One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

  What inspired me to read this book was the movie. I had seen the movie years ago and really liked it. When I found out that there was a book, I had to read it. The story is about Randle McMurphy, a wily and rambunctious man who gets himself committed into a psychiatric ward to spend the rest of his prison sentence. Chief Bromden, a fellow patient in the ward who pretends he’s deaf and dumb, narrates the story of McMurphy’s antics and rivalry with the authority of Nurse Ratchet.
  I was really excited before reading the book and my expectations were well met. The first few chapters were a bit slow. However, by the middle of the novel, I knew I was giving this book five stars. Seeing the ward through Chief Bromden’s eyes and his internal dialog was great. It gave the story a very unique edge. The writing is marvelous as the little isolated world of the ward and the patients are painted before the reader. As the plot progresses, the story also explores themes dealing with the human spirit.
  I loved this book and highly recommend it.

View all my reviews

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"You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself." -Chief Bromden

Musings & Trivia:

• Book(1962) & Movie(1975): The movie and book are generally the same, but of course some things are changed.  The biggest difference is that the movie is not narrated by Chief Bromden.  It is more of a third person presentation of the story and the Chief is just another character.  Not to spoil anything I'll only say there are other various elements that are re-arranged and merged together in the movie.  No major plot elements are left out in the movie.  In the film Jack Nicholson plays McMurphy and won an Academy Award for Best Actor for this role.  Actually, in total the film won five academy awards and was nominated for four others.  Quite a decorated film.
• You know, in print you find typos every once and a while.  It happens but this is something else:

• About the Author: Anyways, after some googling, page 5 was the correct one.  Ken Kesey was born September 17, 1935 in La Junta, Colorado and then his family moved to Oregon.  In 1957  Kesey received a degree in speech and communication from the University of Oregon's School of Journalism.  In 1958 he enrolled in Stanford's creative writing program.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was inspired by Kesey's experiences as an orderly at a veteran's hospital in California in 1959.  He passed away November 10, 2001 at the age of sixty six from complications after a surgery.

Next Book Review: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Curious to know what other books I'll be reading? Click here to find out

Have you read this book? or seen the movie? If so what do you think? What is the worst typo you've ever found? Feel free to reply here or on twitter @MandyCalvin .  Comments are appreciated.

Cited:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/awards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(novel)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0450181/

The Postman

The Postman by David Brin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Postman by David Brin is a science fiction adventure set in a crumbled United States during the aftermath of war and disease. Society has been blown back to a primitive age where survival is the only priority. Gordon is a drifter traveling through the wilderness when a series of events led him a long abandoned postal truck. He puts on the uniform and takes the bag of mail and thus begins his role of a Postman going from clan to clan exchanging hope for food. However, what begins as a ploy for Gordon to get food becomes something greater as his role inspires a call for change in others and in himself.

The plot is intriguing and sees the reader interested to the end. The book over all was ok. There were moving moments, but some of the suppose-to-be-epic moments came off as more trite than epic. The characters were diverse and memorable which I found to be a redeeming highlight in the book along with the progress of the story. Brin plays a bit with philosphy and some social issues in his book, which was more of a sideshow than an addition to the story.

There is a movie out there with Kevin Costner, which is good. However the movie and the book are extremely different. Aside from artistic changes during an adaptation, the plots are two completely different animals. Characters are given different roles or missing completely in the film and multiple key factors are changed. So watching the movie would not replace the book, not in the least.

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Next Book Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Curious to know what other books I'll be reading? Click here to find out Have you read this book? If so what did you think?

Feel free to reply here or on twitter @MandyCalvin . Comments are appreciated.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I will ascend that I had been spoiled by a review before I read the book. It probably robbed me of some of the suspense, however I'd like to think I was able to better assess the quality of the story. Despite that I knew the ending, I did find the journey fascinating. There is no doubt that this was a brilliant murder mystery; the plot twisted so many times, it's dizzying. The characters were developed and memorably charming. My only qualms were that it was difficult to really get into the story due to lack of imagery in the writing. If you are looking for a good mystery with an outstanding plot, this is with out a doubt a perfect story to read.

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"Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth.  The truth however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it." -Hercule Poirot

Musings & Facts:

• It's interesting how all the little clues come together when you figure out the end result.  Especially in this mystery, almost everything was a clue.  Although all the clues were there, the answer was still elusive.  That's what I think makes a great mystery; the answer is stuck to your forehead.
• About Agatha: She was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller in the UK on 15 September 1890.  She worked as a nurse during WWI.  She married her husband, Archibald Christie, on Christmas Eve 1914.  Six publishers rejected her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.  However, she was not discouraged and almost five years after writing the book, it was published by Jone Lane in 1920.  She divorced her husband in 1928 after finding out he was having an affair.  She then remarried to Max Mallowan, in 1930 whom she shared 46 years of marriage which ended with her death.  Agatha Christie wrote 66 mystery novels, short stories, plays, and under the pen name, Mary Westmacott, 6 romance novels.
• I loved the character of Hercule Poirot and Caroline Sheppard.  They both had very distinguisable characters.
• The story is written in first person from the point of view of Dr. James Sheppard.  However most of the story is dialog between the characters and some in between action.  It didn't include much imagery like I said in the review above.  I've read that a writer should balance the amount of dialog in their writing.  Too much or too little could be bad, but I think it depends on the subject your writing about.  If you're writing from first person you can get away with less dialog since you are in the head of a character, they can kind of dialog with themselves.  Too much dialog can get a bit boring and sidetracked if the write isn't careful.  Of course that goes back to the rule that every sentence must have a purpose pertaining to its story, dialog or not.  The dialog in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was well done and every bit of it was crucial to the development of the plot. but there was just not much in-between all the talking.  However.... no no no, I don't want to spoil anything if you decide to read the book.

Next Book Review: The Postman by David Brin
Curious to know what other books I'll be reading? Click here to find out

Have you read this book? If so what do you think?  What do you think makes a good mystery?  Do you think that too much dialog is bad?  Feel free to reply here or on twitter @MandyCalvin .  Comments are appreciated.


Citation:
http://agathachristie.com/about-christie/christie-records/75-facts/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

My Summer Reading List

The sun is shining, the temperature is rising, the bugs are buzzing, and I decided it's an ideal time to sit indoors and organize my reading plan.  I spent the past few days googling lists of books trying to sort out a few that I wanted to read this summer.  I jotted down ten titles and then painfully whittled them down to six, a goal possibly attainable. When making this list, I focused on a getting a diverse set of well-written books.  This isn't ordered in any particular way, I have yet to decide which one to start with.

• Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman Capote.  The goings on of a female city socialite narrated by a man who is a tenant in the same apartment complex.  I'm not quite sure what to expect out of this novella, but Capote's work is well respected for his mastery of prose.  This novella seems to be mainly character driven, so I'll be getting a taste of that.
• The Postman by David Brin.  Set in post-apocalyptic America, a cold and hungry man finds a United States Postal uniform, and sack of mail and poses as a post man for food and supplies but also gives hope to the people.  I've read that the touching plot is what makes it worth reading.  I know there is a movie out there with Kevin Costner, but surprisingly I've never seen it.
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.  A man fakes insanity to escape a prison sentence and instead goes into an insane asylum.  I've seen the movie and now I'm even more excited to read the book. 
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.  Through he eyes of five Russian aristocratic families we see the story of Russia during the Napoleonic era.  The book delves into many philosophical discussions along as a historical narrative.  I am pretty sure I'll save this book for last and will likely finish it sometime before I die.  War and Peace is one of the longest books ever written somewhere over a whopping 560,000 words.
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.  A detective murder mystery that investigates the death of Roger Ackroyd, if you didn't catch that in the title.  Agatha Christie is considered the best of the best when it comes to detective murder mysteries, so I hear.  On top of that this novel is considered her best work. So I deduce that when it comes to detective fiction, this novel the best of the best of the best.
• Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.  A story about a boy growing up in Ireland who discovers that he wants to be writer and his struggles grow as an artist.  This story is suspected to be semi-autobiographical of James Joyce's own life.  It's said the style of writing in this novel is spectacular; that's why I'm reading it. 

I sure have my work cut out for me.  After I finish each book I'll do a review and analysis post.  For the lack of content in the last couple of months, I apologize.  I'll be getting back to my three posts a month in June.

Have you read any of these books? If so what did you think? What's on your reading list? Which book do you think I should start with?  Answer in the comments below or tweet me @mandycalvin .  I love feedback.
*edit- links added Aug 9, 2012