Ken Kesey's "Sometimes a Great Notion" (Bantam Windstone, 1964) is a book that I truly, truly desired to like. It's an underread novel by an acclaimed American literary master, with a core group of fans who regard it as one of the finest novels of the past century. What could be more promising? Well, to put it simply, it's Kesey's writing style.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is successful, and very much so, because it's concise. It's terse. It conveys precisely what needs to be said. Kesey knows his message and presents it clearly. You get the picture. It has been frequently compared to "A Christmas Carol," and for good reason. However, if "Cuckoo" is Kesey's "Christmas Carol," then "Sometimes a Great Notion" is his "Bleak House." It's verbose, meandering, incoherent, and could easily have shed three hundred pages from its final length without anyone noticing. When your main character doesn't reach the location where all the action is taking place until page 88, and still hasn't retrieved his baggage from the bus terminal eight miles away fifty pages later, you know there's an abundance of extraneous material. And while this makes sense within Kesey's chosen stylistic framework (the story is told by a woman flipping through a photograph album), there's simply too much rambling and insufficient plot progression. It's like being trapped in an entire novel of Melville's two-hundred-page lull in "Moby Dick." If you found that painfully unreadable, "Sometimes a Great Notion" might very well drive you into a frenzy.

Reading "Sometimes A Great Notion" is truly like engaging in a fierce wrestling match. The book is not only long but also shifts unpredictably between first-person narrators from one paragraph to the next. If you打算深入阅读这本书，you'd better ensure that you have set aside sufficient time. This book is not suitable for reading in short intervals of 20 minutes here and there. It will likely take you a month to finish, and if you don't give it your full attention, you'll miss out on a great deal.

The story is about a lumber strike in a small town in Oregon. However, it's about the lumber strike in a similar way that "Moby Dick" is about a fishing expedition. The weather, geography, and history of the region all play a significant role. At the heart of the story is the Stamper family and the conflicts within it. There are some intense in-fighting and misunderstandings, with long-simmering resentments lurking beneath the surface of everything.

There is a particularly fantastic section where the two brothers are having a conversation about cutting down a tree. On the surface, the conversation seems to be solely about cutting down the tree, but in reality, each brother is desperately vying for the respect and love of the other. It's a brilliant piece of writing, and the entire 700+ pages are worth reading just for this section alone.

"It’s hard to talk to somebody you ain’t seen in a long time and it’s hard not to. And it’s especially hard when you got a lot to say and no notion how to say it." This quote sums up the complex emotions and relationships that are explored in the book.

You know how George R.R. Martin changes narrative voices between chapters? Well, this book takes it a step further and does that within paragraphs.

In the first hundred pages, there were a few paragraphs that had, internally, four different perspectives. It was quite a jarring experience.

And I thought to myself, what have I gotten myself into? Is this just a pretentious attempt to be different? Or is there some deeper meaning and value to this unique narrative style?

And more to the point, can I put up with this for the remaining 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.

I'm going to divide my review of this into 2 sections: me as a reader, and me as a writer.

As a reader, I have a penchant for books that effortlessly straddle the line between profundity and pure enjoyment. In "Notion", Kesey delves into some truly challenging themes. He explores union busting, the encroachment of technology on human involvement with the means of production, the complex web of sex and family politics/roles, revenge, alcoholism, and social stigmas. Yet, despite the weighty nature of these topics, the book never comes across as didactic or preachy. This is largely due to the tone in which he wrote it. It's simply a joy to read. I don't want to oversimplify, but I often think we muddle things up when we dissect or deconstruct literature. Sometimes, it's far better to write a book that's fun, exciting, hilarious, vivid, sad, confusing, and all-encompassing. There's a palpable vitality and life in this narrative. It almost feels like a conversation, as if someone is whispering it in your ear. This engaging style draws the reader in on a personal level, luring us into the complex story with its relaxed and self-assured charm.

From a writer's perspective, Kesey is doing some truly groundbreaking things with point-of-view. His willingness to have multiple characters speak in the "I" voice within the same paragraph is an incredibly bold risk. I admire his confidence in writing in this wild and unconventional way. He seems not to worry (or perhaps not to care) whether or not the reader gets confused. Although he does provide some clues as to the speakers' identities, it can still be quite bemusing. He's asking a great deal of his audience in terms of active participation with the narrative. However, if you're willing to put in the effort, this novel is truly amazing. But if you don't enjoy "working" a bit to decode what's happening on the page, then this one probably isn't for you.

This book is definitely in my top five all time. It's a remarkable piece of literature that both entertains and challenges the reader.

By far, my favorite book ever is this one.

I read it again approximately every three years. I have worn out half a dozen copies, and I have given away just as many. In fact, I would almost trade my soul for a hardcover version, but unfortunately, I just can't afford it.

Yes, this book is extremely difficult. It took me a few attempts to really get into it. However, the opening description of the river and the Stamper house on the bank immediately hooked me, and I kept coming back for more.

Once I got used to the shifting viewpoints, I could barely put the book down. There is one passage where the observations are from the family hound's perspective, and it is truly beyond description. It is perhaps one of the most amazing examples of pure writing.

This book has had a profound impact on me, and I will continue to cherish it and reread it for years to come.

1 stars - Metaphorosis Reviews

Leland Stamper has held a grudge against his half-brother Hank for a youthful misstep. When Hank writes seeking help with the family's Oregon logging business, Leland returns from his East coast school determined to teach him a lesson. But in the rough logging community where they grew up, things don't unfold as expected.

In my teens, I rarely thought of Ken Kesey, mainly as the rowdy troublemaker from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (though I hadn't read it). He was a模糊的, ill-behaved member of a self-important, boisterous group that didn't interest me. I completely failed to recognize him as the author of the excellent One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a book that left lasting images in my mind. I also didn't associate him with Sometimes a Great Notion, another unread book I lumped with Men to Match My Mountains and other "inspirational" (i.e., dull) books I should get around to reading someday.

Recently, my wife was recommended books about Oregon, including Sometimes a Great Notion and Trask. Soon after, NPR hosted a discussion about Oregon adopting a State Book, and Sometimes a Great Notion was on the list. All of this reminded me that I liked Kesey's writing, that I had never read Sometimes a Great Notion, and that perhaps "someday" had arrived.

I usually don't use bookmarks. Books provide various cues to where I left off, from how they naturally open to ink smudges on the edge. But Sometimes a Great Notion is a book without landmarks. The chapters are few and far between, the text is dense, the time-sense is erratic, and the description and actions are repetitive. I had trouble finding my place in the book and eventually inserted a bookmark.

The book itself is terrible. I don't mean in a good way. It's a very bad book that you shouldn't read. It's hard to believe it's by the same author as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The viewpoint shifts constantly and erratically, even within the same paragraph. The prose drones and plods through a jumble of half-baked metaphors and childish longings. The setting is also fairly generic. There is a certain grand, tragic aspect to the plot, but very little of it is interesting. Instead, it's a muddled mess of confused vows and half-hearted longings. It's as if Kesey took Holden Caulfield, dropped him on a rainy, muddy riverbank, and left him to whine for 600 pages without any of Holden's redeeming spirit. Even the ending doesn't work.

A lot of people love this book, but I can't understand why. Sometimes a Great Notion is less than that - it's a mediocre idea lost in a quagmire of prose that moves like mud and obscures what it tries to reveal.

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 (sic), 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?

This book seems to have a unique charm. If Woolf had experienced growing up with the Coastal Range in view, it might have influenced her writing in a profound way. The mention of "enormous, swinging testes" adds a rather bold and perhaps unexpected element, suggesting a certain masculinity that is often associated with blue-collar workers. The use of beautiful and funny slang gives the text a lively and engaging quality, while the descriptions of the menacing landscape create a sense of creepiness and danger. The themes of man vs. land and man vs. man add depth and complexity to the story, making it a captivating read. Overall, this book appears to be a unique and interesting work that combines elements of literature, masculinity, and the natural world.

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: “…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 witnesses his older half-brother, Hank, having sex with his mom in secret. Years later, after Leland and his mom leave and she commits suicide, Leland seeks revenge on Hank.

The Stampers are in need of help with their workers on strike and a major logging project. So they reach out to family, and Leland answers the call. It’s not until he comes back home that he sees how he’ll settle the score. The only problem is that it takes Kesey hundreds of pages to get to the payoff. And it’s worth it, it’s just a lot of work to get there.

Intricate, beautiful, and as tough to chew on as left-out beef jerky, this novel is an epic, EPIC piece of work.

It bravely gnaws through the bullshit in life, revealing the raw-ass intensity of familial issues with unwavering honesty.

This glorious, soggy Oregon novel seems to border on Greek tragedy. The patriarchal power struggles within it are dramatic as hell, captivating readers and pulling them into a world of intense emotions and high stakes.

Moreover, the individual characters in this novel encapsulate the difficult and exhausting thing that is the human condition. Each one is a complex and multifaceted being, with their own hopes, dreams, fears, and flaws.

Together, they form a rich and vivid tapestry that explores the depths of the human experience and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

When you mention the novelist Ken Kesey, most people immediately respond with a reference to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This is especially true after the Academy Award-winning film version, directed by Milos Forman and starring Jack Nicholson, added to its already significant fame.

However, Sometimes a Great Notion is also a remarkable work. With its vivid portrayal of family and labor discord in the waterlogged Oregon timber country, it deeply resonated with many readers in the Northwestern United States and beyond. I read it several years ago as an example of literature about business, and it stands as an admirable example within a genre that has produced notable works such as Norris's The Octopus, Dreiser's The Financier, and Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities.

Sometimes a Great Notion features Shakespearean themes set against the rugged natural backdrop of Oregon. Considered by many to be the heavyweight champion of Northwest novels, it is a huge, bold, sprawling, and brilliant narrative that chronicles one family's unwavering drive to survive and succeed. I found Kesey's style to be reminiscent of Faulkner, with his use of a'stream of consciousness' approach in telling the saga of the Stamper family. Their motto, "Never give an inch," reflects their tenacious spirit.

No Northwest novel may have a more captivating opening passage than that of "Sometimes a Great Notion." Kesey begins by tracking the birth of a river, painting a vivid picture: "Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal Range... come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River.... The first little washes flashing like thick rushing winds through sheep sorrel and clover, ghost fern and nettle, sheering, cutting... forming branches. Then, through bearberry and salmonberry, blueberry and blackberry, the branches crashing into creek, into streams. Finally, in the foothills, through tamarack and sugar pine, shittim bark and silver spruce -- and the green and blue mosaic of Douglas fir -- the actual river falls 500 feet... and look: opens out upon the fields."

Kesey not only brings the Northwest to life but also explores themes that humanity has pondered for centuries. For example, regarding time, he writes: "Time overlaps itself. A breath breathed from a passing breeze is not the whole wind, neither is it just the last of what has passed and the first of what will come, but is more--let me see--more like a single point plucked on a single strand of a vast spider web of winds, setting the whole scene atingle. That way; it overlaps...As prehistoric ferns grow from bathtub planters. As a shiny new ax, taking a swing at somebody's next year's split-level pinewood pad, bites all the way to the Civil War. As proposed highways break down through the stacked strata of centuries." And of course, the importance of reading is also emphasized: "He couldn't seem to get his teeth into anything. Except books. The things in books was darn near more real to him than the things breathing and eating."

All of these ideas are distilled into a saga that seamlessly blends Nature and the Stamper family into a story that is truly unforgettable. By the way, in 1970, there was a film version of Sometimes a Great Notion. It starred Paul Newman and Henry Fonda, but like the book, it is not nearly as popular as the 1975 film version of "Cuckoo's Nest" mentioned above. Nevertheless, I would highly encourage readers who enjoy big, bold novels to check out this less-well-known work by Ken Kesey and form their own judgments.

I didn't have any initial inclination to read this particular book. It seemed long and was written by some acidhead hippie. I thought it was only famous because Kesey himself was famous. He had a following due to his lifestyle rather than his literary prowess. The premise of it being about a group of loggers on strike didn't sound very exciting either. It just seemed plain boring. However, I decided to give it a try anyway, and boy, was I in for a surprise.

The storyline didn't immediately hook me, but Kesey's writing style did. He clearly had talent, and this book was creatively ambitious. Each character got a chance to tell their story in the first person, and the narrator could switch several times, sometimes even within a single paragraph. It seemed like it would be confusing, but I rarely had to reread because Kesey was just that good at pulling it off. I was amazed that anyone would have the audacity to write in such a way and even more amazed that he could do it so smoothly.
There were some truly beautiful sections of writing. I especially loved the paragraph where he described a canyon along the river. He talked about how one could hear clear echoes, allowing you to sing along with yourself to tunes like "Row, row, your boat." But then the description delved into the unrelenting nature of the echo, how its sound couldn't be adjusted, and that you had to adapt your new words to it as you sang. The story also had a circular effect, so that after I finished reading the last words, I immediately went back and reread the first 20.
The storyline developed from a struggle between two brothers to the struggle of a town and finally to the struggle within each of us, exploring the true meaning of "strength" and "weakness." The spirit of the American working person and the frontier was captured beautifully. When the town thought it had finally defeated Hank Stamper, there was only superficial joy because his spirit was the one that they had all given up on too long ago.
However, I did have some criticisms. The characters were a bit simple. There wasn't a lot of complexity in terms of what each character felt and why. But that being said, they weren't flat either. They were very real, just a little on the simple side.
This leads me to the question: Why didn't Kesey ever manage to be that good again? Did he even try?

Sometimes a Great Notion is an intricately polyphonic novel. The story unfolds through the narration of many voices, creating a rich and complex tapestry. It is a wickedly extravagant black comedy that is cleverly disguised as a family and social drama. The novel explores profound themes such as the nature of reality, the power of memory, and the struggle between the individual and the community.

An estranged son, filled with a burning desire for revenge against his older brother, reunites his hardheaded family. However, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that victory is an ambivalent thing. Man is a gregarious being, and the herd either forces one to conform or destroys one. The novel presents a series of collisions: reason against foolishness, spirit against flesh, sanity against madness, individual against community, and man against nature. It is a book that challenges the reader to question their own beliefs and values.

Sometimes a Great Notion is a powerful and thought-provoking work that delves deep into the human psyche. It is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring the complex and often contradictory nature of the human experience.