Ken Kesey, Sometimes A Great Notion

I have read a lot of books and I read all types. I am not a book snob reading only 'great literature.' I love genre fiction, mystery/suspense thrillers, westerns, historical fiction, horror, sci-fi. Just tell me a good story and tell it well. That's all you need do to get my attention. However, today, I am going to write about a great work of literature.

Kesey's first novel was One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, a fine novel about a psychiatric ward that expands into a commentary on the struggle between individual freedom and the controls society forces upon us. It was a good novel, but, over time, I began to see it as too simple. The world does not divide so neatly between good and evil.

Well, Sometimes A Great Notion does not make things that simple at all. The entire story is an interplay of forces that are so mixed up that good and evil simply do not factor in. What's good for someone at one point is bad for others and turns sour for the person it first benefits. In other words, it's just like life, a confusing blend of choices and risks, of unintended consequences, and the twistings inherent in family dynamics.

It is a story of family and neighbors. In short, in the logging country of Oregon, a union is about to go on strike against the big corporation. A family run operation, outside the union's grasp, strikes a deal with the corporation to deliver the logs they need, thus undercutting the union. Of course, this means that they are undercutting friends and neighbors, and the story revolves around that conflict. At the same time, the superman-like guy that runs the operation needs workers and sends for his younger brother who is being educated back East (keeping things in the family is how they keep the union out). These brothers have a twisted history, full of secrets and the blend of love and hate common to brothers everywhere. How these conflicts play out is the story and I'll tell you no more because I don't want to spoil the story.

Add to all of that a cast of relatives, friends and neighbors, all of them carefully developed, all of them strange, mix in some of the finest descriptive writing you will ever read, and a deep understanding of how everything we do and have done, reflects on and influences everything else, and you have one hell of a book.

The novel was not especially well received when first released and I believe that was because of its politics. In the mid-60s, when it was published, the Literary Establishment was decidedly left wing (it still is), and to write a novel in which the union was not the hero was not a popular move. In recent years, the novel has begun to be recognized as the brilliant work it is.

It is not an easy novel to get into. The first 100 pages are taken up with scene setting. Characters are established and a great deal of family history is presented. This is necessary to the understanding of the intricate web of the community. Also, the river that flows by the community is of vital importance, almost becoming a main character, and Kesey takes his time describing  the natural setting of the story. Just relax and take your time because, in those first 100 pages (it's around 800 total), you will enjoy some of the best descriptive writing you will ever see. Then, when the setting is firmly established, hang on, because the rest of the story just explodes and, from there on, it is an all out run.

Kesey also plays a bit with time and, here and there, uses multiple stream of conscious techniques. Don't let that throw you, he always gives clues that let you know what's happening, and the passages work wonders, reminding you of how tied together everything is.

He said, after completing the novel that he would never write anything better, and he was right. Kesey became famous as the leader of the Merry Pranksters, infamous LSD promoters of the 60s, went to jail for a marijuana change, and settled into life as a family man and dairy farmer. He continued writing and turned out some good work, a book of essays ( The Demon Box), a kind of screen play ( The Further Adventures), and a pretty good novel (Sailor's Song), but nothing to touch Sometimes A Great Notion. That is not surprising. He put a lot into that novel and such work takes its toll. It is a great, great novel.