Hard-Drinking Irish Jesus

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey
p. 1962


[Aye, there be spoilers in this review. I have blacked them out accordingly and if you wish to read them, simply highlight the text.]

Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is an American literary staple, but it flew under my radar until just recently. I had never read the book, seen the Broadway musical or even the notorious 1975 film version starring Jack Nicholson (though, by the description I’ve read, it sounds like a fairly accurate adaptation). It’s really been my loss all these years, because this novel is an experience that you can sink your teeth into, and it’s easy to see not only why it’s so popular but also why it is so widely banned for its controversy.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the story of a psychiatric ward under the strict supervision of the emasculating ‘Big Nurse’ Mildred Ratched, who comes into conflict with brash, fast-talking, hard-drinking newcomer, R.P. McMurphy, a man faking insanity to escape from the work farm he’d been sentenced  to for gambling and fighting. It is clear from the start that McMurphy is not expecting the challenge brought before him by the harsh, disapproving Nurse Ratched, but it does not deter him from his goal.

McMurphy and Ratched really possess this novel, yet it is told entirely through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a Native American man who has spent over a decade on the ward pretending to be a deaf-mute and witnessing the inner workings of ward politics firsthand. Bromden, who ruminates often on the subjugation of his father and his people as their land is slowly taken over by what he refers to as the Combine, is the only one who is allowed to see through the secret window into the person McMurphy really is. The Irish rogue is at first a curiosity to the ward’s inhabitants, then a hero as he teaches them to stand up for themselves against the Big Nurse and learn to laugh again, bringing life to the ward where before any semblance of joy or disorder was immediately silenced. What ensues is a battle of wits and willpower as McMurphy and Ratched fight for control of the ward.

It took me a while to get into this book. I found Part 1 (over 100 pages and roughly half of the novel) to be a bit dull. Apart from eliciting a few laughs here and there at McMurphy and Ratched’s posturing, not much happens aside from your typical stage-setting. It isn’t until Part 2 when McMurphy realizes the reality of his predicament—that he could be kept long past his original sentence if he continues to get on Ratched’s bad side—and scales back his antics, that the story perks up. And it isn’t until the end of Part 2, when McMurphy makes the conscious decision to say ‘to Hell with it’ and continue his crusade against the nurse’s conformity, that the character truly comes alive. That McMurphy stayed on knowing his freedom was at stake because he knew the other patients needed to see his rebellion turned the jokester into a true hero, while still making him endearingly human.

I must admit, even though I saw McMurphy’s eventual fate coming from a mile away, it was still so devastating to see him martyred like that. The entire final act of this book is just demoralizing in general. I felt terrible for all the patients and furious at Big Nurse who defied the most basic rule of healthcare provider in order to maintain her aura of power. It’s all a very potent allegory for society and the book is rich with metaphor to be picked apart. It’s a shame that the idea of a hard-drinking, womanizing rogue as a Christlike figure is so offensive that the book has been widely banned over the years, because it would make an excellent teaching subject.

I strongly encourage fans of the movie and people who’ve never experienced either book or movie to read this novel. It is surprisingly satisfying and an American classic. It’ll make you laugh and cry and all the other emotions that the ‘Big Nurse’ would rather you just keep to yourself. But that’s exactly why we need characters like McMurphy in our lives—to remind us to never take life too seriously.

Burn Baby Burn

Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
p. 1953

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”

The world lost one of the greats when we lost Ray Bradbury last year. His ability to conceive of ideas that are beyond his time and transform them into relevancy was astonishing, and none more so than in what is arguably his most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, which I somehow managed to not read in the first 26 years of my life.

For those who are still uninitiated, Fahrenheit 451 is the story of Guy Montag, a ‘fireman’ in a dystopian future whose job it is to start fires, not put them out. Montag and his fellow firemen don’t even remember a time when putting out fires was the purpose behind those in their profession, as all they’ve ever known is how to burn and what they’re burning is books.

 

Montag doesn’t give much thought to his job until he meets Clarisse, the guileless teenage neighbor who doesn’t seem to be afraid of Montag, and her sincerity moves Montag to question his line of work for the first time. After witnessing a woman burn her house down (and herself with it) in lieu of surrendering her library, it is the final straw for Montag. He takes one souvenir—one teeny, tiny little book—and finds his world turned on its head. This new-found curiosity, this need to question things and figure them out for himself, leads Montag to turn one-time acquaintances into friendships, and the seemingly solid relationships he has known in turn crumble into dust.

Bradbury’s characters are complex and layered—the follower who finds the courage to step out of line, even if it means standing on his own, the world-weary scholar who still feels guilty for letting it all happen, the wife who is so empty inside she tries to kill herself and doesn’t even remember why. But none, in my opinion, are more striking than Fahrenheit’s chief antagonist, 451’s Captain Beatty, who attempts to counsel Montag, to sway him in the ‘right’ direction, only to betray him in the end. It’s hard to despise Beatty. He is a remarkable villain—whip smart and intuitive as he is. His reasoning for burning books may be flawed, but it is a very human flaw—to decide to hate something because you feel betrayed by it. And Beatty, like Montag, is just a product of his environment. Beatty didn’t start the crusade to burn books, he just fueled the fire; the flame would have died if the world hadn’t been feeding it all along. It’s not just exposition to explain the world of Fahrenheit, it’s a warning to Bradbury’s audience not to let the same thing happen in the real world, in any hypothetical manner.

My copy of the book is the 50^th anniversary edition, and in the end is an addendum that any fan of Bradbury has probably heard already. Years after publication, Bradbury wrote an additional scene between Montag and Beatty wherein Beatty shows Montag his vast untouched library of books he has saved from fires but never touched and let sit in a room to rot, unread and unheeded. It’s almost like seeing a horrifying display of a serial killer’s victims, and the scene cemented Beatty for me as not only one of the best literary villains, but as a fascinating character in general.

As always, Bradbury has a way with words that transforms a simple story into something much more. In this novel, his words are about words, and it is very clear the topic was near and dear to Bradbury’s heart. Books are almost a character in and of themselves; they represent so much more than what they are believed to be on the surface, just like the players themselves. In the era of McCarthyism, this was a bold topic and I can see why this book had such a lasting effect on literary culture. 

My only concern with this book is that it sort of derails near the end. The question of how one man can change the collective attitude of a world choosing ignorance looms over the entire novel, suggests an insurmountable problem for our hero. But Montag doesn’t do anything to change the world; it is only forced upon the world through nuclear exchange that wipes out major cities. The surprise-apocalypse-conclusion to this book probably shouldn’t have shocked me as much as it did—impending war and people’s general obliviousness towards it was hinted at throughout the novel—but it struck me as a bit of a cheap way to effect lasting change. A nuclear deus ex machina. A bit depressing to be told that the only way to save the world is by wiping it out and starting over again, but then Fahrenheit 451 is no stranger to biblical tropes, and I suppose it is rather ironic that the solution to the problem of burning books indiscriminately is to burn the people indiscriminately.

The Kids Are Totally Not Alright...

Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

p. 1954

When I mentioned my latest literary venture, several people remarked how shocking it was that I had not read William Golding’s quintessential young adult novel years ago, and I agree. It’s rather unbelievable that this book skirted by my required reading lists for so long, so I finally gave it a go, so as to dispel any incorrect notions I may have gathered about it over the years.

I would garner that few people are unaware of the basic premise of Lord of the Flies. Most people, myself among them, are aware that it centers on a group of boys stranded on an island who go a little... savage without adult supervision. However, I think there is a tendency to describe it as an adventure novel or a story of survival and at its heart that is just not what Lord of the Flies is about. Rather, it is a story of the loss of childhood innocence, the corruptibility of mankind, and the total breakdown of ethics in the absence of culture... and I would wager that it is actually inappropriate for most grade school children as reading material, despite focusing on a group of characters under the age of 13. Lord of the Flies may star kids, but it is not really about kids, per se.

Ralph is the protagonist of the book, one of the oldest kids on the island at twelve, but still the embodiment of childlike innocence at story’s start. I thought him a bit bratty at first, refusing to call portly, asthmatic ‘Piggy’ by his real name and allowing the cruel nickname to become the standard among the other boys (and even to the reader, to whom the bespectacled Piggy’s true name is never revealed). But watching Ralph struggle with the responsibilities that are bestowed upon him and the unchaperoned quick flight into adulthood that is forced on him makes his earlier faults disappear. Whoever the boys were before they landed on the uninhabited island, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is who they choose to be going forward, and if there’s one thing that Lord of the Flies teaches us, it’s that there is no going back.

I found Piggy and Simon much more interesting characters, but especially poor Simon. Whereas Piggy represented the logic and rationale of adulthood, it was little Simon alone who possessed a true understanding of their situation, even if he didn’t know it, first suggesting that the ‘beast’ they all feared and hunted was perhaps only themselves, and later prophesying that Ralph would make it off the island, subtly suggesting that he would not be there with him. Ironically, Simon, though he is the least ‘beastlike’ of the group and the only one who never gives in to his id, is ripped to shreds by the savage boys when he is mistaken for the beast. He is also the one who confronts the “lord of the flies” himself, a severed sow head that ‘talks’ to him, but if it can be surmised that this encounter was all in Simon’s head, then those insightful words came from the boy as well.

It’s easy to see why the other boys didn’t take to Piggy when he attempted to be heard. As a child, Piggy stands out in every way possible, and it’s easy to pick on those who are weaker and separate from the herd. As an adult reader, it was frustrating to watch Piggy and later Ralph display all the traits of a sensible adult determined to go home and be completely ignored by the mob. While it was frustrating though, Piggy and Simon's demises are not surprising, as they represent logic and innocence and those are some of the first things to go when society falls apart.

The more thought I give to Lord of the Flies, the more I respect it, and the more I am intrigued by it, but I can’t say I loved it or that it will have a place of honor among my collections, because while it is a curious allegory for humanity and societal breakdown (and occasionally religion, if Simon's Christlike qualities are to be acknowledged), it is altogether not a very positive outlook on humanity. I guess how you choose to read Lord of the Flies says more about the reader and their place on the optimist spectrum than it does about the way society really is. As I’d like to believe that people tend toward ‘good,’ I’d hate to imagine a group of boys descending into savagery like those on the island... but then, maybe that’s just my adherence to the existing society butting in. If all the constraints of society were removed and I had no other context to structure my life, perhaps even I might give in to ‘the beast.’

My only technical complaint about this book is that it was damn near impossible to determine who was talking at any given time, as not everyone in the book is named, dialogue isn’t consistently assigned to a speaker, and the boys generally tend towards chaos in their meetings anyhow. As I said before, I would not market this book towards grade-schoolers. Middle-schoolers might be able to comprehend it, and certainly high-schoolers, but readers below a certain age would, I feel, have a hard time coming to terms with the complex themes. It is an awfully dark and twisted story, after all. I could go on about the themes and wisdom behind this book, but I wouldn’t be saying anything an English teacher hasn’t said a million times over, so I’ll leave it there.

Evil People Doing Things Evilly

Neverwhere

by Neil Gaiman
p. 1996
  

Existing beneath the surface of London streets is a rail system that connects all parts of the city. According to Neil Gaiman’s fantasy romp, Neverwhere, also existing beneath the city streets is an entire culture of people who have fallen through the cracks of society, people who possess magical abilities unheard of above ground. Neverwhere is the story of one young man’s journey as he becomes part of this figurative and literal ‘London Underground.’

Richard is an average guy (which, of course, is the best kind of guy for these kinds of stories); he has an average job with promotion prospects, a serious girlfriend with marriage prospects, a decent apartment and his health. He is all set up for a normal and innocuous (if a bit dull) life, until he helps an injured girl he meets on the street. In an act of mercy, Richard rescues Door, a girl on the run from a pair of nasty characters who chased her to ‘London Above’ after murdering her entire family for their unique abilities in—what else—opening doors most cannot.

As a direct result of his brief interaction with Door, Richard’s life is slowly stripped away as he is first ignored then entirely forgotten by his peers, essentially becoming invisible to the world. Left with no other choice, Richard takes to the London Underground to find Door and her bevy of curious comrades and restore the life that was stolen from him. Instead he finds himself pulled along on a dangerous journey to discover the truth about Door’s family’s demise—and a plot that would forever change life Underground.

Though I own the movie adaptations of two of his other novels, Neverwhere is my first foray into the works of Neil Gaiman and I have to say, I like his ideas here. He has a fantastic imagination and it manifests itself in a lot of creative ways, such as the Floating Market—a gypsylike bazaar that changes locations and can only be reached by word of mouth, the mysterious warring class system that exists in London Underground, and of course, the various machinations of Door’s protector, family friend, and requisite scene-stealer, the marquis de Carabas, a harlequin-esque rogue to whom there is more than what appears. Gaiman’s best idea, though, is his ability to draw parallels between the various characters that populate the Underground and the very real homeless and disenfranchised. The fact that an entire world exists that no one can see unless they are looking for it, where people are lost and forgotten and overlooked, where you too could find yourself if you fell far enough... it’s all strikingly real when you think of how easy it is for the world to turn a blind eye on its societal problems. Gaiman just took this parallel many steps further and turned this land of lost souls into a world unto itself, one with a purpose and a style all its own.

I enjoyed Gaiman’s imagination when it came to setting and theme, but I found myself unable to fully immerse myself in the atmosphere of Neverwhere, littered as it was with clichés. Richard and Door and even the roguish marquis are charming heroes, but there’s nothing new about them. Richard is your standard everyman, whisked away unwittingly on an adventure. No one expects much of him and he is entirely unremarkable and yet, when faced with a challenge that hundreds have failed he inexplicably passes with flying colors, no explanation given. Door is sweet and innocent, a speaker for and lover of helpless rats, but she’s got spirit and moxie and it all just makes me want to gag. She never fully takes credit for destroying Richard’s life and no one ever calls her on it. The marquis is clever and keeps the reader on their toes. He was definitely my favorite character but even he failed to completely win me over with his charm, maybe because I’ve seen it all before.

By far the worst offenders are the villains, though. The treacherous duo that doggedly chase our heroes all throughout the book are the demonic Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar whose villainous villainy is shoved down your throat until you choke on it (Croup would probably like that though). I found myself rolling my eyes every time Croup was likened to nails on a chalkboard, every time Vandemar devoured a small creature, and especially every nauseating time they were respectively referred to as a fox and a wolf, two creatures which we all know are notoriously evil in reputation. I feel like the exaggeration was meant to convey to the reader exactly what bad news these two were, but it was just so over the top, I found myself not the least bit creeped out by them. In fact, in most encounters, they aren’t even allowed to engage the heroes physically, making them the most ineffective creepers in fantasy. Then there’s the lead villain, the head honcho, a literal fallen angel who speaks in wispy platitudes and is generally aloof to the fact that he is a raging douchenozzle with a God complex. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

I think Gaiman was onto something comparing his ‘London Underground’ to London’s disenfranchised. I very much liked the idea that there is a society of people the world has forgotten who have found their own power and their own place. Gaiman doesn't just leave the door (no pun intended) open for a sequel, it's wide and gaping with a heavenly chorus of angels beckoning you through it without subtlety, and perhaps he’ll get around to it one day. If that happens, I for one hope Gaiman focuses more on drawing out that parallel and less on over the top characters having predictable adventures.