Sometimes A Great Notion is an extraordinary book that tells the story of the Stamper family, renegade loggers in Oregon, perhaps in the fifties. The family is led by Henry, the crazed and stubborn patriarch who started the logging business. His sons, Hank and Joe Ben, now run the company. Hank's wife Viv is gorgeous and quiet, while his younger half-brother Leland is an intellectual who fled to New York to finish college. The Stampers have always been despised by the town, and now, with a logging strike underway, their actions are preventing the strike from ending.

This book is not just about logging and union struggles; it's about people. The characters are some of the most fascinating and deeply drawn I've ever encountered. Even the supporting cast has rich backstories. The way these people love and hurt each other is intense, believable, and real. It made me remember the importance of emotional connection with characters in literature.

Kesey's literary style is also impressive. He tells the story from multiple points of view, sometimes even in the same paragraph. This technique adds depth and complexity to the narrative, making it a stunningly complete picture. However, one drawback is the portrayal of women. Most of the female characters are shrewish, mute, or dead, and Viv, the only truly developed woman, is not as thoroughly done as the men.

Overall, Sometimes A Great Notion is an amazing story that had a profound impact on me. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves literature and wants to experience a powerful and emotional read.

after reading: Oh my. Oh my goodness what an incredible book. Absolutely stunning.

Challenging writing style often results in a difficult read.

Here, the dialog, scenes, and character actions are intertwined in a manner that it's only several paragraphs later that one realizes the speaker and scene have changed.

Kesey doesn't belong to the concise camp of modern writers either.

I believe there is a great book hidden within this work somewhere, but I'm not certain if I have the interest to reread it to prove this theory.

It's quite pleasing to me that Hollywood made a film based on such an obviously anti-union story.

However, it's highly unlikely that this would happen today.

The complex narrative and the unique way of presenting the story make it a distinct piece of literature.

Whether it truly reaches the level of a great book remains to be seen, but it definitely has its own charm and challenges for the reader.

The film adaptation further adds to the work's significance and reach, although the context and social climate may have changed since the story was first written.

Overall, it's a fascinating exploration of a particular writing style and its impact on the reader and the broader cultural landscape.

I live in the Northwest.

My bookish friends have often 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, penned by Ken Kesey of the Merry Pranksters group, has truly seared into my brain. Published in 1964, the plot centers around the fictional Stamper logging family who reside along the Oregon coast.

The setting is the mid-1900s, a time when loyalty still held great significance. The logging industry, as perilous as ever, also confronted challenges from unions and strikes. The story is told in an ever-evolving and sometimes demanding POV among the main characters: Hank Stamper, the eldest son; Lee, Hank's half-brother; and to a lesser extent, Old Henry, the patriarch. In the Stamper family, there is a complex mix of orneriness, perseverance, resolution, and obliviousness, among other traits.

The myth of brotherly love is also put to the test. Lee, who has been on the East coast since the age of twelve, returns to the family home in Wakonda as a young man determined to settle a score.

A diverse cast of characters populates the small town of Wakonda, each grappling with their own internal struggles. The local prostitute, Simone, wrestles with her religious upbringing. Willard, a quiet man with a secret, contends with a life-altering decision. We all have our own battles, and in that regard, we can closely identify with some of these individuals.

Mr. Kesey, who grew up in Oregon, describes the flora and fauna with exquisite detail.

The changing POV was a bit disconcerting at times, especially when it occurred two or three times in a single paragraph. However, it had an interesting effect when the intensity increased and the pace of the thoughts quickened as well.

A sense of dread gradually built up around the middle of the book, and it was not unfounded.

The characters were entirely believable and well-developed. Joe-Ben was a favorite goofball, and the thoughts of bar-owner Teddy were thoughtful and discerning.

In conclusion, SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION is well worth the effort to read.

Sometimes a Great Notion, published in 1964, was often regarded as the "East of Eden" of the hippy generation. Just like East of Eden, it delved into the story of two brothers vying for the love of a woman. Their father held strong convictions, while their mother had rather loose morals.

However, Ken Kesey had markedly different ideas from John Steinbeck. Steinbeck was a New Dealer, firmly believing that the state had the responsibility to enhance people's lives. In contrast, Kesey desired absolute freedom from all rules. He was vehemently against drug laws, age of consent laws, labour unions, psychiatric hospitals, and even black people. In the two years preceding the publication of Sometimes a Great Notion, Kesey journeyed along the Pacific Coast, organizing free concerts for the youth and providing them with drugs in the form of Electric Kool-Aid (LSD mixed with conventional Kool-Aid). Unlike Steinbeck, Kesey never achieved the Nobel Prize.

Sometimes a Great Notion was Kesey's final book to receive favorable critical acclaim. In Tom Wolfe's famous opinion, Ken Kesey had seemingly fried his brains with LSD and lacked the mental faculties to write in the period after the book's publication.

The title of this novel is derived from Leadbelly's Good Night Irene. The lyrics go: Sometimes I live in the country, Sometimes I live in the town, Sometimes I have a great notion, to jump into the river and drown.

Sometimes a Great Notion is a tribute to the independent-spirited American who reacts aggressively to any adversity. The story revolves around the two Stamper brothers who strive to keep their saw mill operational after the workers go on strike. The strike leads to physical violence and intense emotional stress within the community. Thus, the novel offers an excellent examination of community solidarity and labour relations in a single-industry town.

I also observe that Sometimes a Great Notion provides profound insights into the religious practices of Americans. At one point, the elder Stamper receives a gift of a picture of the Blessed Mary with the Beatitudes beneath it. However, he covers the Beatitudes and replaces them with the single phrase: - Never give a f...ing inch.

Americans are quite acquainted with the Stamper attitude. Europeans who read this book should understand that it represents a significant current in American thought.

The novel concludes with the annual log drive down the river. With their workers on strike, the two brothers decide to undertake it alone. Since far more men are required, one realizes that the two brothers have a bold idea that is likely to result in their drowning.

This book is truly a mind-blowing experience. Read it, and if you're crazy, you'll love it.

Sometimes, I have a great idea for a novel, like a saga (so to speak), a kind of working-class Western where the two adversaries are brothers, engaged in a pathetic and silent battle until the final explosion. Their family rivalry takes on almost biblical proportions (like the myth of Abel and Cain), as one pales in comparison to a brother who is a true force of nature. Added to this face-to-face is a third character, the impetuous and wild nature that serves as the backdrop to the story. From the Wakonda-Auga River, which snakes and menaces, flood after flood, to the Stamper house... to the logs of fallen trees that constantly hover above the heads of the loggers... to the permanent humidity that makes the wood warp and drip... to the squadrons of Canadian geese that fly over the roof and disturb sleep... I have rarely had so much pleasure reading this type of naturalistic description.

This beautiful brick of a book has 800 pages, and at a rate of 30 pages per hour, I admit that I sometimes struggled not to give up. The pace is slow, very slow, but I found many gems of writing that made me persevere in my reading.

The profusion and interweaving of narrative perspectives also make the genius of the work: a scene as banal as a conversation that degenerates in the town's tavern is told with remarkable fluidity by four protagonists at once. The psychology of the characters is also polyphonic and full of all-too-human complexity. We are far from the Manichean struggle, and the hero becomes pathetic as the villain becomes human. It's as if this novel throbs in the hands of the reader (yes, my lyricism is very appropriate).

Ken Kesey is better known for his psychedelic tribulations than for his writing talents, but his style is just breathtaking. So read the first two pages, and if your heart flutters with emotion when you read them, tell yourself that you will find this sensation many times among these 800 pages.

The Story

The struggle and ultimate acquiescence to nature, along with reckoning with ultimate power [God], is the theme of this huge, rollicking, informative, and most interesting story. Nature is vividly seen in the ever-present rain and wind, the rivers, the trees, seasons, the moon, and the entire animal kingdom. The indomitable Hank Stamper, with his relentless self-denial and muscular struggles against the virgin hardwoods, represents the iron against which many have struck and lost. His attempts to dominate the land are beautifully described, but mostly his battle against his own father, his family, and the entire town of Waukanda, Oregon, consume over 700 pages. This story is told from a huge array of characters, each defined in loving detail, including their unvarnished physicality as well as their frame of mind.

Nature

Kesey tells of the old time ways and the inexplicable response of a wild animal upon being rescued (analogous to himself, as we will see). While checking crab pots with an old Swede in the mouth of the river leading to the ocean, they come across a swimming deer (p. 287): “…this once we seen great big buck deer, a real beauty, eight-nice points. And he says let’s get that feller. So we get a line on him and haul him in. The Swede figures the buck’s worth foolin’ round b’golly because we can eat him, I suppose, so we get a line around his head and lug him on board. An’ he just laid there. He was pretty nearly gone. Breathin’ hard, rollin’ his eyes scared to death the way deer do. But I don’t know---not just scared. I mean it weren’t like he was just scared of damn near drowning or of bein’ caught on a boat with people neither. Not that kind of scared, as near as I could make out, but pure scared….Well he looked so done in we didn’t bother to tie him down. He was just layin’ there sort of stunned an’ so shot he didn’t look like he could bat an eye. He laid there, didn’t make a move till we got close to the beach on our way in; then, man alive, he was up for a second there it was just hoofs and horns in all directions, then over the side. I thought at first the booger had just been sullin’ till he got near enough to swim to shore. But that wasn’t it. He turned right around, right into an incomin’ tide and headed right straight back out, lookin’ scared as ever. It kinda got me, you know? I’d always heard tell that deer and such went into the surf to kill the ticks and lice with salt water, then got swept out, but after seein’ that buck I decided different, I decided there was more to it than bugs…. Hell, boy I don’t know why. You got the education, I’m nothin’ but a dumbass logger”. This is told in the broken language of the uneducated oldtimer of a father.

Kesey’s talent for pure nature writing is often about its power and fury, yet dynamic and beautiful. “Those Halloween clouds had continued to roll in off the sea all the rumbling night - a surly multitude, angry at being kept waiting so long and full of moody determination to make up for time lost. Pouring out rain as they went, they had rolled over the beaches and town, into the farmlands and low hills, finally piling headlong up against the wall of the Coastal Range mountains with a soft, massive inertia. All night long a few piled to the mountaintops and over into the Willamette Valley with the overloads of rain, but the majority, the great bulk of that multitude gathered and blown from the distant stretches of the sea, came rebounding heavily back into the other clouds. They exploded above the town like colliding lakes.”

The Locals as representing the Humans

Even the teenagers, possessed of fear, are intimidating to Hank’s visiting half brother as they approach him walking outside of town: “from a whiskerless face too young to buy beer glinted a pair of onyx eyes old before the Black Plague hit Europe”. These characters are archetypical, and this is a classic fable.

Hank gets back to his groove

Hank is much feared and a force to be reckoned with (even those much larger fear him). Frustrated with local politics, keeping his wife happy and his half brother in check, he is suddenly pressed to get back in the woods and gets the old feeling (p. 565): “Hank wiped his nose on the wet cuff of his sweat-shirt sticking from his poncho, then grabbed the saw again and dug in the trunk of the tree before him, feeling the relaxation of labor, of simple uncomplicated labor, run through his body like a warm liquid….(like a sleep, sort of, sleeps a guy could name. I never minded work so much). The logs fell good and the wind stayed down”. Hank is in tune with nature in a physical and metaphysical sense.

The final battle

Spoiler here: Finally Lee (the brother-in-law) confronts his fear (his brother-in-law) and enacts revenge by seducing his wife – to resolve an old wound. The final battle (after many with the townsfolk and a couple of untimely deaths and suicides by those overcome) comes down to the brothers-in-law who test themselves and no longer does Lee cower in fear, even as he is beaten. But ultimately he realizes the pettiness of his hatred grudge, and that the women in his life are equally complicit in his sense of injury. All are players acting out their ultimate destinies, railing against the power of nature (human and earthly). His battle is with God, and his anger finally seethes over to the point where he joins the battle against the mother/God (the river, the logs) in a desperate final act: Which remains unresolved, as in all great novels.

The style

This novel has so many interwoven points of view, often changing midsentence, going back to the past constantly, and returning in a split second. The characters’ thoughts and words are intermixed, defined by all caps and quotes variously. Lee is the protagonist, but his is not the dominant character. The theme is humanity against nature/god, so it is sensible to write this way. I got accustomed to the style about halfway through, and it smoothed to a nice comprehensible pattern for me. The characters are well described and consistently back-referenced, and Kesey has a fine sense of the dramatic and foreshadowing. The humor comes from the foibles and flaws of these most colorful and well-rendered characters, often hilariously so. A great read all in all.

Sometimes A Great Notion had many aspects that I found enjoyable.

The way the narration shifted from first person to third person and back to first person (but from another character's perspective) all on the same page was truly intriguing. It added an element of complexity and kept me engaged.

I also loved the mention of the bar with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union sign out front. The idea of such a sign in a bar was quite humorous and made me imagine what it would be like to own a bar with such a sign.

Picturing the life on the river, isolated from the town and constantly threatened by floods, was another aspect that I found captivating. It gave me a sense of the harsh reality and the struggle for survival.

However, despite these enjoyable elements, I have to admit that I didn't get a whole lot out of the book. It took me two months to read, which I think is a sign that I wasn't fully immersed in it.

The motives and unspoken things in the story were hard to determine, and I would have liked more clarity.

While the book was well-written, it just wasn't worth the time it took for me. I wish it had been more engaging and fulfilling, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Maybe others will have a different experience, but for me, it was a bit of a disappointment.

Sometimes a Great Notion/Never Give an Inch was truly one of the remarkable books I devoured around 2007 - 08 when I was residing in Mumbai. This book was as tough as an axe, unyielding and demanding. It was like a black box that had endured a plane crash, full of mystery and resilience. Back then, I didn't have a TV. I was living in a single hospital bedroom that had been converted into a paying guest facility. Yet, I was able to immerse myself in these tomes. Looking back, I have a deep appreciation for real writers like Ken Kesey. He had the confidence to believe that his 630 - page tome was captivating enough, unlike some fraud and lazy crime fiction writers. Their 120 - page novels might have led to the erosion of the effort readers put into a real writer and inspired those 45 - minute episodes of 10 - season Netflix series that people consume today as art. Indeed, 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 to write a novel like this.

The Stampers, the American family at the heart of this novel, are like the La Mottas of Oregon. They engage in battles with the labor union, nature (the river is slowly devouring the Stamper ranch), and even with each other. The elder brother, Hank Stamper, has had an affair with his half - brother Leland Stamper's mother. Leland, who is like a timid college student, recalls this incident in his dreams. Leland returns to Oregon and makes a move on his half - brother's gentle wife, Viv. There is an epic fistfight between the two brothers at the end of the book. Viv leaves and watches the two brothers jumping over logs after their mutual love interest has departed. Men seem to get along better in the absence of the arousing female presence. I am writing this from memory.

People often read too much into these American novels. Oh! Hank hates change and hippies. Ultimately, I believe this book is about raw American power (while also reflecting on its flaws, obviously). It is about men who do not submit or bend easily to nature and the system. The movie based on this book was a disappointment despite having such big names as Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, and Lee Remick.

This is truly a remarkable book. The character and plot development are masterfully crafted, with key points of symbolism that add depth and meaning. The author has a total command of the setting and historical circumstance, creating a vivid and immersive world. It grabs you by the gut in the right places and leaves you with a throaty hallelujah when you finish reading. Kesey knows his woods like Richard Powers' tree bible, but from opposing sides. This brings up a salient query: isn't it interesting, strange, and perhaps even mystical, how books seem to bleed into each other? I didn't plan to read Saragamo's "Cain" followed by Steinbeck's "EoE" and then Kesey's more subtle twist on the biblical Cain & Abel metamorphoses (and Ovid's book too). Just like those (Powers) trees communicating with each other, attentive and free-wheeling readers, riding that perpetual wave of euphoric imagination, catch a "notion" of where to go next, unbeknownst to them. One moment you're here, the next a casual blink or a nod from somewhere else, and suddenly you're reading this next book! It's almost like magic.

It's as if the books themselves are guiding us, leading us on a journey through different worlds and ideas. We may start with one book, but before we know it, we're drawn into another, and another. This interconnectedness of books is what makes reading such a rich and rewarding experience. It allows us to explore different perspectives, learn new things, and expand our minds.

Whether it's the similarities in themes, the shared use of symbolism, or just the serendipitous way in which we come across different books, there's something truly special about how they bleed into each other. It's a reminder that literature is a vast and interconnected web, and that each book is just one thread in that tapestry. As readers, we have the privilege of exploring this web and uncovering the hidden connections that lie within.

I first came across this book in the 1970s when it was assigned as a text in my college English class, shortly after its publication. At the conclusion of that class, I boldly proclaimed it as “The Great American Novel of the Pacific Northwest”. I had never before read anything quite like it, nor had I encountered a work that so vividly depicted the PNW and its resource-based communities.

Decades later, I decided to revisit it and assess whether my initial judgment still held true. And indeed, it does.

I still haven't read a novel that can compare to it. Whether it's the accurate and honest portrayal of logging life in the 1960s, not long after handlogging was commonplace, or the kaleidoscopically rotating split points of view within the novel (sometimes even within the same paragraph). The inner voices of each character seem incredibly authentic: the bluff hard-guy attitude of Hank Stamper, the somewhat effete academic tone of Lee Stamper, and the old school slang of Henry, Hank's father. Even the dog's point of view appears genuine.

The book is sprawling and larger than life, dealing with fundamental issues such as family love and resentment, the pressure cooker life of a small town, and the constant rain.

If I were to offer a critique, it would be that the casual racism in the book now rubs one the wrong way. However, it was likely intended to have that effect then as well, and it seems true to how those people would have behaved at that time and place. There's no point in sugar-coating the harsher, unthinking attitudes of these individuals.

I also believe that Kesey isn't particularly adept at writing women. The female characters seem more one-sided compared to the men, serving more as representations rather than fully realized individuals. But then again, Hank and Lee are representations of the two sides of Kesey – the bluff outdoorsman and jock (he was big in wrestling) versus the thoughtfully contrary academic.

All in all, the book has held up remarkably well. It remains the book I would recommend to anyone wanting to understand small town life in the PNW, albeit sixty years removed. However, some of these places and attitudes haven't changed much since then.

This book must have taken me the best part of 15 years to read.

I started it and put it down countless times. I truly didn't think I would ever manage to get through it.

Perhaps one has to reach a particular stage in life - when one has had enough of high-action thrillers - to be able to take the time to digest the writing and become deeply involved in and identify with the lives of the characters.

In today's world of instant gratification and sensory overload, this book progresses at a slow, gentle pace. This was likely the very reason I had such a hard time with it for so many years.

However, just like the river that is an essential part of the story, it keeps on moving. And if you yield to the beautiful writing and "go with the flow", it turns out to be an incredibly exciting journey.

I am extremely glad that I read this book. In fact, it is firmly in my list of the top three books I have ever read!

WOW! This book is truly awful.

It strongly reminds me of Gravity's Rainbow. There's just a continuous blah blah blah blah, and nothing of any real substance seems to happen. Then suddenly, you find yourself asking, "Why am I even reading this?" I managed to get to page 240 out of a total of 600 pages, and with each passing page, I got angrier and angrier at how terrible it was.

It's as if you're sitting next to a boring, rambling drunk in a bar who just refuses to shut up. It's难以置信 that this was written by the same person who gave us the amazing One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.

The contrast between the two works is just staggering. How could the same author produce such a masterpiece and then this dud? It makes me wonder what went wrong during the writing of this book.

Maybe the author was going through a difficult time, or perhaps they were trying something new that just didn't work. Whatever the reason, this book is a major disappointment.