO, about the beatniks of the North Beach community in San Francisco. Tom Wolfe described in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Kesey and his friends, called the Merry Pranksters, as they traveled the country and used various hallucinogens. Their bus, called Furthur, was painted in Day-Glo colors. In California Kesey's friends served LSD-laced Kool-Aid to members of their parties.
At a Veterans' Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California, Kesey was paid as a volunteer experimental subject, taking mind-altering drugs and reporting their effects. These experiences as a part-time aide at a psychiatric hospital, LSD sessions - and a vision of an Indian sweeping there the floor - formed the background for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, set in a mental hospital. While writing the work, and continuing in the footsteps of such writers as Thomas De Quincy (Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821), Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception, 1954), and William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, 1959), Kesey took peyote. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden. Into his world enters the petty criminal and prankster Randall Patrick McMurphy with his efforts to change the bureaucratic system of the institution, ruled by Nurse Ratched.
The film adaptation of the book gained a huge success. When the film won five Academy Awards, Kesey was barely mentioned during the award ceremonies, and he made known his unhappiness with the film. He did not like Jack Nicholson, or the script, and sued the producers.
Kesey's next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), appeared two years later and was also made into a film, this time directed by Paul Newman. The story was set in a logging community and centered on two brothers and their bitter rivalry in the family. After the work, Kesey gave up publishing novels. He formed a band of "Merry Pranksters", set up a commune in La Honda, California, bought an old school bus, and toured America and Mexico with his friends, among them Neal Cassady, Kerouac's travel companion. Dressed in a jester's outfit, Kesey was the chief prankster.
In 1965 Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana. He fled to Mexico, where he faked an unconvincing suicide and then returned to the United States, serving a five-month prison sentence at the San Mateo County Jail. After this tumultuous period he bought farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, settled down with his wife to raise their four children, and taught a graduate writing seminar at the University of Oregon. In the early 1970s Kesey returned to writing and published Kesey's Garage Sale (1973). His later works include the children's book Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear(1990) and Sailor Song (1992), a futuristic tale about an Alaskan fishing village and Hollywood film crew. Last Go Around (1994), Kesey's last book, was an account of a famous Oregon rodeo written in the form of pulp fiction. In 2001, Kesey died of complications after surgery for liver cance
Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, CO, and brought up in Eugene, OR. He spent his early years hunting, fishing, swimming; he learned to box and wrestle, and he was a star football player. He studied at the University of Oregon, where he acted in college plays. On graduating he won a scholarship to Stanford University. Kesey soon dropped out, joined the counterculture movement, and began experimenting with drugs. In 1956 he married his school sweetheart, Faye Haxby.
Kesey attended a creative writing course taught by the novelist Wallace Stegner. His first work was an unpublished novel, ZOO, about the beatniks of the North Beach community in San Francisco. Tom Wolfe described in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) Kesey and his friends, called the Merry Pranksters, as they traveled the country and used various hallucinogens. Their bus, called Furthur, was painted in Day-Glo colors. In California Kesey's friends served LSD-laced Kool-Aid to members of their parties.
At a Veterans' Administration hospital in Menlo Park, California, Kesey was paid as a volunteer experimental subject, taking mind-altering drugs and reporting their effects. These experiences as a part-time aide at a psychiatric hospital, LSD sessions - and a vision of an Indian sweeping there the floor - formed the background for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, set in a mental hospital. While writing the work, and continuing in the footsteps of such writers as Thomas De Quincy (Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821), Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception, 1954), and William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, 1959), Kesey took peyote. The story is narrated by Chief Bromden. Into his world enters the petty criminal and prankster Randall Patrick McMurphy with his efforts to change the bureaucratic system of the institution, ruled by Nurse Ratched.
The film adaptation of the book gained a huge success. When the film won five Academy Awards, Kesey was barely mentioned during the award ceremonies, and he made known his unhappiness with the film. He did not like Jack Nicholson, or the script, and sued the producers.
Kesey's next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), appeared two years later and was also made into a film, this time directed by Paul Newman. The story was set in a logging community and centered on two brothers and their bitter rivalry in the family. After the work, Kesey gave up publishing novels. He formed a band of "Merry Pranksters", set up a commune in La Honda, California, bought an old school bus, and toured America and Mexico with his friends, among them Neal Cassady, Kerouac's travel companion. Dressed in a jester's outfit, Kesey was the chief prankster.
In 1965 Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana. He fled to Mexico, where he faked an unconvincing suicide and then returned to the United States, serving a five-month prison sentence at the San Mateo County Jail. After this tumultuous period he bought farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, settled down with his wife to raise their four children, and taught a graduate writing seminar at the University of Oregon. In the early 1970s Kesey returned to writing and published Kesey's Garage Sale (1973). His later works include the children's book Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear(1990) and Sailor Song (1992), a futuristic tale about an Alaskan fishing village and Hollywood film crew. Last Go Around (1994), Kesey's last book, was an account of a famous Oregon rodeo written in the form of pulp fiction. In 2001, Kesey died of complications after surgery for liver cance
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February 15, 2024
Sometimes a Great Notion is very polyphonic, the story is narrated by many…
The novel is a wicked and extravagant black comedy cleverly disguised as a family and social drama.
An estranged son, bent on taking revenge upon his older brother, reunites his hardheaded family…
Sometimes a Great Notion is a book of collisions: reason against foolishness, spirit against flesh, sanity against madness, individual against community, man against nature… one against many.
But even if one wins, victory is an ambivalent thing… a stick with two ends… a coin with two sides…
Man is a gregarious being and herd either makes one conform or destroys one.
The novel is a wicked and extravagant black comedy cleverly disguised as a family and social drama.
Look… Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier. And the lives of such stuff as dreams are made of may be rounded with a sleep but they are not tied neatly with a red bow.
An estranged son, bent on taking revenge upon his older brother, reunites his hardheaded family…
And at times, almost certainly, a little sneak of memory would slip past your whipping boy and you would be whacked just as hard as ever by that joker’s bladder of reality, of pain and heartache and hassle and death. You might hide in some Freudian jungle most of your miserable life, baying at the moon and shouting curses at God, but at the end, right down there at the damned end when it counts… you would sure as anything clear up just enough to realize the moon you have spent so many years baying at is nothing but the light globe up there on the ceiling, and God is just something placed in your bureau drawer by the Gideon Society. Yes, I sighed again, in the long run insanity would be the same old cold-hearted drag of too solid flesh, too many slings and arrows, and too much outrageous fortune.
Sometimes a Great Notion is a book of collisions: reason against foolishness, spirit against flesh, sanity against madness, individual against community, man against nature… one against many.
It took no more than that first day to bring back all his faults; sparse though our communication had been it had taken only a few seconds at each exchange of words to convince me that he was crass, bigoted, wrongheaded, hypocritical, that he substituted viscera for reason and confused his balls with his brains, and that he was in many ways the epitome of the kind of man I regarded as most dangerous to my kind of world, and certainly for these reasons should I seek his destruction.
But even if one wins, victory is an ambivalent thing… a stick with two ends… a coin with two sides…
Man is a gregarious being and herd either makes one conform or destroys one.
November 9, 2020
Back in the day, I worked in the radio industry, both on air and behind the scenes as producer for a call-in talk show. There's a saying in the business I learned during that time - having a "big voice".
A big voice is one that has depth and breadth, one that reminds you of James Earl Jones, Johnny Cash or that guy who does all the movie trailers. Those voices mesmerize, command, practically swallow you whole.
Well, just like someone can have a big voice, I believe there are "big books" - and this is one of them. This book is so big, I'm having a hard time wrapping my arms around it in order to write a coherent review. Set in 1960s Pacific Northwest (Oregon, to be precise), this big, shaggy bear of a book tells the story of a unionized logging town in the midst of a tense strike, and the Stamper family, who buck the strike by working independently, taking the union's work.
Hard to believe that 650 odd pages about logging and striking could keep my attention. I'm a gal who typically loves economy, brevity, presenting one's point on the tip of a blade. But this mammoth drew me in, almost from the first.
Most people know Ken Kesey because of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which is fabulous, both book and film) but this, his second novel, didn't seem to make as much of a splash. It sort of broke Kesey's heart at the time. He stopped writing for the better part of a decade afterward. I wondered what caused the somewhat underwhelming reception, and I think maybe because it's such a "big book". What makes it so big?
* 650 pages, for starters.
* It's got a vast bevy of characters too, and each one gets to speak from their own point of view. That means switching up of point of view often, nay, constantly - sometimes three times in a paragraph. Yup.
* Nature is huge. Beauteous and also dangerous. Always threatening, whether the numbing cold, or a rushing flood, or the crack of a giant, falling tree. Having recently moved back to the wet coast (Vancouver, BC), I truly appreciated the vivid way Kesey evokes this part of the world.
* The family drama, which rises to Shakespearian or Biblical proportions, or maybe even Greek mythology.
* A few "big" scenes. These scenes are breathtaking, epic, cinematic, kick you in the gut. You don't read these types of scenes every day. You just don't.
So yeah, a big book. Some parts might have gone on longer than I would have liked, but then I was rewarded with those magnificent scenes, and pulled along by that story. The changing POV was unusual so took a little time to adjust to, but after a while became quite natural. And it achieved what a changing point of view, when done well, achieves: the reader's allegiance changes too, page by page, because of a deeper understanding of each character. Soon, nobody's the bad guy. This understanding spreads in a broader sense, toward humanity. That's a beautiful thing, if you can stay there, rest there a while.
It's a very male dominated book, drenched in testosterone. The women don't get nearly the depth or air-time that the male characters do. But, I forgive that, because the book is a big questioning of the whole idea of manliness, or what it means to be tough.
But if the strength ain't real, I recall thinking the very last thing that day, before I finally passed out, then the weakness sure enough is. Weakness is true and real. I used to accuse the kid of faking his weakness. But faking proves the weakness is real. Or you wouldn't be so weak as to fake it. No, you can't ever fake being weak. You can only fake being strong...
It's a masterpiece, worthy of more attention. It's an ambitious, open armed, far reaching labour of love. It's like an opera - long, but just as soul-soaring. Read it.
So now, I'll stop, before this becomes a "big review" (and not in a good way)!
A big voice is one that has depth and breadth, one that reminds you of James Earl Jones, Johnny Cash or that guy who does all the movie trailers. Those voices mesmerize, command, practically swallow you whole.
Well, just like someone can have a big voice, I believe there are "big books" - and this is one of them. This book is so big, I'm having a hard time wrapping my arms around it in order to write a coherent review. Set in 1960s Pacific Northwest (Oregon, to be precise), this big, shaggy bear of a book tells the story of a unionized logging town in the midst of a tense strike, and the Stamper family, who buck the strike by working independently, taking the union's work.
Hard to believe that 650 odd pages about logging and striking could keep my attention. I'm a gal who typically loves economy, brevity, presenting one's point on the tip of a blade. But this mammoth drew me in, almost from the first.
Most people know Ken Kesey because of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (which is fabulous, both book and film) but this, his second novel, didn't seem to make as much of a splash. It sort of broke Kesey's heart at the time. He stopped writing for the better part of a decade afterward. I wondered what caused the somewhat underwhelming reception, and I think maybe because it's such a "big book". What makes it so big?
* 650 pages, for starters.
* It's got a vast bevy of characters too, and each one gets to speak from their own point of view. That means switching up of point of view often, nay, constantly - sometimes three times in a paragraph. Yup.
* Nature is huge. Beauteous and also dangerous. Always threatening, whether the numbing cold, or a rushing flood, or the crack of a giant, falling tree. Having recently moved back to the wet coast (Vancouver, BC), I truly appreciated the vivid way Kesey evokes this part of the world.
* The family drama, which rises to Shakespearian or Biblical proportions, or maybe even Greek mythology.
* A few "big" scenes. These scenes are breathtaking, epic, cinematic, kick you in the gut. You don't read these types of scenes every day. You just don't.
So yeah, a big book. Some parts might have gone on longer than I would have liked, but then I was rewarded with those magnificent scenes, and pulled along by that story. The changing POV was unusual so took a little time to adjust to, but after a while became quite natural. And it achieved what a changing point of view, when done well, achieves: the reader's allegiance changes too, page by page, because of a deeper understanding of each character. Soon, nobody's the bad guy. This understanding spreads in a broader sense, toward humanity. That's a beautiful thing, if you can stay there, rest there a while.
It's a very male dominated book, drenched in testosterone. The women don't get nearly the depth or air-time that the male characters do. But, I forgive that, because the book is a big questioning of the whole idea of manliness, or what it means to be tough.
But if the strength ain't real, I recall thinking the very last thing that day, before I finally passed out, then the weakness sure enough is. Weakness is true and real. I used to accuse the kid of faking his weakness. But faking proves the weakness is real. Or you wouldn't be so weak as to fake it. No, you can't ever fake being weak. You can only fake being strong...
It's a masterpiece, worthy of more attention. It's an ambitious, open armed, far reaching labour of love. It's like an opera - long, but just as soul-soaring. Read it.
So now, I'll stop, before this becomes a "big review" (and not in a good way)!
May 25, 2022
" Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in town
Sometimes I take a great notion
To jump into the river an’ drown "
I know little about Oregon State, what little I do know is that it's damp almost all of the time, has it's fair share of trees and woodland, and it's where 'The Goonies' and 'Stand by Me' were filmed, and River Phoenix was born there.
Ken Kesey's 'Sometimes a Great Notion' is quite simply a contemporary American masterpiece, set on the rain soaked Oregon coast, the fictional town of Wakonda early in the 1960's. The story, if you could call it that, is surrounding a logging family (The Stampers), who cut and procure trees for a local mill in opposition to striking, unionized workers. They live in an old house built out on the river and pretty much keep to them selves, and due to current circumstances are the scourge of the town. I wouldn't exactly call them hillbilly folk, but they're not far of. There is the old croaky father Henry, sons Hank, and Leland (recently returning from the east coast), and hank's partner Viv.
The bitter strike is at the centre of the novel, which sees the labour force demanding the same pay but for less hours due to the on going problem of less demand in this market. The Stampers who own and operate their own company decide to continue logging to supply the regionally owned mill, but cause fury with the locals. A Union man is called to town (Mr Dreager) to try and solve the dispute, the Stampers play dirty and won't budge. The Striking details remain largely in the background. You are left wondering on certain points. But the story truth be told is all about the day to day lives of the Stampers, they completely steal the show. A huge chunk of the narrative takes place within the walls of the Stampers residents, and has an almost voyeuristic sensibility, and conversations between family members can seem to last for tens of pages at a time. Now I made reference to hillbillies, and the dialogue here takes some getting used to. There is lots of slang talk and derogatory comments made throughout, even the 'N' word gets used a lot, but this simply reiterates the "off the beaten track" type of people we are dealing with, living out on the river in seclusion, they take to hunting and setting traps for animals,as a way to provide for food when getting into town is difficult.
At 715 pages things do eb and flow here and there, and can get slightly tiresome, but that's just me being picky, because on the whole it's length is something that the further you go on the less of a problem it becomes, you become totally involved in this damp and dreary community your feelings for certain characters change from hatred to that of pity.
The novel's multiple characters speak sequentially in the first person, seemingly without alerting the reader to whom they are listening to?, this can get confusing as narrative will skip from one to the other without any idea of knowing so, again you just get used to it over time.
If I could sum up the Stampers in one word that would be 'Stubborn', the house for example appears to be about to fall apart at any time, the interiors are awash with er...mess, they are living so far in the past, but nothing and no one will get them to change, they firmly hold their ground!
The most intelligent of the pack is Leland, who returns to Wakonda after years spent on the east coast with his mother, he is attracted to Hank's Viv, and late on in the novel the two will come to loggerheads, there is also an incident that could see their resolve shattered, and the last 100 pages or so are set up for what appears a climactic and tense finale, but going on the overall nature of past proceedings, don't expect some huge grand spectacle of a finish, you will be let down. The slow pace stays for the whole duration.
Another important aspect of Notion is the weather. It rains. It rains constantly; even when it's dry it's still wet and damp. The river swells, the town has puddles the size of small lakes, and residents continually shake their caps of rain water, have constant colds, and foul stinking attitudes they carry around forever! Kesey brings the whole place to life, in such vivid and articulated way, this is the great strength of the Great Notion, and has to rank up there with the best contemporary novels of all time! I am still mystified why this seems to have gone into obscurity; even around the time of first publication: was is marketed badly?, or did people simply not like it? Not sure. All that matters to me is my own unforgettable reading experience of reading it.
An astonishing masterpiece! Talking of the great American novel then this has to be up there with the best of them.
June 15, 2011
after reading: Oh my. Oh my goodness what an incredible book. Absolutely stunning.
Sometimes A Great Notion (which, btw, gets its title from the Ledbelly song "Goodnight Irene") is the story of the Stamper family, renegade loggers in Oregon in maybe the fifties. It's an incredible family—Henry, the patriarch, the crazed, stubborn old goat who started the logging business; his son Hank (stoic, serious, earnest, proud, charming) and Hank's cousin Joe Ben (brimming with enthusiasm and joy and good will), who now run the company; Hank's gorgeous and quiet and wonderful wife Viv; and Hank's much younger half-brother Leland, an intellectual and a weakling who fled the rough workaday life as soon as he was old enough, and now lives in New York where he is finishing college. There has been a lifelong and mostly unspoken rivalry between the brothers, but because the Stampers have run afoul of the logging union, Hank and Joe Ben write to Leland, asking him to come back home to help make a big run.
The other important thing is that the entire town despises the Stampers. Currently all the loggers are on strike, but the Stamper clan is still working, and because of that, they are preventing the strike from ending, since there's no reason for the company that wants the lumber to negotiate with the union when the Stampers are doing all the same work. Everyone has always hated the Stampers anyway, because they are big and strong and stubborn and put everyone else to shame, and now the whole town is seriously turning against them.
Now look. That encapsulation is not only horribly unjust (a book of this magnitude deserves much more than a paltry surface summation like that), but also is likely to turn off your average modern reader. I know, I know, an entire novel about logging in the country? And a boring union struggle with a bunch of backwoods hicks? It wouldn't have caught my attention either.
But listen, there is so much more than that here.
Above all, this is a book about people, filled with some of the most fascinating and deeply drawn characters I have come across in a terribly long time. Even the supporting cast have rich backstories, like the town prostitute (Indian Jenny) who calls men to her bed by throwing clamshells and then buying them drinks; Biggy Newton, the overgrown class bully who has been beating up (and getting beaten up by) Hank since they were in school together; Les Gibbons, an old drunk made bitter by a life of grudges; Boney Stokes, Henry's alleged best friend, who wishes for his downfall more than anyone who hates him; Teddy the fat bartender who thinks he knows everything about the human condition as he waters down all the drinks.
And those are just the incidental characters. I haven't said hardly anything about Hank, Joe Ben, Viv, Leland, and Henry, because if I start writing about them, I'll end up transcribing the entire six-hundred-page book here. The complicated ways these people love each other, the intricate ways they fuck each other up... it is so intense, so believable, so real. It made me remember that one of the things we've lost in our pomo irony age is the serious emotional connection that it is possible to make with earnest, deep characters. Because I will tell you right now, this book made me cry. Not just cry but sob. In public. On the fucking subway. It crept into my dreams, the way really intense movies do, I kept repeating lines to myself and my friends, re-examining scenes I had read days ago to smooth them out and polish them and find in them more beauty and meaning and truth.
And listen: Kesey is not without his own literary machinations. For example, he manages to tell the story from several points of view. At once. As in, in the same paragraph there would be three "I"s: one in italics, one in parentheses, and one in regular type. But where with a modern-day irnoicist, this might come of as metafictional gimicry, here it felt not only smooth and effective, but necessary. Because everyone is thinking all the time, right? And all these characters have rich internal lives to match their rich outer ones, and so a major climactic scene needs to be told by everyone at once, just like it happens. Each narrative augments and enhances the other, making for a stunningly complete picture.
One drawback I did notice was the womenfolk. These stoic, complicated, multifaceted men were unfortunately not graced by the presence of equally complex women; most of the ladies in the book were shrewish, mute, or dead (though the dead were often even more powerful forces than the living). The only truly developed gal was Viv, and she was not nearly as thoroughly done as any of the men. One of her central decisions, one of the axes on which the entire plot turned, I found completely unfounded, unjustified, and almost insulting.
But. Ultimately that was not nearly enough to seriously detract from this utterly amazing story. I cannot remember the last time I was so thoroughly knocked out by a novel. I cannot believe how much this affected me.
mid-read: Ok, so this is seriously weird. While reading this book for pleasure, I am also proofing an erotic vampire romance novel for work (I wish that was a lie). And you would think that the stark contrast between, you know, amateur silliness and a serious work of literature would bring this book into absolute focus. And that's true, of course. But what's seriously blowing my mind is that there are all sorts of parallels between the two books, in odd and creepy ways. Both heroes are ruled by revenge, in ways that warp and twist their minds, ways that are meditated upon constantly, with, um, predictable and harrowing results, respectively (it's obvious which is which, though, right?). Anyway and also, the sections of each that I'm up to today both take place on Halloween. Maybe that's a small coincidence, but I think it's crazy.
old: This is one of my parents' favorite books. I read it in high school, and wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped. Soon I'll read it again, and see who was wrong, the 'rents or my younger self.
Sometimes A Great Notion (which, btw, gets its title from the Ledbelly song "Goodnight Irene") is the story of the Stamper family, renegade loggers in Oregon in maybe the fifties. It's an incredible family—Henry, the patriarch, the crazed, stubborn old goat who started the logging business; his son Hank (stoic, serious, earnest, proud, charming) and Hank's cousin Joe Ben (brimming with enthusiasm and joy and good will), who now run the company; Hank's gorgeous and quiet and wonderful wife Viv; and Hank's much younger half-brother Leland, an intellectual and a weakling who fled the rough workaday life as soon as he was old enough, and now lives in New York where he is finishing college. There has been a lifelong and mostly unspoken rivalry between the brothers, but because the Stampers have run afoul of the logging union, Hank and Joe Ben write to Leland, asking him to come back home to help make a big run.
The other important thing is that the entire town despises the Stampers. Currently all the loggers are on strike, but the Stamper clan is still working, and because of that, they are preventing the strike from ending, since there's no reason for the company that wants the lumber to negotiate with the union when the Stampers are doing all the same work. Everyone has always hated the Stampers anyway, because they are big and strong and stubborn and put everyone else to shame, and now the whole town is seriously turning against them.
Now look. That encapsulation is not only horribly unjust (a book of this magnitude deserves much more than a paltry surface summation like that), but also is likely to turn off your average modern reader. I know, I know, an entire novel about logging in the country? And a boring union struggle with a bunch of backwoods hicks? It wouldn't have caught my attention either.
But listen, there is so much more than that here.
Above all, this is a book about people, filled with some of the most fascinating and deeply drawn characters I have come across in a terribly long time. Even the supporting cast have rich backstories, like the town prostitute (Indian Jenny) who calls men to her bed by throwing clamshells and then buying them drinks; Biggy Newton, the overgrown class bully who has been beating up (and getting beaten up by) Hank since they were in school together; Les Gibbons, an old drunk made bitter by a life of grudges; Boney Stokes, Henry's alleged best friend, who wishes for his downfall more than anyone who hates him; Teddy the fat bartender who thinks he knows everything about the human condition as he waters down all the drinks.
And those are just the incidental characters. I haven't said hardly anything about Hank, Joe Ben, Viv, Leland, and Henry, because if I start writing about them, I'll end up transcribing the entire six-hundred-page book here. The complicated ways these people love each other, the intricate ways they fuck each other up... it is so intense, so believable, so real. It made me remember that one of the things we've lost in our pomo irony age is the serious emotional connection that it is possible to make with earnest, deep characters. Because I will tell you right now, this book made me cry. Not just cry but sob. In public. On the fucking subway. It crept into my dreams, the way really intense movies do, I kept repeating lines to myself and my friends, re-examining scenes I had read days ago to smooth them out and polish them and find in them more beauty and meaning and truth.
And listen: Kesey is not without his own literary machinations. For example, he manages to tell the story from several points of view. At once. As in, in the same paragraph there would be three "I"s: one in italics, one in parentheses, and one in regular type. But where with a modern-day irnoicist, this might come of as metafictional gimicry, here it felt not only smooth and effective, but necessary. Because everyone is thinking all the time, right? And all these characters have rich internal lives to match their rich outer ones, and so a major climactic scene needs to be told by everyone at once, just like it happens. Each narrative augments and enhances the other, making for a stunningly complete picture.
One drawback I did notice was the womenfolk. These stoic, complicated, multifaceted men were unfortunately not graced by the presence of equally complex women; most of the ladies in the book were shrewish, mute, or dead (though the dead were often even more powerful forces than the living). The only truly developed gal was Viv, and she was not nearly as thoroughly done as any of the men. One of her central decisions, one of the axes on which the entire plot turned, I found completely unfounded, unjustified, and almost insulting.
But. Ultimately that was not nearly enough to seriously detract from this utterly amazing story. I cannot remember the last time I was so thoroughly knocked out by a novel. I cannot believe how much this affected me.
mid-read: Ok, so this is seriously weird. While reading this book for pleasure, I am also proofing an erotic vampire romance novel for work (I wish that was a lie). And you would think that the stark contrast between, you know, amateur silliness and a serious work of literature would bring this book into absolute focus. And that's true, of course. But what's seriously blowing my mind is that there are all sorts of parallels between the two books, in odd and creepy ways. Both heroes are ruled by revenge, in ways that warp and twist their minds, ways that are meditated upon constantly, with, um, predictable and harrowing results, respectively (it's obvious which is which, though, right?). Anyway and also, the sections of each that I'm up to today both take place on Halloween. Maybe that's a small coincidence, but I think it's crazy.
old: This is one of my parents' favorite books. I read it in high school, and wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped. Soon I'll read it again, and see who was wrong, the 'rents or my younger self.
August 25, 2008
I didn’t want to read this one. Its long. Its by some acidhead hippie. Its only famous because Kesey is famous. He has fans because of his lifestyle, not his literary merit. Its about a group of loggers on strike? Ugh, sounds boring. But I gave it a shot and was blown away….
The storyline didn’t grab me right away but Kesey’s writing did. He had talent and this book is creatively ambitious. Every character has a turn at first person voice and the speaker can switch several times, sometimes even within a single paragraph. Seems confusing but I rarely had to reread because Kesey is that good. I am amazed that anyone would ever have the arrogance to write this way and even more amazed that someone could pull it off so smoothly.
Some beautiful sections of writing. I loved the paragraph when he describes a canyon along the river where one can hear clear echoes such that one can sing along with yourself to tunes like Row, row, your boat…but the description slips into the relentless of an echo, how its sounds cant adjusted but that you must adjust your new words to it as you sing. The story as well as a circular effect so that after I closed on the last words; I promptly reread the first 20.
The storyline develops from a struggle between two brothers to the struggle of a town to a struggle in each of us and the true meaning of what it is to have “strength” and “weakness”.
The spirit of the American working person and the frontier is captured. When the town finally thinks it has crushed Hank Stamper, there is only superficial joy, because his spirit was the spirit that had all given up too long ago.
Criticism: characters were a bit simple. Not a lot of confusion as to what each felt and why. Just the same, they aren’t not flat but very real, just a little simple.
Question: Why didn’t Kesey ever manage to be that good again? Did he ever even try again?
The storyline didn’t grab me right away but Kesey’s writing did. He had talent and this book is creatively ambitious. Every character has a turn at first person voice and the speaker can switch several times, sometimes even within a single paragraph. Seems confusing but I rarely had to reread because Kesey is that good. I am amazed that anyone would ever have the arrogance to write this way and even more amazed that someone could pull it off so smoothly.
Some beautiful sections of writing. I loved the paragraph when he describes a canyon along the river where one can hear clear echoes such that one can sing along with yourself to tunes like Row, row, your boat…but the description slips into the relentless of an echo, how its sounds cant adjusted but that you must adjust your new words to it as you sing. The story as well as a circular effect so that after I closed on the last words; I promptly reread the first 20.
The storyline develops from a struggle between two brothers to the struggle of a town to a struggle in each of us and the true meaning of what it is to have “strength” and “weakness”.
The spirit of the American working person and the frontier is captured. When the town finally thinks it has crushed Hank Stamper, there is only superficial joy, because his spirit was the spirit that had all given up too long ago.
Criticism: characters were a bit simple. Not a lot of confusion as to what each felt and why. Just the same, they aren’t not flat but very real, just a little simple.
Question: Why didn’t Kesey ever manage to be that good again? Did he ever even try again?
June 14, 2022
To know a thing you have to trust what you know, and all that you know, and as far as you know in whatever direction your knowing drags you.
One of the things I know is that Ken Kesey was a one of a kind writer, who knew his craft and invented his own style. Beginning this book can be off-putting, because there isn’t a narrator for the story--Kesey bounces around inside the heads of a dozen characters, switching without warning from one to the other, and making you dizzy with trying to sort out whose thoughts you are following. He also does nothing as mundane as telling a story in a linear fashion, oh no, he bounces time frames almost as much as he does characters in the beginning. But read on! When you have settled into the rhythm of what he is doing, he begins to tell a more linear tale and it becomes obvious to you who is speaking and why it is important not to follow this story through the eyes of only one character or even an omniscient being.
I found his descriptions and language beautiful. It was as close to being on an Oregon river in the winter as I would ever want to come; it was closer than I would ever want to get to a logging operation. The prose is beautiful, but there is also a touch of the poetic in his writing, as I think is demonstrated in this passage:
But the breath of memory still plucks such instances, setting the whole web shaking. People fade up the stairs, but to dream of each other’s dreams; of days coming gone and nights past coming; of hard sun-rods crisscrossing back and forward across outspreading circles of water, meaningless-seeming…
The Stamper family are loggers and rugged individualists. They don’t ask for anything and they give little thought to anyone outside their family circle. Henry Stamper is the patriarch of the clan and son, Hank is the heart and the driving force. When all the logging operations unionize and go out on strike, the Stamper’s non-union business takes up the major contract in the area, defying the strikers. Everyone is against them; the town is against them. Youngest son, Leland, is a college kid, raised in the city, away from this world, since the age of twelve. He has a decided problem with his older brother, and much of the angst and tension is heightened by the silent duel Lee is constantly fighting in his mind. He has come home, ostensibly to help with fulfilling the contract, but mostly for the personal satisfaction of proving he is able to dethrone his older brother. As if it were needed to add to the edginess, there is a woman involved.
This is a very long book and not a wasted page in it, with themes that are as large as the outdoorsmen who inhabit it. Sibling rivalry, individuals vs. organizations, brotherhood and the love between men who share daily dangers, how the needs of a woman differ from those of a man, and what love really is anyway, play out in the unwinding of the novel.
For there is always a sanctuary more, a door that can never be forced, a last inviolable stronghold that can never be taken, whatever the attack; your vote can be taken, you name, you innards, or even your life, but that last stonghold can only be surrendered. And to surrender it for any reason other than love is to surrender love.
If you like books that literally transport you to another world and hold you there, this book is for you. I thought about it after I turned the lights out at night. It haunted my sleep and distracted me from my duties. It consumed me. And, it made me twitch with the restlessness of these men and shake and worry for their safety from the environment, from the people around them, and from one another. This is a masterpiece.
One of the things I know is that Ken Kesey was a one of a kind writer, who knew his craft and invented his own style. Beginning this book can be off-putting, because there isn’t a narrator for the story--Kesey bounces around inside the heads of a dozen characters, switching without warning from one to the other, and making you dizzy with trying to sort out whose thoughts you are following. He also does nothing as mundane as telling a story in a linear fashion, oh no, he bounces time frames almost as much as he does characters in the beginning. But read on! When you have settled into the rhythm of what he is doing, he begins to tell a more linear tale and it becomes obvious to you who is speaking and why it is important not to follow this story through the eyes of only one character or even an omniscient being.
I found his descriptions and language beautiful. It was as close to being on an Oregon river in the winter as I would ever want to come; it was closer than I would ever want to get to a logging operation. The prose is beautiful, but there is also a touch of the poetic in his writing, as I think is demonstrated in this passage:
But the breath of memory still plucks such instances, setting the whole web shaking. People fade up the stairs, but to dream of each other’s dreams; of days coming gone and nights past coming; of hard sun-rods crisscrossing back and forward across outspreading circles of water, meaningless-seeming…
The Stamper family are loggers and rugged individualists. They don’t ask for anything and they give little thought to anyone outside their family circle. Henry Stamper is the patriarch of the clan and son, Hank is the heart and the driving force. When all the logging operations unionize and go out on strike, the Stamper’s non-union business takes up the major contract in the area, defying the strikers. Everyone is against them; the town is against them. Youngest son, Leland, is a college kid, raised in the city, away from this world, since the age of twelve. He has a decided problem with his older brother, and much of the angst and tension is heightened by the silent duel Lee is constantly fighting in his mind. He has come home, ostensibly to help with fulfilling the contract, but mostly for the personal satisfaction of proving he is able to dethrone his older brother. As if it were needed to add to the edginess, there is a woman involved.
This is a very long book and not a wasted page in it, with themes that are as large as the outdoorsmen who inhabit it. Sibling rivalry, individuals vs. organizations, brotherhood and the love between men who share daily dangers, how the needs of a woman differ from those of a man, and what love really is anyway, play out in the unwinding of the novel.
For there is always a sanctuary more, a door that can never be forced, a last inviolable stronghold that can never be taken, whatever the attack; your vote can be taken, you name, you innards, or even your life, but that last stonghold can only be surrendered. And to surrender it for any reason other than love is to surrender love.
If you like books that literally transport you to another world and hold you there, this book is for you. I thought about it after I turned the lights out at night. It haunted my sleep and distracted me from my duties. It consumed me. And, it made me twitch with the restlessness of these men and shake and worry for their safety from the environment, from the people around them, and from one another. This is a masterpiece.
March 7, 2007
Hands down the most underappreciated American novel ever! I think it should be up there with "Moby Dick" "Grapes of Wrath" etc. In fact, I think it is better. it's hard to imagine Ken Kesey, hippy acid head that he was would be able to so write so poignantly and beautifully but he absolutely pulled it off, his other famous novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" doesn't even hold a candle to "Sometimes a Great Notion" It's rather long and it is written in a "Faulkneresque" style where POV's switch back and forth but you get used to the rhythm you can easily sense the flow between characters points of view. You'll find each character equally dynamic so you don't have to worry about one characters story being duller than another’s. I'll leave it at this, if you don't read this book before you die, you are missing out.
January 24, 2008
Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion (Bantam Windstone, 1964)
I really, really wanted to like this book. An underread novel by an acknowledged American master of letters with a core of fans who consider it one of the best novels of the last century. What could be better? Well, to put it in as few words as possible, Kesey's writing style.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest works, and works so well, because it's tight. It's terse. It says what needs to be said. Kesey knows what he wants to say and says it. You get the idea. It's been compared to A Christmas Carol a number of times, and with very good reason. But if Cuckoo is Kesey's Christmas Carol, then Sometimes a Great Notion is Kesey's Bleak House. It's long-winded, rambling, incoherent, and could easily have lost three hundred pages from its final length without anyone noticing anything had gone; when your main character doesn't get to the place where all the action is happening until page 88, and still hasn't gotten his baggage from the bus terminal eight miles away fifty pages later, you know there's a whole lot of extraneous material therein. And while that makes sense within Kesey's chosen stylistic framework (the story is told by a
woman flipping through a photograph album), there's just too much of the rambling and not enough plot advancement. It's like being stuck in a whole novel of Melville's two-hundred-page cessation of action in Moby Dick. If you thought that was painfully unreadable, Sometimes a Great Notion may well send you into apoplectic fits.
I really, really wanted to like this book. An underread novel by an acknowledged American master of letters with a core of fans who consider it one of the best novels of the last century. What could be better? Well, to put it in as few words as possible, Kesey's writing style.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest works, and works so well, because it's tight. It's terse. It says what needs to be said. Kesey knows what he wants to say and says it. You get the idea. It's been compared to A Christmas Carol a number of times, and with very good reason. But if Cuckoo is Kesey's Christmas Carol, then Sometimes a Great Notion is Kesey's Bleak House. It's long-winded, rambling, incoherent, and could easily have lost three hundred pages from its final length without anyone noticing anything had gone; when your main character doesn't get to the place where all the action is happening until page 88, and still hasn't gotten his baggage from the bus terminal eight miles away fifty pages later, you know there's a whole lot of extraneous material therein. And while that makes sense within Kesey's chosen stylistic framework (the story is told by a
woman flipping through a photograph album), there's just too much of the rambling and not enough plot advancement. It's like being stuck in a whole novel of Melville's two-hundred-page cessation of action in Moby Dick. If you thought that was painfully unreadable, Sometimes a Great Notion may well send you into apoplectic fits.
June 23, 2022
This is a BIG story. It’s a complex story that studies a family’s relationships. It is complete with masculine gruffness, hard-driving work in the logging business and a family willing to stand for what they believe in. The Stampers are a rough-hewn, tough and self-reliant clan of loggers who live in a house situated on the powerful Wakonda Auga River in Oregon. The river is an ever-present force that threatens livelihoods with its unpredictability and constantly eroding banks. The patriarch of the Stamper family, Henry, has forged the homestead in his stubbornness and imprinted upon his son Hank to live the family’s motto of “Never Give an Inch”.
Hank Stamper epitomizes the rugged, courageous, strong-willed and fearless personality-type. He is loyal to his family and a prime example of self-sufficiency. His work ethic alone leads the family when the going gets really tough. Pressures begin to build up from the local union for the Stampers to conform and support the strike against the lumber company. Nevertheless, Hank’s family-run, non-union business begins filling a contract with the lumber company to the bitterness of the community. Without the backing of the Stampers, the union feels betrayed and the strike continues on. Hank’s unyielding determination is one of the driving forces of his decisions. He fights for what the family believes in to the end.
Hank’s younger brother Leland is completely his opposite. Taken away from the logging life to grow up on the east coast where his mother was from, Lee became the scholar and intellectual. When he is asked by the Stamper family to return to Wakonda to help fulfill the contract, Lee dredges up the old sibling rivalry. He returns set on revenge for some instances in the past that have been brewing for 12 years. Lee puts himself in the middle of a family he barely knows and a business he knows nothing about while at the same time trying to figure out a way to bring Hank down a notch or two. Lee, in the meantime, learns some important lessons about what it means to be a Stamper.
I have to mention how challenging this novel was to get started. Kesey’s prose is thoughtful and purposeful but the technique he chose took some getting used to. This 628 page story seems to ramble back and forth jumping from character to character. Keeping track of the point of view took some effort because the shifts came without any warning. He uses parentheses and italics to help offset these constant changes and omits chapter breaks as well, but once I got the feel for his meandering method, the story finally started to come together and really take flight. One of the things that actually helped me was the Hoopla audio. I’m not one that listens to audio but with a printed text copy to read along with it, my sanity was saved and I could distinguish the points of view so much easier with the audio.
This is Kesey’s masterpiece, full of thoughtful themes that bring forth some very intellectual discussions. What is it about independence, self-sufficiency and individualism? Kesey based this ambitious work on these ideas and created an unforgettable, male-dominated family in an unforgiving, beautiful setting. My time spent on the Oregon Coast was worthwhile. Seeing the rugged terrain and experiencing the back-breaking logging work through Kesey’s eyes, I know the journey through the pages was authentic in every way. Getting to witness the fortitude and nerve it takes to survive in a world such as this, puts a new perspective on strength and manliness.
But if the strength ain't real, I recall thinking the very last thing that day, before I finally passed out, then the weakness sure enough is. Weakness is true and real. I used to accuse the kid of faking his weakness. But faking proves the weakness is real. Or you wouldn't be so weak as to fake it. No, you can't ever fake being weak. You can only fake being strong…
Hank Stamper epitomizes the rugged, courageous, strong-willed and fearless personality-type. He is loyal to his family and a prime example of self-sufficiency. His work ethic alone leads the family when the going gets really tough. Pressures begin to build up from the local union for the Stampers to conform and support the strike against the lumber company. Nevertheless, Hank’s family-run, non-union business begins filling a contract with the lumber company to the bitterness of the community. Without the backing of the Stampers, the union feels betrayed and the strike continues on. Hank’s unyielding determination is one of the driving forces of his decisions. He fights for what the family believes in to the end.
Hank’s younger brother Leland is completely his opposite. Taken away from the logging life to grow up on the east coast where his mother was from, Lee became the scholar and intellectual. When he is asked by the Stamper family to return to Wakonda to help fulfill the contract, Lee dredges up the old sibling rivalry. He returns set on revenge for some instances in the past that have been brewing for 12 years. Lee puts himself in the middle of a family he barely knows and a business he knows nothing about while at the same time trying to figure out a way to bring Hank down a notch or two. Lee, in the meantime, learns some important lessons about what it means to be a Stamper.
I have to mention how challenging this novel was to get started. Kesey’s prose is thoughtful and purposeful but the technique he chose took some getting used to. This 628 page story seems to ramble back and forth jumping from character to character. Keeping track of the point of view took some effort because the shifts came without any warning. He uses parentheses and italics to help offset these constant changes and omits chapter breaks as well, but once I got the feel for his meandering method, the story finally started to come together and really take flight. One of the things that actually helped me was the Hoopla audio. I’m not one that listens to audio but with a printed text copy to read along with it, my sanity was saved and I could distinguish the points of view so much easier with the audio.
This is Kesey’s masterpiece, full of thoughtful themes that bring forth some very intellectual discussions. What is it about independence, self-sufficiency and individualism? Kesey based this ambitious work on these ideas and created an unforgettable, male-dominated family in an unforgiving, beautiful setting. My time spent on the Oregon Coast was worthwhile. Seeing the rugged terrain and experiencing the back-breaking logging work through Kesey’s eyes, I know the journey through the pages was authentic in every way. Getting to witness the fortitude and nerve it takes to survive in a world such as this, puts a new perspective on strength and manliness.
But if the strength ain't real, I recall thinking the very last thing that day, before I finally passed out, then the weakness sure enough is. Weakness is true and real. I used to accuse the kid of faking his weakness. But faking proves the weakness is real. Or you wouldn't be so weak as to fake it. No, you can't ever fake being weak. You can only fake being strong…
July 2, 2007
If V. Woolf had
a) grown up within sight of the Coastal Range, and
b) enormous, swinging testes,
then this book would be sold in a 3-pack with "Mrs Dalloway" and "The Waves" today. It's such literatoor, but it's so masculine and so blue-collar also. God I love it. The beautiful, funny slang; the creepy, right-on descriptions of the menacing landscape... It's got man vs. land and man vs. man. Who could ask for anything more?
a) grown up within sight of the Coastal Range, and
b) enormous, swinging testes,
then this book would be sold in a 3-pack with "Mrs Dalloway" and "The Waves" today. It's such literatoor, but it's so masculine and so blue-collar also. God I love it. The beautiful, funny slang; the creepy, right-on descriptions of the menacing landscape... It's got man vs. land and man vs. man. Who could ask for anything more?
July 21, 2014
I must admit that the premise for this novel – a strike in the logging industry during the 1960s – didn’t exactly set my heart aflutter with excitement, but I loved Kesey’s writing so much in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that I really wanted to give this one a chance. That turned out to be an excellent decision.
The crux of this novel, to me, was the complicated relationships that we have with one another and the deep rooted hurt that lives quietly within us. Our parents, our siblings, our spouses. What is it like to feel intense hatred for someone and be cursed to incurably love them at the same time? What do you do? If you’ve ever had a less than perfect relationship with a family member, if you’ve ever experienced the sting of betrayal from a parent, if you’ve ever left home and returned a stranger unable to relate to your kin or if you’ve spent your life trying to escape only to come full circle… you will relate to Leland Stamper.
Kesey’s writing blows me away. The novel is dense and scattered and the language is rich and beautiful. The narrative switches between different character’s points of view constantly and several times within one page. It took some getting used to but once I acclimatized, I liked it. Kesey seamlessly illustrated the way every moment is seen through different eyes and interpreted differently. A conversation, a decision, the smallest gesture - nothing is absolute. Everything we think we know is just a result of our perception.
This novel is deceptively intricate and contains keenly observed power struggles between brothers, between white collar and blue collar, between workers and bosses, between husbands and wives, between dreams and cold hard reality and a twist on a good ole fashioned Oedipus complex thrown in for good measure. It’s about the consequences of our decisions and the way one moment can change the rest of one’s life. It’s about absolution and letting go. It’s about love.
This book is heartbreaking, engrossing and very underrated.
The crux of this novel, to me, was the complicated relationships that we have with one another and the deep rooted hurt that lives quietly within us. Our parents, our siblings, our spouses. What is it like to feel intense hatred for someone and be cursed to incurably love them at the same time? What do you do? If you’ve ever had a less than perfect relationship with a family member, if you’ve ever experienced the sting of betrayal from a parent, if you’ve ever left home and returned a stranger unable to relate to your kin or if you’ve spent your life trying to escape only to come full circle… you will relate to Leland Stamper.
Kesey’s writing blows me away. The novel is dense and scattered and the language is rich and beautiful. The narrative switches between different character’s points of view constantly and several times within one page. It took some getting used to but once I acclimatized, I liked it. Kesey seamlessly illustrated the way every moment is seen through different eyes and interpreted differently. A conversation, a decision, the smallest gesture - nothing is absolute. Everything we think we know is just a result of our perception.
This novel is deceptively intricate and contains keenly observed power struggles between brothers, between white collar and blue collar, between workers and bosses, between husbands and wives, between dreams and cold hard reality and a twist on a good ole fashioned Oedipus complex thrown in for good measure. It’s about the consequences of our decisions and the way one moment can change the rest of one’s life. It’s about absolution and letting go. It’s about love.
This book is heartbreaking, engrossing and very underrated.
May 19, 2014
You know how George R.R. Martin changes narrative voices between chapters? Well, this book does that, but within paragraphs. In the first hundred pages, there were a few paragraphs that had, internally, four different perspectives. And I thought, what have I gotten myself into? Is this pretentious? Is it precious?
And more to the point, can I put up with this for 700 pages?
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
And more to the point, can I put up with this for 700 pages?
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
June 19, 2022
Magnificent! This underappreciated novel is an American classic every bit as epic as East of Eden and intricate as Moby-Dick, with characters so complex and real to me that I’m half expecting word to arrive soon from them, telling me what they’ve got up to since the story ended. Ken Kesey brings the Pacific Northwest to life. You’ll smell the spicy rhododendrons and feel the mist weighing down your hair as you read.
It’s the Oregon Coast, 1961. Logging country.
“… on the Peaceful and Promising Wakonda Auga River, Where (the pamphlets had informed him) A Man Can Make His Mark. Where A Man Can Start Anew. Where (the pamphlets said) The Grass Is Green, And The Sea Is Blue, And The Trees And Men Grow Tall And True! Out In The Great Northwest. Where (the pamphlets made It clear) There Is Elbow Room For A Man To Be As Big And Important As He Feels It Is In Him To Be!”
The Stamper clan is iconic in the area--tough, unforgiving, and on top. They’re in the midst of a fight with the other logging workers in town who, unlike the Stampers, belong to the union, and have gone on strike. Old wounds fester in that particular way they do in small towns.
Through the relationships-- between the loggers, between the clans, and amongst the Stamper family members--we begin to see what’s behind that beautiful and confounding blend of backward and shrewd that makes up these scrappy survivors.
The writing style is complex and artful. It made me think of this Herman Hesse quote:
“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?"
This is what Kesey does, flows the words like a river, in and out from present to past, pooling now and then so we can take a closer look, and at other times rushing so wildly that you lose your breath just reading. It can be hard to follow, but if you stay with it, go with the flow like floating down a river, you begin to make out what Kesey is doing, and it feels like a whole new way of seeing.
I was frustrated that the print copy I wanted wasn’t available, so I read the audio version on Hoopla. Even though audio is not my preferred mode of reading, I can’t praise the narrator of this version highly enough--Tom Stechschulte, an actor who sadly died last year. I see he has narrated quite a few titles available on Hoopla and I just bet they are all fantastic, because the performance he gave here in this long and complex novel was spellbinding.
A re-read in print is definitely in my future though, perhaps one of many before I can even begin to absorb this dazzling tour de force.
“Look... Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier. And the lives of such stuff as dreams are made of may be rounded with a sleep but they are not tied neatly with a red bow. Truth doesn’t run on time like a commuter train, though time may run on truth. And the Scenes Gone By and the Scenes to Come flow blending together in the sea-green deep while Now spreads in circles on the surface. So don’t sweat it. For focus simply move a few inches back or forward. And once more... look.”
It’s the Oregon Coast, 1961. Logging country.
“… on the Peaceful and Promising Wakonda Auga River, Where (the pamphlets had informed him) A Man Can Make His Mark. Where A Man Can Start Anew. Where (the pamphlets said) The Grass Is Green, And The Sea Is Blue, And The Trees And Men Grow Tall And True! Out In The Great Northwest. Where (the pamphlets made It clear) There Is Elbow Room For A Man To Be As Big And Important As He Feels It Is In Him To Be!”
The Stamper clan is iconic in the area--tough, unforgiving, and on top. They’re in the midst of a fight with the other logging workers in town who, unlike the Stampers, belong to the union, and have gone on strike. Old wounds fester in that particular way they do in small towns.
Through the relationships-- between the loggers, between the clans, and amongst the Stamper family members--we begin to see what’s behind that beautiful and confounding blend of backward and shrewd that makes up these scrappy survivors.
The writing style is complex and artful. It made me think of this Herman Hesse quote:
“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?"
This is what Kesey does, flows the words like a river, in and out from present to past, pooling now and then so we can take a closer look, and at other times rushing so wildly that you lose your breath just reading. It can be hard to follow, but if you stay with it, go with the flow like floating down a river, you begin to make out what Kesey is doing, and it feels like a whole new way of seeing.
I was frustrated that the print copy I wanted wasn’t available, so I read the audio version on Hoopla. Even though audio is not my preferred mode of reading, I can’t praise the narrator of this version highly enough--Tom Stechschulte, an actor who sadly died last year. I see he has narrated quite a few titles available on Hoopla and I just bet they are all fantastic, because the performance he gave here in this long and complex novel was spellbinding.
A re-read in print is definitely in my future though, perhaps one of many before I can even begin to absorb this dazzling tour de force.
“Look... Reality is greater than the sum of its parts, also a damn sight holier. And the lives of such stuff as dreams are made of may be rounded with a sleep but they are not tied neatly with a red bow. Truth doesn’t run on time like a commuter train, though time may run on truth. And the Scenes Gone By and the Scenes to Come flow blending together in the sea-green deep while Now spreads in circles on the surface. So don’t sweat it. For focus simply move a few inches back or forward. And once more... look.”
May 27, 2019
Most people only know of Ken Kesey, the novelist, because of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Some people know of him as the grand master of the Merry Pranksters in all their counter-cultural madness. "Either you're on the bus or you're off the bus." Sometimes A Great Notion was his second novel. It is long, it is deep, it is a bit experimental, but it is also considered his masterpiece.
I spent four days reading the book's 628 pages. The last two days I read over 200 pages a day because once I got through the eye of the needle that was the beginning, I was exponentially more enraptured every day. If you like long novels, this is one well worth spending your time reading.
The novel concerns an Oregon logging clan, their struggles, their successes, their deep family problems. If at any moment it feels like the Stampers are going down, you don't find out until the very end if they will.
Such fully fleshed heroic characters, such desperate dysfunction, such glorious writing about the people, the location, the weather, the physical and emotional strife. Such eccentricity in the face of change, such sheer cussedness indeed!
John Steinbeck is probably the most famous writer of the American West. Another guy who became well known for one novel: The Grapes of Wrath. Both went to Stanford University, both wrote about the plight of the common man. They were a generation apart. I would bet that Kesey read Steinbeck. My favorite Steinbeck novel is East of Eden. I think Sometimes a Great Notion was Kesey's East of Eden.
I spent four days reading the book's 628 pages. The last two days I read over 200 pages a day because once I got through the eye of the needle that was the beginning, I was exponentially more enraptured every day. If you like long novels, this is one well worth spending your time reading.
The novel concerns an Oregon logging clan, their struggles, their successes, their deep family problems. If at any moment it feels like the Stampers are going down, you don't find out until the very end if they will.
Such fully fleshed heroic characters, such desperate dysfunction, such glorious writing about the people, the location, the weather, the physical and emotional strife. Such eccentricity in the face of change, such sheer cussedness indeed!
John Steinbeck is probably the most famous writer of the American West. Another guy who became well known for one novel: The Grapes of Wrath. Both went to Stanford University, both wrote about the plight of the common man. They were a generation apart. I would bet that Kesey read Steinbeck. My favorite Steinbeck novel is East of Eden. I think Sometimes a Great Notion was Kesey's East of Eden.
March 7, 2022
Sometimes a Great Notion/Never Give an Inch was one of the best books I read around 2007-08 when I was in Mumbai. This book was tough as an axe. It is as tough as a black box that survived a plane crash. I did not have a TV back then, I was living in a single hospital bedroom converted into a paying guest facility and I could still read these tomes. Looking back, I appreciate these real writers like Ken Kesey who believed their 630 page tome was interesting enough, unlike some fraud lazy crime fiction writer whose 120 page novel might have contributed to the erosion of the effort that readers invested in a real writer and inspired 45 minute episodes of 10 season Netflix series that people consume today as art. Yes, those Whittingtons and Jim Thompsons contributed to the decline of the novel. Suck it up, you hard boiled noir fans. You people are like the Netflix watchers of the 1950s and 60s. Whittington, Thompson, Keene and Brewer would sell their souls to Demon Pasusu to be able write a novel like this.
The Stampers, the American family at the centre of this novel are like the La Mottas of Oregon. They fight the labor union, nature (the river is slowly consuming the Stamper ranch) and each other. The elder brother, Hank Stamper has screwed his half brother Leland Stamper's mother. Leland, who is like a pussy college student remembers the incident in his dreams. Leland goes back to Oregon and he moves in on his half brothers gentle wife Viv. There is an epic fistfight between the two brothers at the end of the book. Viv leaves and she watches the two brothers jumping over logs after their mutual love has fucked off. Men get along in the absence of the arousing female presence. I am writing this from memory.
People see too much into these American novels. Oooh! Hank hates change and hippies. Ultimately I believe this book is about raw American power (while also reflecting on its ills, obviously). It is about men who do not submit or bend that easily to nature and the system. The movie based on this book was a piece of shit despite having Paul Newman, Henry Fonda and Lee Remick.
The Stampers, the American family at the centre of this novel are like the La Mottas of Oregon. They fight the labor union, nature (the river is slowly consuming the Stamper ranch) and each other. The elder brother, Hank Stamper has screwed his half brother Leland Stamper's mother. Leland, who is like a pussy college student remembers the incident in his dreams. Leland goes back to Oregon and he moves in on his half brothers gentle wife Viv. There is an epic fistfight between the two brothers at the end of the book. Viv leaves and she watches the two brothers jumping over logs after their mutual love has fucked off. Men get along in the absence of the arousing female presence. I am writing this from memory.
People see too much into these American novels. Oooh! Hank hates change and hippies. Ultimately I believe this book is about raw American power (while also reflecting on its ills, obviously). It is about men who do not submit or bend that easily to nature and the system. The movie based on this book was a piece of shit despite having Paul Newman, Henry Fonda and Lee Remick.
July 9, 2021
It's hard to believe this was Kesey's sophomore effort It's like if Kurt Vonnegut Jr. dropped acid - the technical writing feat alone of telling so many intertwined stories (Never in all the mutherlovin' world did I think I would enjoy) and finding a character arc for each and decided to re-write Steinbeck's East of Eden changing POVs and narrators constantly (no not enjoy but WATCH OUT love) sometimes three times in a paragraph (no not love but...ok, yes, love WATCH OUT) or maybe even a sentence and also bouncing back and forth in time and starting at the end featuring a logging family and there's so much richness in the setting and the characters, even minor ones (this book as much as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which might be my favorite book of all time, or at least one of them) in a small Oregon river town it's not an easy read (but here we are WATCH OUT WATCH OUT WATCH OUT and I'm still reeling with astonishment) but it is rewarding informed not by biblical verses for those who persevere (that he somehow wrote this whole thing on a dad-blamed typewriter) but by song lyrics and NEVER GIVE A INCH.
February 27, 2021
4.5 rounded up.
Whew! Finally got to the end of this 30 hour audiobook. I'd read this book many years ago, but a recent review by a GR friend (thanks, Robin!) reminded me of it, and I decided to revisit it to see how it landed now that I've lived so much more life. Kesey's other book (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) is one of my all time favorites, so I looked forward to re-experiencing this one.
It did not disappoint. On the surface it appears to be about small town loggers, union strikes, competing business interests, and the strife that comes when people land on opposite sides of an issue. But threaded throughout are complicated family dynamics, old and new grievances, the subtle and not-so-subtle whittling that happens as we rub up against each other, shaping our self-view and leaving scarred tracks in our beliefs and well-being.
It was man's world back then, and this book is testosterone rich, which might not suit everyone. It was also jarring to hear the N word used so casually as an expletive, which is pretty offensive and unexpected in today's world. I had to look past that, and forgive the author for it. This takes place in Oregon and it was fun to hear so many references to places I'm very familiar with. My paternal grandfather was a logger and lost his life in a logging accident. Hearing the descriptions of the work done brought to life the dangers of this occupation back in the day.
It was a bit difficult to follow who was speaking because different characters became the narrator without warning, perhaps made even more so because it was on audio. That said, narrator of the audiobook was very good and tried to change voices a bit to help distinguish the speaker.
Overall, a good listen and a fascinating and well-written story.
Whew! Finally got to the end of this 30 hour audiobook. I'd read this book many years ago, but a recent review by a GR friend (thanks, Robin!) reminded me of it, and I decided to revisit it to see how it landed now that I've lived so much more life. Kesey's other book (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) is one of my all time favorites, so I looked forward to re-experiencing this one.
It did not disappoint. On the surface it appears to be about small town loggers, union strikes, competing business interests, and the strife that comes when people land on opposite sides of an issue. But threaded throughout are complicated family dynamics, old and new grievances, the subtle and not-so-subtle whittling that happens as we rub up against each other, shaping our self-view and leaving scarred tracks in our beliefs and well-being.
It was man's world back then, and this book is testosterone rich, which might not suit everyone. It was also jarring to hear the N word used so casually as an expletive, which is pretty offensive and unexpected in today's world. I had to look past that, and forgive the author for it. This takes place in Oregon and it was fun to hear so many references to places I'm very familiar with. My paternal grandfather was a logger and lost his life in a logging accident. Hearing the descriptions of the work done brought to life the dangers of this occupation back in the day.
It was a bit difficult to follow who was speaking because different characters became the narrator without warning, perhaps made even more so because it was on audio. That said, narrator of the audiobook was very good and tried to change voices a bit to help distinguish the speaker.
Overall, a good listen and a fascinating and well-written story.
March 19, 2024
Catching up…
This was a dare read. Back in the day. What did I know? I was trying to impress a boy. I wanted him to think I was smart. I must have read it originally back in the 1990’s.
But this book was actually published in 1964 after the author’s successful, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which went on to become well-known, when it was made into the 1975 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher.
Still, this book was also made into a film, in 1971 with a fairly renowned cast…Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, and Lee Remick.
It didn’t come up again for me until it was donated to my Little Free Library Shed. I know, this is becoming a regular for me. And you, who read my reviews. I can’t help it. A lifetime of reading experiences, and another opportunity for re-visits. What can I say? And now, a review to post.
This is a story of a family in a small logging town in Oregon. But it is a story that is dark and filled with internal conflict. There is a bitter fight with the union that protects the town. And it appears to be a battle between brothers.
It is a challenging read, besides a long one (over 600 pages). It rambles. POV’s shift. The author is unorthodox in his writing approach – does that make him unique? Consider his success from book to screen.
Yet, the story is compelling. Engaging. With exasperating characters. If you are patient with it, it might be interesting reading. Or, you can go find the movie.
3.5 stars rounded down.
This was a dare read. Back in the day. What did I know? I was trying to impress a boy. I wanted him to think I was smart. I must have read it originally back in the 1990’s.
But this book was actually published in 1964 after the author’s successful, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which went on to become well-known, when it was made into the 1975 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher.
Still, this book was also made into a film, in 1971 with a fairly renowned cast…Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, and Lee Remick.
It didn’t come up again for me until it was donated to my Little Free Library Shed. I know, this is becoming a regular for me. And you, who read my reviews. I can’t help it. A lifetime of reading experiences, and another opportunity for re-visits. What can I say? And now, a review to post.
This is a story of a family in a small logging town in Oregon. But it is a story that is dark and filled with internal conflict. There is a bitter fight with the union that protects the town. And it appears to be a battle between brothers.
It is a challenging read, besides a long one (over 600 pages). It rambles. POV’s shift. The author is unorthodox in his writing approach – does that make him unique? Consider his success from book to screen.
Yet, the story is compelling. Engaging. With exasperating characters. If you are patient with it, it might be interesting reading. Or, you can go find the movie.
3.5 stars rounded down.
March 13, 2022
I live in the Northwest. My bookish friends have said to me, “What? You live in the Northwest and you’ve never read SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION?!” Well now I have. The 628-page classic, written by Ken Kesey of the Merry Pranksters group, has become seared into my brain. Published in 1964, the plot revolves around the fictional Stamper logging family who reside along the Oregon coast.
The setting is the mid-1900s, when loyalty still meant something. The logging industry, as dangerous as ever, also faced challenges in unions and strikes. The story itself is told in an ever-changing, and sometimes challenging, POV between the main characters of Hank Stamper, the oldest son, Lee, the half-brother of Hank, and to a lesser extent Old Henry, the patriarch. In the Stamper family there swirls the permeation of orneriness, perseverance, resolution, and obliviousness, among other attributes.
The mythos of brotherly love is also put to the test. Lee, having been on the East coast since the age of twelve, returns to the family home in Wakonda as a young man bent on settling a score.
A wide variety of characters inhabit the small town of Wakonda and they all have important struggles within themselves. The local prostitute, Simone, struggles with her religious background. Willard, a quiet man with a secret, struggles with a life-altering decision. We each have our own struggles and in that, we can closely relate with some of these people.
Mr. Kesey grew up in Oregon and he describes the flora and fauna in exquisite detail:
In the deer-grass meadows the long last of the summer’s flowers take long last looks through the fall’s first frost at the dark garden of stars and wave their windy good-bys: the spiderwort and blue verrain, the trout lily and adder’s tongue, the bleeding heart and pearly everlasting, and the carrion weed with is death scented bloom. In the Scandinavian slums at the edge of town bloodroot vines reach garroting fingers for knotholes, warpholes, and window sills. The tide grinds piling against dock, dock against piling.
It was a bit disconcerting to have the POV changing so often, especially when it happened two or three times in one paragraph, but it was an interesting effect when the heat was turned up and the pace of the thoughts ran faster as well.
A build-up of a feeling of dread was pervasive about mid-way through the book and it was not unwarranted.
The characters were entirely believable and fleshed-out. Joe-Ben was a favorite goof-ball and the thoughts of bar-owner Teddy were circumspect.
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION is very much worth your effort to read.
The setting is the mid-1900s, when loyalty still meant something. The logging industry, as dangerous as ever, also faced challenges in unions and strikes. The story itself is told in an ever-changing, and sometimes challenging, POV between the main characters of Hank Stamper, the oldest son, Lee, the half-brother of Hank, and to a lesser extent Old Henry, the patriarch. In the Stamper family there swirls the permeation of orneriness, perseverance, resolution, and obliviousness, among other attributes.
The mythos of brotherly love is also put to the test. Lee, having been on the East coast since the age of twelve, returns to the family home in Wakonda as a young man bent on settling a score.
A wide variety of characters inhabit the small town of Wakonda and they all have important struggles within themselves. The local prostitute, Simone, struggles with her religious background. Willard, a quiet man with a secret, struggles with a life-altering decision. We each have our own struggles and in that, we can closely relate with some of these people.
Mr. Kesey grew up in Oregon and he describes the flora and fauna in exquisite detail:
In the deer-grass meadows the long last of the summer’s flowers take long last looks through the fall’s first frost at the dark garden of stars and wave their windy good-bys: the spiderwort and blue verrain, the trout lily and adder’s tongue, the bleeding heart and pearly everlasting, and the carrion weed with is death scented bloom. In the Scandinavian slums at the edge of town bloodroot vines reach garroting fingers for knotholes, warpholes, and window sills. The tide grinds piling against dock, dock against piling.
It was a bit disconcerting to have the POV changing so often, especially when it happened two or three times in one paragraph, but it was an interesting effect when the heat was turned up and the pace of the thoughts ran faster as well.
A build-up of a feeling of dread was pervasive about mid-way through the book and it was not unwarranted.
The characters were entirely believable and fleshed-out. Joe-Ben was a favorite goof-ball and the thoughts of bar-owner Teddy were circumspect.
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION is very much worth your effort to read.
January 9, 2010
I'm going to divide my review of this into 2 sections: me as a reader, and me as a writer:
I love reading books that straddle that line between profundity and enjoyment. In "Notion", Kesey tackles some difficult themes--union busting, technology infringing upon humans involvement with the means of production, sex and family politics/roles, revenge, alcoholism, social stigmas--yet the book never feels didactic or preachy. He avoids this because of the tone with which he wrote the book: it's fun to read. Not to oversimplify things, but too often I think we muddle things up as we dissect or deconstruct literature. Some times, maybe it's better to write a fun, kick ass, hilarious, vivid, sad, confusing, all-encompassing messy book! There's a vitality and life in this narrative; it almost feels conversational, like someone's whispering it in your ear. And so it engages the reader on a personal level, lures us into the complex story with its relaxed, self assured style.
The writer side of me: Kesey is doing things with point-of-view that are/were groundbreaking: his willingness to have multiple characters talk in the "I" voice all in the same paragraph is an incredible risk. I admire his confidence to write in this wild way, seemingly not to worry (or care) whether or not the reader gets confused (he does give clues as to the speakers' identities, but it's still bemusing). He's asking a lot of his audience, in terms of active participation with the narrative, but if you're willing to do the work, this novel is amazing. But if you don't like "working" a bit to decode what's happening on the page, this one probably isn't for you.
Definitely in my top five all time...
I love reading books that straddle that line between profundity and enjoyment. In "Notion", Kesey tackles some difficult themes--union busting, technology infringing upon humans involvement with the means of production, sex and family politics/roles, revenge, alcoholism, social stigmas--yet the book never feels didactic or preachy. He avoids this because of the tone with which he wrote the book: it's fun to read. Not to oversimplify things, but too often I think we muddle things up as we dissect or deconstruct literature. Some times, maybe it's better to write a fun, kick ass, hilarious, vivid, sad, confusing, all-encompassing messy book! There's a vitality and life in this narrative; it almost feels conversational, like someone's whispering it in your ear. And so it engages the reader on a personal level, lures us into the complex story with its relaxed, self assured style.
The writer side of me: Kesey is doing things with point-of-view that are/were groundbreaking: his willingness to have multiple characters talk in the "I" voice all in the same paragraph is an incredible risk. I admire his confidence to write in this wild way, seemingly not to worry (or care) whether or not the reader gets confused (he does give clues as to the speakers' identities, but it's still bemusing). He's asking a lot of his audience, in terms of active participation with the narrative, but if you're willing to do the work, this novel is amazing. But if you don't like "working" a bit to decode what's happening on the page, this one probably isn't for you.
Definitely in my top five all time...
August 11, 2008
Living in the Willamette Valley I had several occasions to see Ken Kesey -- in downtown Eugene, at the MacDonald Theater, and even at the Saturday Market. He enjoyed a local following that elevated him and his friends to an almost rock-star status. My husband had gone to high school with his son and described a Ken Kesey separate from the Merry Prankster charter member and that public persona.
One late spring afternoon, we were driving from Springfield towards Pleasant Hill, and came up on a big old convertable -- maybe a Caddy -- with the man at the helm with a grin on his face and the wind ruffling his greying hair. As we took the turns on the windy, rural road behind the big car, I noticed it was Kesey. Struggling at that time with my undone want to write and my fear of a future as a bank employee or an accountant or something equally as awful and cubicleized -- I was so impressed by Kesey's peaceful smile that it encouraged me to continue with my art. I wanted that same peacefilled, unworried smile that I imagined could only come from letting that level of creativity out into the world.
Instead of the Merry Prankster, I choose to remember Kesey as the creativity-filled young man who spent time in the logging communities of Mapleton and Noti -- learning about the people and the communities and the way of life he wrote about in this book.
One late spring afternoon, we were driving from Springfield towards Pleasant Hill, and came up on a big old convertable -- maybe a Caddy -- with the man at the helm with a grin on his face and the wind ruffling his greying hair. As we took the turns on the windy, rural road behind the big car, I noticed it was Kesey. Struggling at that time with my undone want to write and my fear of a future as a bank employee or an accountant or something equally as awful and cubicleized -- I was so impressed by Kesey's peaceful smile that it encouraged me to continue with my art. I wanted that same peacefilled, unworried smile that I imagined could only come from letting that level of creativity out into the world.
Instead of the Merry Prankster, I choose to remember Kesey as the creativity-filled young man who spent time in the logging communities of Mapleton and Noti -- learning about the people and the communities and the way of life he wrote about in this book.
May 13, 2021
There I was, ready to kick off my year with the reading of a long novel by an author presumably older and wiser than I am. So imagine my surprise and irritation when, after some arduous research, I discovered that Ken Kesey finished Sometimes a Great Notion (1964) before he turned 30. Which suggests that he was younger and wiser than I am, a combination that I'm less appreciative of. I tell you, the gall of this man.
To add insult to injury, Kesey by '64 had already written and published One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962). And while Notion, his second novel, can't exactly be called obscure (I don't really think a story that was adapted into a movie with Paul Newman, Lee Remick and Henry Fonda can be called obscure, anyway), there's no mystery, as soon as you start reading, why it's not as mainstream as Cuckoo's Nest. It's 600 + pages; its chapters are long; its descriptive passages are sometimes dense (but we're not in Joyce or Faulkner territory, either); and the style is experimental and intentionally choppy. There are a lot of ellipses in these pages, and a lot of phrases in italics to signify thought; the perspective can shift unannounced, within the same paragraph, from third-person to first-person, and then sometimes to an entirely different first-person. Even the ostensibly third-person narrator- who occasionally zooms out from focusing on the main characters to tell us about the weather in the fictional Oregon coastal town of Wakonda, the goings-on at the Snag (the local bar), the spiritual explorations of a character called Indian Jenny, or the gastrointestinal discomfort of Union-head Floyd Evenwrite- often sounds like an Oregon lumberjack himself, dialect and all.
But this experimental quality doesn't detract from- and I would say enhances- the novel's core strengths, one of which is that Kesey simply has a great story to tell, a story in which he takes seriously both his characters' inner lives- thoughts, dreams, fantasies, the minute-by-minute experience of work, and of being in nature- as well as the shared outside world of work unions, strikes, the local economy, public sentiment as revealed through the mumblings and mutterings at the Snag, and the indifference to all human endeavor of the river that flows through town.
Another of the novel's strengths is its sense of place. We experience the weather (always raining), the birds, the landscape, and the way people of this time and place really talk. Granted, I have never been to the Pacific Northwest (which I've often thought of as consisting of only two states- Oregon and Washington- but which Wikipedia now tells me can be more expansively conceived to include British Columbia, Idaho, and, some would have it, even northern California and western Montana; for all intents and purposes in this novel, however, we're really just talking about the "wet" part of Oregon, west of the Cascades), but this book made me feel like I was there.
But it's also a great novel of character. It's not an especially intellectual or high-concept story. And by that I don't mean to say that Kesey was a dummy- clearly he wasn't, but he is more interested in telling a story, and pulling you into the rhythms of his characters' lives, than in intellect, or in advancing political or social arguments. Sure, there are ideas at play- there's the tension between individualism and collectivism, as well as between a traditional conception of American life and the conceptions of the 60s generation that was just coming into being as Kesey was writing- but it also feels somewhat false to talk about the novel in these terms. I think that's because, like Dostoevsky, Kesey remains focused on his characters- he's not interested in their ideas and views of the world in the abstract, but in how those views manifest, either in cooperation or conflict with others. In other words, this is a drama first, while the polemic is...nowhere in sight.
I won't go too deeply into the characters or the mechanics of the plot, but suffice to say that the novel centers on the Stampers, an Oregon family of...ah...gyppo loggers (Wikipedia tells me this is the correct term, but I'm happy to be corrected- please don't send the PC police). Basically meaning that they're not part of the logging union, and they do their own thing. You've got Henry, the overbearing patriarch with a touch of Fyodor Karamazov, who talks about what logging was like in the good old days; there's his son, Hank, who is individualistic, self-reliant, a man's man; Hank's wife, Viv, who left Colorado to live with the Stampers in Oregon; cousin Joe Ben, a naive but somewhat saintly figure; and Leland, Hank's younger half-brother (), a neurotic college student living on the east coast, ostensibly spending all his time studying.
One of the major conflicts of the book is set into motion when most of the small logging town of Wakonda goes on strike against Wakonda Pacific; the Stampers cut a deal (no pun intended) to provide the timber to WP anyway, slowly alienating the family from the rest of the town. Kesey jumps from the Snag, to the local movie theater, to Indian Jenny, who occasionally makes money from prostitution, and we thereby get to see the economic and personal consequences of the Stampers' strike-breaking for the entire town. The only person who's happy about any of it is Teddy, the Snag's weirdly passive-aggressive bartender/owner. The Stampers meanwhile need all the help they can get in order to fulfill their contract with WP, so Hank gets word to Leland back east, asking "the kid" if he's got time to come help with the axe-swinging and tree-felling and generally hellish forest-centered labor- which sets up the novel's other major conflict: the rivalry between the two half-brothers that Hank doesn't even perceive as a rivalry, at least not initially.
In one of my favorite scenes, athlete's foot-plagued (at least whenever he spends time in the wetness of the Pacific Northwest) union rep Jon Draeger heads out to the Stamper home to try to talk some of what he regards as sense into Hank. This scene doesn't take place in the book until around page 360, but it seems I wasn't the only one taken with it, because it's also the scene with which the movie opens. In keeping with my feelings on the book, I don't like this scene because I necessarily think one character is right and the other is wrong, but because of the way the dialogue sings; how vividly I can hear Draeger's voice, and imagine Hank trembling with anger and incredulity, especially in his repetition of that word, "loyalty":
"What are we to tell the people in town?" Draeger asked again.
"Why, I don't care what you tell them. I don't see--"
"Are you aware, Hank, that Wakonda Pacific is owned by a firm in San Francisco? Are you aware that last year a net of nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars left your community?"
"I don't see what skin that is--"
"These are your friends, Hank. Your associates and neighbors. Floyd tells me that you served in Korea." Draeger's voice was placid..."Do you ever think that the same loyalty that your country expected of you overseas could be expected of you here at home? Loyalty to friends and neighbors when they are being threatened by a foreign foe? Loyalty to--?"
"Loyalty, for the chrissake...loyalty?"
"That's right, Hank. I think you know what I'm talking about." The soothing patience of the voice was almost mesmerizing. "I'm speaking of the basic loyalty, the true patriotism, the selfless, open-hearted, humane concern that you always find welling up from some place within you- a concern you might have almost forgotten- when you see a fellow human being in need of your help..."
"Listen...listen to me, Mister." Hank's voice was taut. He pushed past Evenwrite and held his lantern close to Draeger's neat-featured face. "I'm just as concerned as the next guy, just as loyal. If we was to get into it with Russia I'd fight for us right down to the wire. And if Oregon was to get into it with California I'd fight for Oregon. But if somebody- Biggy Newtown or the Woodsworker's Union or anybody- gets into it with me, then I'm for me! When the chips are down, I'm my own patriot. I don't give a goddam the other guy is my own brother wavin' the American flag and singing the friggin' Star Spangled Banner!"
Some have pointed out that this is a very male-oriented book, which is fair, and maybe I'm guilty at times of not even being conscious of that sort of thing. And it's true, now that I have made myself conscious of it, that Joe Ben's wife, Jan, for example, is almost totally unexplored as a character. Indian Jenny plays a role here that I'm not entirely sure I understand, but for better or worse the thing I will remember most about her is the strange and inauspicious (?) coincidence that at one point in this book she actually purchases the novel that I'm planning to read next- The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann- and later . Leland's mother is very significant in the story, in a sense, but she's also dead. On the other hand, there's Viv. Kesey leaves us in the dark for quite a while, or nearly in the dark, with regards to how she feels about a certain plot development, which creates a great deal of suspense and tension, and so for a while she seems present yet aloof; but it seems to me that in the last hundred pages or so she becomes the soul of the novel, and I ended up feeling more empathy for her, for her experience of the passage of time and her lost chances, than for any other character.
Most of my GR friends who have read this book have rated it 5 stars. I see a few 4 stars as well, and despite my admiration for the book, I think I can understand that rating. After a mesmerizing couple of hundred pages or so of rising action, during which characters and events seemed to hang tantalizingly in the air, events inevitably had to start happening- that's the way stories go, I guess- and maybe one or two too many events happened down the stretch of this novel, including a pivotal scene that, to me, felt like it could fit too easily into an award-winning tear-jerker.
And yet this is an imperfect novel that I wouldn't change a word of. You could smooth out its rough edges, you could make it a more palatable entertainment, but I think that would cost it some of its depth and power. I've had it on my shelf for a few years now, and finally happened to pick it up at just the right time: a month during which a friend of mine had a health scare, I stopped exercising and spent a lot of time lying down because I convinced myself I had Covid (I didn't), and I generally felt the passage of time and my own mortality with more bite than usual. The only thing that could have been more appropriate would have been if I had taken a trip to the Pacific Northwest; which if anyone out there is planning to do by the way, I don't mean to be pushy, but in that case you really have to read this book.
I watched the movie on YouTube a few nights ago, and I'm not capable of evaluating it. It's just too disorienting to see characters I spent six weeks reading about compressed into a movie of 1 hour and 53 minutes. Paul Newman captures Hank's confidence and charisma, even if I did not imagine Hank to be quite so good-looking. The lovely Lee Remick (who, in a strange twist of fate, went on to become the mother of the Antichrist) is great as Viv, and Michael Sarrazin (an actor I was not familiar with) as Leland is okay, except for in certain scenes looking like he's in his thirties. Henry Fonda plays, well...Henry. So yeah, things are covered on the acting front, but the characters are- perhaps inevitably- much less nuanced. Henry is more of a red-baiting stereotype in the movie, while Hank and Leland are a bit sanitized- Leland especially isn't nearly as creepy or vindictive- making each of them easier to root for, but also less interesting. This rooting interest the movie wants us to take is underscored by the final image of cool defiance, involving a literal middle-finger (to whom, exactly? Unions?), a defiance that I think the novel is ultimately more ambivalent about.
January 26, 2013
If you have yet to read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, put this down and pick that up. If you have read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, realize before you begin reading Sometimes a Great Notion that this is not that.
In case you missed my biasedness, I like Ken Kesey’s first novel. A lot. So, I went into Sometimes a Great Notion expecting nothing short of greatness. And after finishing his second novel, I would say that it didn’t quite meet my lofty prospects. But that isn’t to say that I didn’t like it or that it was bad. Because there’s plenty to like about Notion: at times, Kesey’s manly-man poeticism; his terrific characterization of his main players and supporting cast; his use of setting, rooting us into this Oregon logging town; as well as establishing and always sticking by his theme.
The reason why I had trouble with this novel is because it’s a difficult reading experience. Cuckoo’s Nest was fairly straightforward, and I guess I expected Notion to be similar in style. But it wasn’t. Kesey has these long, meandering, nearly indecipherable, dreamlike passages (particularly in the beginning) that can feel like the man’s writing while on a hallucinogenic drug (and I’m not referring to Leland’s trips), leaving the reader to wonder …what’s this story about? A logging family, right? He also jumps around between character perspectives, sometimes at the start of paragraphs, but even within a paragraph, too, and typically not signifying that a switch has happened. So yeah, it was experimental, and thus, frustrating at times. To put it in Hollywood-speak, it’s like he did his ���commercial’ project, and now he has the finances to make his independent one. His ‘baby’. Who knows, though. But what I do know is, once he steered this story on course, and there was a plot to follow, it was then followable.
I did eventually get sucked into Notion, with lines like this:
I mean, how could you not? Such swoon potential in that prose.
What also drew me in was Kesey tackling the matter of Man’s struggle with masculinity (I think that may be the sole reason why Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises interested me), and how we can’t change the past, yet has molded us into who we are in the present, and consequently affects our future; or as he put it, simply, “trapped by our existence” (75). Young Leland Stamper, as a kid, witnesses his older half-brother, Hank, having sex with his mom (Hank’s stepmom) in secret through a hole in the wall between bedrooms, on a number of occasions. In short, that fucked Leland up. As it would anyone. And then, years later, after Leland and his mom leave the logging family to go back East, where he gets an education, and she eventually commits suicide, it’s only natural for him to be angry and seek revenge on the one person who he feels took away the one good thing in his life.
That, right there, is the jumping point to Notion. The Stampers, Hank (older brother/logger boss) Henry (father/former logger boss/drunk) and Joe Ben (cousin/sidekick), are in-need of help with their workers all on strike, a major logging project to complete, and a deadline approaching fast. Oh yeah, and it’s causing a major ripple effect of tension in their town of Wakonda. So they reach out to family for help, and intellectual, college boy Leland answers the call, putting aside books for boots, and with vengeance on his mind, to make Hank feel all the pain, all the agony, and ruin his life the same way he ruined Leland’s.
Oh, brotherly love.
I should say that it’s not until Leland comes back home to Oregon and begins living with his family that he sees and realizes just how he'll settle the score. His retribution only becomes crystal clear, then. The only problem, for me anyway, is that it takes Kesey hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages to get to the payoff. And it’s worth it (Kesey’s backstory of Hank and Vivian meeting, and movie theater/laundry shop owner Willard Eggleston’s hidden affair, alone, are truly superb), it’s just it’s a lot of work (sometimes painstaking work) to get there.
In case you missed my biasedness, I like Ken Kesey’s first novel. A lot. So, I went into Sometimes a Great Notion expecting nothing short of greatness. And after finishing his second novel, I would say that it didn’t quite meet my lofty prospects. But that isn’t to say that I didn’t like it or that it was bad. Because there’s plenty to like about Notion: at times, Kesey’s manly-man poeticism; his terrific characterization of his main players and supporting cast; his use of setting, rooting us into this Oregon logging town; as well as establishing and always sticking by his theme.
The reason why I had trouble with this novel is because it’s a difficult reading experience. Cuckoo’s Nest was fairly straightforward, and I guess I expected Notion to be similar in style. But it wasn’t. Kesey has these long, meandering, nearly indecipherable, dreamlike passages (particularly in the beginning) that can feel like the man’s writing while on a hallucinogenic drug (and I’m not referring to Leland’s trips), leaving the reader to wonder …what’s this story about? A logging family, right? He also jumps around between character perspectives, sometimes at the start of paragraphs, but even within a paragraph, too, and typically not signifying that a switch has happened. So yeah, it was experimental, and thus, frustrating at times. To put it in Hollywood-speak, it’s like he did his ���commercial’ project, and now he has the finances to make his independent one. His ‘baby’. Who knows, though. But what I do know is, once he steered this story on course, and there was a plot to follow, it was then followable.
I did eventually get sucked into Notion, with lines like this:
“…that for the sake of his poorest and shakiest and screwiest principles he will lay down his life, endure pain, ridicule, and even, sometimes, that most demeaning American hardships, discomfort, but will relinquish his firmest stand for Love… Love--and all its complicated ramifications, Draeger believed--actually does conquer all; Love--or the Fear of Not Having It, or the Worry about Not Having Enough of It, or the Terror of Losing It--certainly does conquer all” (10).
I mean, how could you not? Such swoon potential in that prose.
What also drew me in was Kesey tackling the matter of Man’s struggle with masculinity (I think that may be the sole reason why Hemmingway’s The Sun Also Rises interested me), and how we can’t change the past, yet has molded us into who we are in the present, and consequently affects our future; or as he put it, simply, “trapped by our existence” (75). Young Leland Stamper, as a kid, witnesses his older half-brother, Hank, having sex with his mom (Hank’s stepmom) in secret through a hole in the wall between bedrooms, on a number of occasions. In short, that fucked Leland up. As it would anyone. And then, years later, after Leland and his mom leave the logging family to go back East, where he gets an education, and she eventually commits suicide, it’s only natural for him to be angry and seek revenge on the one person who he feels took away the one good thing in his life.
That, right there, is the jumping point to Notion. The Stampers, Hank (older brother/logger boss) Henry (father/former logger boss/drunk) and Joe Ben (cousin/sidekick), are in-need of help with their workers all on strike, a major logging project to complete, and a deadline approaching fast. Oh yeah, and it’s causing a major ripple effect of tension in their town of Wakonda. So they reach out to family for help, and intellectual, college boy Leland answers the call, putting aside books for boots, and with vengeance on his mind, to make Hank feel all the pain, all the agony, and ruin his life the same way he ruined Leland’s.
Oh, brotherly love.
I should say that it’s not until Leland comes back home to Oregon and begins living with his family that he sees and realizes just how he'll settle the score. His retribution only becomes crystal clear, then. The only problem, for me anyway, is that it takes Kesey hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages to get to the payoff. And it’s worth it (Kesey’s backstory of Hank and Vivian meeting, and movie theater/laundry shop owner Willard Eggleston’s hidden affair, alone, are truly superb), it’s just it’s a lot of work (sometimes painstaking work) to get there.
February 6, 2024
Ken Kesey was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. He is best known for his 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which was an immediate commercial and critical success and was made into the popular movie starring Jack Nicholson. During the period of writing Cuckoo, Kesey participated in CIA-financed studies involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD) to supplement his income and later became known for hosting happenings with former colleagues which involved LSD consumption.
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION was Kesey's second novel about an Oregon logging family that Kesey aspired to the modernist grandeur of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha saga and regarded it as his magnum opus. He took the title from the song "Goodnight, Irene", popularized by Lead Belly.
Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in the town
Sometimes I haves a great notion
To jump into the river an' drown
The novel is set around an Oregon logging camp and it focuses on the Stamper family who are at odds with the town and their union, and also at odds with each other. The story revolves around brothers Hank and Leland Stamper and their conflict dating back to when Leland was a small child. Leland left Oregon with his mother (Hank's step-mother) and had lived in New York going to college. But when he receives a post card from Hank and the other Stampers wanting him to help in the work in Oregon, he returns to get involved in the middle of a conflict with the trade union. But Leland is also returning to seek vengeance on Hank who he feels wronged him and his mother years before.
This was a very long (over 600 pages) and sprawling novel written with many vivid descriptions of the Oregon logging community and the risks and dangers of the logging profession. It was filled with a wide-range of emotions including both humor and tragedy. Kesey's style did take a little getting used to; he would randomly change first person narratives from one person to another making it sometimes hard to keep track of who was giving the account. But overall, I would consider this a great novel which did somewhat remind me of Faulkner. This was also made into a movie in 1970 with Paul Newman and Henry Fonda. I saw this when it first came out and remember enjoying it but I know it was definitely watered down from the novel. I may seek it out again for a rewatch.
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION was Kesey's second novel about an Oregon logging family that Kesey aspired to the modernist grandeur of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha saga and regarded it as his magnum opus. He took the title from the song "Goodnight, Irene", popularized by Lead Belly.
Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in the town
Sometimes I haves a great notion
To jump into the river an' drown
The novel is set around an Oregon logging camp and it focuses on the Stamper family who are at odds with the town and their union, and also at odds with each other. The story revolves around brothers Hank and Leland Stamper and their conflict dating back to when Leland was a small child. Leland left Oregon with his mother (Hank's step-mother) and had lived in New York going to college. But when he receives a post card from Hank and the other Stampers wanting him to help in the work in Oregon, he returns to get involved in the middle of a conflict with the trade union. But Leland is also returning to seek vengeance on Hank who he feels wronged him and his mother years before.
This was a very long (over 600 pages) and sprawling novel written with many vivid descriptions of the Oregon logging community and the risks and dangers of the logging profession. It was filled with a wide-range of emotions including both humor and tragedy. Kesey's style did take a little getting used to; he would randomly change first person narratives from one person to another making it sometimes hard to keep track of who was giving the account. But overall, I would consider this a great novel which did somewhat remind me of Faulkner. This was also made into a movie in 1970 with Paul Newman and Henry Fonda. I saw this when it first came out and remember enjoying it but I know it was definitely watered down from the novel. I may seek it out again for a rewatch.
July 2, 2022
This is one of the most underrated and ambitious books I have ever read, and I have struggled to give the review it deserves, of which I humbly think I may not be capable.
"Under normal circumstances the house presents an impressive sight: a two-story monument of wood and obstinacy that neither retreated from the creep of erosion nor surrendered to the terrible pull of the river."
The house is a metaphor for the Stamper family, a family of loggers battling against a strike and the forces of nature in order to fill a contract. At the center of this story is a struggle between the older brother Hank (epitomized by the family slogan "Never give a inch") and the younger nerdish one Leland. At stake is the survival of the family. Among the many other characters are Henry, the patriarch; Hank's sexy but unhappy wife; Joby, the good hearted cousin ever willing to get the job done; a couple of union workers; an observing bartender; an aging drunken whore named Indian Jenny; and a lot of others-- characters that are drawn so exquisitely you could never think of them as anything but themselves.
The book starts with a quote from "Good Night, Irene," from which the title is drawn and which pre-figures the ending, and there are numerous quoted lyrics and musical references throughout the book (thus enabling me and others to fill a Bingo square for a book where music plays a large part). On p. 566 of my copy, I observed that nine ten songs were referenced in just one paragraph. So, taking a note from Kesey, I will say here in this review that I felt the theme song for this book should be Kenny Loggins' (!) song, "This Is It." Google the lyrics and you will understand a lot about the book: EVERYTHING is on the line.
Sometimes his style creates a music or a rhythm of its own.
"Clinging to each other in a paroxysm of overripe passion we spun the fight fantastic, reeled to the melodious fiddle-cry of rain through the firs, and the accelerating tempo of feet on the drumhead dock, and the high whirling skirl of adrenalin that always accompanies this dance...jointly trampling my surprise, Andy's shock, and Hank's astonishment underfoot in the action."
This lyrical sentence is followed by the parenthetical "(I have to kill you now. It's what you've been begging for so long...)"
This is not an easy book to read. Point of view and tense are changed mid sentence, sometimes separate by parentheses, sometimes by capitalization, sometimes by italics. At first it is hard to follow. This is something you get used to once you are into the novel, but it can seem daunting. The form of the book follows its function; that is, the style is what tells the story in the most authentic way. It's all about honesty, because Kesey tells us about that in this quote:
"I could now (possibly) go back and restretch those shrunken hours, flake the images separate, arrange them in accurate chronological order, (possibly; with will power, patience, and the roper chemicals) but being accurate is not necessarily being honest."
So my advice is to just hang on for the ride. The tension builds and builds, like riding up a rollercoaster. You will be rewarded. By the end of the book, it will be a rail-grabbing wild ride and one you give up the rest of your activities as you fall to the very last page.
With such heavy material to work with, Kesey lightens it here and there to surprise us and make us laugh.
"...each had created his own elaborate and logical-sounding reason for being out so late
, so far from town, and so near the property of their enemy, but when Hank didn't ask for reasons, did not even seem inclined to ask for their reasons, they wisely chose to keep silent, realizing that any alibi or excuse they offered would be received probably without question, maybe even without comment, and certainly without belief."
He crafts descriptive prose evoking concrete images.
"I crossed the street and entered the Sea Breeze Cafe and Grill, the very apotheosis of short-order America: two waitresses in wilted uniforms chatting at the cash register; lipstick stain n the coffee mugs; bleak array of candy; insomniac flies waiting out the rain; a plastic penful of donuts; and, on the wall above the Coca-Cola calendar, the methodical creaking creep of a bent second hand across a Dr. Pepper clock...the perfect place for a man to sit and commune with nature."
There is a lot of crazy in this book. Paranoia. Unresolved issues from childhood. A certain amount of madness takes hold of Leland. There is a long ramble of life truth philosophy at some point:
"But...a man has to get so he can deal with these {Public relations, before he can truly make it. Make it like that...alone...in some shack. A man has to know he had a choice before he can enjoy what he chose. I know now. That a human has to make it with other humans...before he can make it with himself." And then, acknowledging the chicken and the egg conundrum, he says that the opposite is also true. And then, he asks, "But didn't he still wonder if he were really choosing his shack or still just hiding in it?" This goes on until he says, "I walked on, back toward camp, trying to decide if he was saner or crazier than when I last saw him. I decided he was."
There are many themes (man against nature), religious references (man nailed to a log), and historical references (Hiroshima) --you could write a very long book about this book, and lest you think I am already doing that, I will close shortly.
Here is one last quote that describes the impact of of a life-changing explosion.
"For the reverberation often exceeds through silence the sound that sets it off; the reaction occasionally outdoes by way way of repose the event that stimulated it; and the past not uncommonly takes a while to happen, and some long time to figure out."
This book will take a long time for me to forget.
"Under normal circumstances the house presents an impressive sight: a two-story monument of wood and obstinacy that neither retreated from the creep of erosion nor surrendered to the terrible pull of the river."
The house is a metaphor for the Stamper family, a family of loggers battling against a strike and the forces of nature in order to fill a contract. At the center of this story is a struggle between the older brother Hank (epitomized by the family slogan "Never give a inch") and the younger nerdish one Leland. At stake is the survival of the family. Among the many other characters are Henry, the patriarch; Hank's sexy but unhappy wife; Joby, the good hearted cousin ever willing to get the job done; a couple of union workers; an observing bartender; an aging drunken whore named Indian Jenny; and a lot of others-- characters that are drawn so exquisitely you could never think of them as anything but themselves.
The book starts with a quote from "Good Night, Irene," from which the title is drawn and which pre-figures the ending, and there are numerous quoted lyrics and musical references throughout the book (thus enabling me and others to fill a Bingo square for a book where music plays a large part). On p. 566 of my copy, I observed that nine ten songs were referenced in just one paragraph. So, taking a note from Kesey, I will say here in this review that I felt the theme song for this book should be Kenny Loggins' (!) song, "This Is It." Google the lyrics and you will understand a lot about the book: EVERYTHING is on the line.
Sometimes his style creates a music or a rhythm of its own.
"Clinging to each other in a paroxysm of overripe passion we spun the fight fantastic, reeled to the melodious fiddle-cry of rain through the firs, and the accelerating tempo of feet on the drumhead dock, and the high whirling skirl of adrenalin that always accompanies this dance...jointly trampling my surprise, Andy's shock, and Hank's astonishment underfoot in the action."
This lyrical sentence is followed by the parenthetical "(I have to kill you now. It's what you've been begging for so long...)"
This is not an easy book to read. Point of view and tense are changed mid sentence, sometimes separate by parentheses, sometimes by capitalization, sometimes by italics. At first it is hard to follow. This is something you get used to once you are into the novel, but it can seem daunting. The form of the book follows its function; that is, the style is what tells the story in the most authentic way. It's all about honesty, because Kesey tells us about that in this quote:
"I could now (possibly) go back and restretch those shrunken hours, flake the images separate, arrange them in accurate chronological order, (possibly; with will power, patience, and the roper chemicals) but being accurate is not necessarily being honest."
So my advice is to just hang on for the ride. The tension builds and builds, like riding up a rollercoaster. You will be rewarded. By the end of the book, it will be a rail-grabbing wild ride and one you give up the rest of your activities as you fall to the very last page.
With such heavy material to work with, Kesey lightens it here and there to surprise us and make us laugh.
"...each had created his own elaborate and logical-sounding reason for being out so late
, so far from town, and so near the property of their enemy, but when Hank didn't ask for reasons, did not even seem inclined to ask for their reasons, they wisely chose to keep silent, realizing that any alibi or excuse they offered would be received probably without question, maybe even without comment, and certainly without belief."
He crafts descriptive prose evoking concrete images.
"I crossed the street and entered the Sea Breeze Cafe and Grill, the very apotheosis of short-order America: two waitresses in wilted uniforms chatting at the cash register; lipstick stain n the coffee mugs; bleak array of candy; insomniac flies waiting out the rain; a plastic penful of donuts; and, on the wall above the Coca-Cola calendar, the methodical creaking creep of a bent second hand across a Dr. Pepper clock...the perfect place for a man to sit and commune with nature."
There is a lot of crazy in this book. Paranoia. Unresolved issues from childhood. A certain amount of madness takes hold of Leland. There is a long ramble of life truth philosophy at some point:
"But...a man has to get so he can deal with these {Public relations, before he can truly make it. Make it like that...alone...in some shack. A man has to know he had a choice before he can enjoy what he chose. I know now. That a human has to make it with other humans...before he can make it with himself." And then, acknowledging the chicken and the egg conundrum, he says that the opposite is also true. And then, he asks, "But didn't he still wonder if he were really choosing his shack or still just hiding in it?" This goes on until he says, "I walked on, back toward camp, trying to decide if he was saner or crazier than when I last saw him. I decided he was."
There are many themes (man against nature), religious references (man nailed to a log), and historical references (Hiroshima) --you could write a very long book about this book, and lest you think I am already doing that, I will close shortly.
Here is one last quote that describes the impact of of a life-changing explosion.
"For the reverberation often exceeds through silence the sound that sets it off; the reaction occasionally outdoes by way way of repose the event that stimulated it; and the past not uncommonly takes a while to happen, and some long time to figure out."
This book will take a long time for me to forget.
November 14, 2020
This is a sprawling, epic novel about an American family living in a small lumber town on the Oregon coast and the grudges they bear. Oregon here is wonderfully evoked, and is very much one of the central characters. Which makes you understand why you always see this novel on those lists of "25 Best Pacific Northwest Reads" or whatever.
Ken Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion" is certainly one of the most unique novels I've ever read, as the narrative voice has the tendency to change multiple times in a single paragraph. You very much have to settle into the rhythm of this thing, which isn't too hard to do, but the addition of the occasionally antiquated language and some, frankly, uninteresting subplots, make getting through this a challenge.
I made it through the first 200 pages just fine. I was enjoying myself, but the following 250 pages or so, until stuff starts happening again around 470 or so, were a real slog. To be honest, I sort of disappeared in there. I can't even recall much of what was in those pages.
Cause the thing is, the story involving the Stampers — the family at the heart of the story — is pretty compelling, pretty Homeric. But then there's all these sorts of subplots going on with the townspeople themselves, characters with names like "Indian Jenny," and I just wasn't interested enough to really get into those stories. Other reviewers talk about how much they loved the guy that ran the old cinema, or the barman who watered down the drinks, but my eyes were just scanning over the words at many of those points without taking much in. Was that guy just watering down the drinks? Ah. That guy at the cinema was heartbroken over some former flame? I see ...
Reading these reviews makes me almost feel as though I need to read this damn thing again, but I'm not about to spend another month on this thing. Ever read a book and feel as though you kind of got lost in it? But not in the good way. In the way that your attention just like totally fades away? Well, that about sums up my reading experience for much of this.
This is like one of those old books you'd get assigned in English class. Really hard to read, especially at that age, because too much of it just sort of drags and you find yourself thinking of other things. Like that last book you read about trees, and the sort of irony that, in that one, the characters were trying to save trees from being cut down, but how here everyone is trying to cut them down, and cut them down fast too.
I'm not sure why this isn't a 400-page book instead of a 630-page one. I feel Kesey could have benefitted here from a good editor. But who am I to say, because others like this just fine. For what it's worth, I liked it just fine too. I was very eager to get to the conclusion to see how things would shake out for the two brothers — Hank and Leeland — at the heart of this thing. There's just so much other mishmash here that I didn't appreciate.
The townspeople? Meh, I could have done without the whole lot of 'em. I get that the background of this whole thing is a strike that takes place — Hank Stamper is a protagonist almost out of an Ayn Rand novel — but I just don't want this much background on these small players.
Maybe that's why this book isn't as known today as it perhaps ought to be. There really is a great book here, but it's hard to find sometimes.
Reading this, I was reminded of the words supposedly uttered by the great Argentine short-story writer Jorge Luis Borges, who said of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude that it should have been called "50 Years of Solitude" because the 100-year version was too long.
Perhaps "Sometimes a Great Notion" ought to have been called "Sometimes a Good Notion" if it means we could have shaved 200 pages off. Would have saved some trees as well.
As far as notions go, I'd say that's a pretty great one.
Ken Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion" is certainly one of the most unique novels I've ever read, as the narrative voice has the tendency to change multiple times in a single paragraph. You very much have to settle into the rhythm of this thing, which isn't too hard to do, but the addition of the occasionally antiquated language and some, frankly, uninteresting subplots, make getting through this a challenge.
I made it through the first 200 pages just fine. I was enjoying myself, but the following 250 pages or so, until stuff starts happening again around 470 or so, were a real slog. To be honest, I sort of disappeared in there. I can't even recall much of what was in those pages.
Cause the thing is, the story involving the Stampers — the family at the heart of the story — is pretty compelling, pretty Homeric. But then there's all these sorts of subplots going on with the townspeople themselves, characters with names like "Indian Jenny," and I just wasn't interested enough to really get into those stories. Other reviewers talk about how much they loved the guy that ran the old cinema, or the barman who watered down the drinks, but my eyes were just scanning over the words at many of those points without taking much in. Was that guy just watering down the drinks? Ah. That guy at the cinema was heartbroken over some former flame? I see ...
Reading these reviews makes me almost feel as though I need to read this damn thing again, but I'm not about to spend another month on this thing. Ever read a book and feel as though you kind of got lost in it? But not in the good way. In the way that your attention just like totally fades away? Well, that about sums up my reading experience for much of this.
This is like one of those old books you'd get assigned in English class. Really hard to read, especially at that age, because too much of it just sort of drags and you find yourself thinking of other things. Like that last book you read about trees, and the sort of irony that, in that one, the characters were trying to save trees from being cut down, but how here everyone is trying to cut them down, and cut them down fast too.
I'm not sure why this isn't a 400-page book instead of a 630-page one. I feel Kesey could have benefitted here from a good editor. But who am I to say, because others like this just fine. For what it's worth, I liked it just fine too. I was very eager to get to the conclusion to see how things would shake out for the two brothers — Hank and Leeland — at the heart of this thing. There's just so much other mishmash here that I didn't appreciate.
The townspeople? Meh, I could have done without the whole lot of 'em. I get that the background of this whole thing is a strike that takes place — Hank Stamper is a protagonist almost out of an Ayn Rand novel — but I just don't want this much background on these small players.
Maybe that's why this book isn't as known today as it perhaps ought to be. There really is a great book here, but it's hard to find sometimes.
Reading this, I was reminded of the words supposedly uttered by the great Argentine short-story writer Jorge Luis Borges, who said of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude that it should have been called "50 Years of Solitude" because the 100-year version was too long.
Perhaps "Sometimes a Great Notion" ought to have been called "Sometimes a Good Notion" if it means we could have shaved 200 pages off. Would have saved some trees as well.
As far as notions go, I'd say that's a pretty great one.
January 11, 2024
Sulla quarta di copertina di A volte una bella pensata di Ken Kesey è riportata una frase di Marco Rossari, presa dalla prefazione, che recita più o meno così: “Non è una lettura facile, non è una passeggiata, è una cazzo di montagna”.
Ora.
Non sono una grande esperta di montagne, ma mai come in questo caso il paragone naturalistico mi è sembrato follemente sbagliato. Si sente spesso parlare di “romanzi-fiume” in riferimento a qualsiasi tomo sopra le 500 pagine e per dio, se questo che ho davanti, sporco del sudore e sangue che ho sputato per arrivare all’ultima, benedetta pagina, non è un fiume - altro che montagna - non so quale altro romanzo si meriterebbe un simile titolo. Questa storia senza tempo, partorita dalla mente di uno scrittore (lo stesso di Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo) che negli anni '60 viveva in una comune californiana e sperimentava sostanze allucinogene di vario genere, ha un’ambientazione contemporanea a quella in cui è stato scritto, ma nel corso della lettura ho dovuto fermarmi più volte e fare mente locale per ricordarmi di non essere in un qualche western di fine ottocento. Il paesaggio descritto non aiuta: non ci sono grandi metropoli, abiti eleganti e vita di società. Non ci sono hippie coi capelli lunghi né droghe ricreative. C’è il bosco. Chilometri e chilometri di bosco. C’è il fiume, soprattutto. Ci sono le lotte sindacali, le fiere di paese, le faide fra taglialegna, gli incidenti brutali, c’è un amore per la natura selvaggia di chi a ovest ci è arrivato davvero per l’ebbrezza di conquistare il territorio (e poi ha capito che al massimo poteva barattarci qualche compromesso, nulla di più) e non per ricreare l’Europa dall’altra parte dell’oceano. E sì, puoi provare a costruire e “civilizzare” quel pezzo di mondo ma, molto più probabilmente, sarà lui il primo a cambiarti i connotati.
Di moderno, d’altro canto, c’è uno stile dirompente. Arrivare alla fine di queste ottocento e passa pagine di romanzo polifonico in cui le voci narranti si sovrappongono - letteralmente, a volte anche più volte all’interno di uno stesso paragrafo - è già un’impresa in sé, figuriamoci scriverlo. I personaggi e le loro diverse visioni del mondo e degli eventi narrati sono in costante conflitto, a volte sembrano non portare a nulla, altre volte colpiscono e affondano così duramente da lasciare senza fiato.
Al cuore di questo folle turbinio di voci e pensieri è saldamente ancorata una febbrile ricerca del proprio posto nel mondo, un viaggio tanto fisico quanto cerebrale che il protagonista affronta a colpi d’accetta, ben conscio del fatto che se tagli le radici che ti legano alla terra non potrai che che accelerare anche la tua, di distruzione. C’è il fiume, soprattutto. Che porta vita, nutrimento, che trasportando i tronchi d’albero verso la foce e verso le industrie porta denaro e prosperità, ma che erode gli argini con la sua irruenza e porta via con sé anche un pezzo di terra alla volta.
Ken Kesey è un autore incredibile, e non sarò mai grata abbastanza alla casa editrice Black Coffee per aver scelto di sobbarcarsi l’impresa di tradurlo e pubblicarlo per la prima volta in Italia, a quasi cinquant'anni dalla sua pubblicazione originale. Ho impiegato quasi un mese per finire di leggere questo romanzo, io che in media leggo due libri a settimana, e quasi altrettanto per decidermi a mettere insieme quattro pensieri sconclusionati perché lo so, non è un libro per tutti i giorni. Però, se mai lo leggerete, io sarò qui a fare il tifo per voi.
Ora.
Non sono una grande esperta di montagne, ma mai come in questo caso il paragone naturalistico mi è sembrato follemente sbagliato. Si sente spesso parlare di “romanzi-fiume” in riferimento a qualsiasi tomo sopra le 500 pagine e per dio, se questo che ho davanti, sporco del sudore e sangue che ho sputato per arrivare all’ultima, benedetta pagina, non è un fiume - altro che montagna - non so quale altro romanzo si meriterebbe un simile titolo. Questa storia senza tempo, partorita dalla mente di uno scrittore (lo stesso di Qualcuno volò sul nido del cuculo) che negli anni '60 viveva in una comune californiana e sperimentava sostanze allucinogene di vario genere, ha un’ambientazione contemporanea a quella in cui è stato scritto, ma nel corso della lettura ho dovuto fermarmi più volte e fare mente locale per ricordarmi di non essere in un qualche western di fine ottocento. Il paesaggio descritto non aiuta: non ci sono grandi metropoli, abiti eleganti e vita di società. Non ci sono hippie coi capelli lunghi né droghe ricreative. C’è il bosco. Chilometri e chilometri di bosco. C’è il fiume, soprattutto. Ci sono le lotte sindacali, le fiere di paese, le faide fra taglialegna, gli incidenti brutali, c’è un amore per la natura selvaggia di chi a ovest ci è arrivato davvero per l’ebbrezza di conquistare il territorio (e poi ha capito che al massimo poteva barattarci qualche compromesso, nulla di più) e non per ricreare l’Europa dall’altra parte dell’oceano. E sì, puoi provare a costruire e “civilizzare” quel pezzo di mondo ma, molto più probabilmente, sarà lui il primo a cambiarti i connotati.
Di moderno, d’altro canto, c’è uno stile dirompente. Arrivare alla fine di queste ottocento e passa pagine di romanzo polifonico in cui le voci narranti si sovrappongono - letteralmente, a volte anche più volte all’interno di uno stesso paragrafo - è già un’impresa in sé, figuriamoci scriverlo. I personaggi e le loro diverse visioni del mondo e degli eventi narrati sono in costante conflitto, a volte sembrano non portare a nulla, altre volte colpiscono e affondano così duramente da lasciare senza fiato.
Al cuore di questo folle turbinio di voci e pensieri è saldamente ancorata una febbrile ricerca del proprio posto nel mondo, un viaggio tanto fisico quanto cerebrale che il protagonista affronta a colpi d’accetta, ben conscio del fatto che se tagli le radici che ti legano alla terra non potrai che che accelerare anche la tua, di distruzione. C’è il fiume, soprattutto. Che porta vita, nutrimento, che trasportando i tronchi d’albero verso la foce e verso le industrie porta denaro e prosperità, ma che erode gli argini con la sua irruenza e porta via con sé anche un pezzo di terra alla volta.
Ken Kesey è un autore incredibile, e non sarò mai grata abbastanza alla casa editrice Black Coffee per aver scelto di sobbarcarsi l’impresa di tradurlo e pubblicarlo per la prima volta in Italia, a quasi cinquant'anni dalla sua pubblicazione originale. Ho impiegato quasi un mese per finire di leggere questo romanzo, io che in media leggo due libri a settimana, e quasi altrettanto per decidermi a mettere insieme quattro pensieri sconclusionati perché lo so, non è un libro per tutti i giorni. Però, se mai lo leggerete, io sarò qui a fare il tifo per voi.
May 21, 2008
I had picked up and put down this book so many times, trying, without success, to make it through the first 100 pages. It was only until a co-worker and i decided to form a "one-off" book club in order to read it before a theater adaptation by a local company that i made any real progress. even with a clearly defined reason in hand, the first 100 pages can be taxing; it's best to read slowly, savoring the flavor of the words even if you can't quite grasp all the meanings. however, hang on because somewhere around page 120 the whole book suddenly opens up and the story just -clicks- into place. i like to think of it as the sunshine finally breaking through the seemingly impenetrable grey, Oregon rain clouds. Once that shift occurred it was hard to put this book down. the prose became easier, the side stories made more sense, and the characters had such a grip on me. i absolutely loved this book and am looking forward to reading it again and again in the future.
February 4, 2019
It’s hard to know where to begin! I can see why this is believed to be Ken Kesey’s masterpiece. It’s complex, long and jumps all over the place in first person prose. The three main characters tell the story. Hank, the older bother, Leland, the younger brother and old Henry, their dad. This first person technique often jumps from person to person paragraph by paragraph. The story of some old time loggers In Oregon pitted against just about everyone in their town is powerful, riveting and worth the 20 some hours it takes to read.
February 5, 2008
Rain Rain Go Away.
This is a wet novel. Set in the rainy season in Oregon you get pruned fingers flipping through the pages. It's lovely. The writing is lovely. I was constantly thinking of turning down corners to mark passages only to turn the page and find something more beautifully written.
This can come off as a man's story at first, it's about loggers and brothers, sons and fathers, but I'm not a man and I was completely caught up from the middle to the end. (You have to be patient in the beginning, it takes a while to set the stage, but once the stage is set...). I can't seem to find a way to tell you about it without ruining the surprise. I knew nothing about this book when it was handed to me. I hadn't read any reviews. I think that is the best way to read this novel. Let it surprise you.
I will say this. It's a bit unsatisfying, the ending, but it has occupied my mind from the second I turned the last page. "What now?" I wonder. I want to hop on the boat with the boys and on the bus with the girl and see where these characters go. Perhaps that's the best ending of all.
Go read it.
This is a wet novel. Set in the rainy season in Oregon you get pruned fingers flipping through the pages. It's lovely. The writing is lovely. I was constantly thinking of turning down corners to mark passages only to turn the page and find something more beautifully written.
This can come off as a man's story at first, it's about loggers and brothers, sons and fathers, but I'm not a man and I was completely caught up from the middle to the end. (You have to be patient in the beginning, it takes a while to set the stage, but once the stage is set...). I can't seem to find a way to tell you about it without ruining the surprise. I knew nothing about this book when it was handed to me. I hadn't read any reviews. I think that is the best way to read this novel. Let it surprise you.
I will say this. It's a bit unsatisfying, the ending, but it has occupied my mind from the second I turned the last page. "What now?" I wonder. I want to hop on the boat with the boys and on the bus with the girl and see where these characters go. Perhaps that's the best ending of all.
Go read it.
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