The Unspoken Thing; Kesey's role and the whole direction the Pranksters were taking-all the pranksters were conscious of it, but none of them put it into words, as I say. They made a point of not putting it into words. that in itself was one of the unspoken rules. If you label it this, then it can't be that....Kesey took great pains not to make his role explicit. he wasn't the authority, somebody else was: "Babbs says...." "Page says...." he wasn't the leader, he was the "non-navigator."

Quotes from Kesey that I enjoyed:

"You're either on the bus or off the bus."

"feed the hungry bee,"

"Nothing lasts,"

"See with your ears and hear with your eyes,"

"Put your good where it will do the most,"

"What did the mirror say? It's done with people."

The in inscrutable koans, in which the ovice says, "what is the secret of Zen?" and the Hui-neng the master says, "What did your face look like before your parents begat you?"

"On the the face of it there was just a group of people who had shared an unusal psychological state, the LSD experience-
They all began with an overwhelming new experience, what Joachim Wach called the experience of the holy," and Max Weber, "possession of the deity," the sense o being a vessel of the divine, of the All-one.

A must read.

I would recommend to: folks that lived through this generation (you're about 60-70 years old now), and especially folks that didn't--just to get a "his"torical point of view regarding what was happening when Kesey's groupies intersected a few bonafide history making events of the '60s.

The author wrote much of this as a tripping stream of conscience narrative. Much of it is therefore incomprehensible unless you've partaken of the splendid electric koolaid yourself. It's fun, and a romp through a slice of history that not many have made an effort to document. It's dreamlike madness and dayglo adventures that like a dream dissipate with the morning sun. I hate to give it a poor 3 stars but I could only truly grok about 3/5's of it anyway and I had to let the rest pour over me like a DFW epic tome of semi-sensical gags and disjointed observations.

Look, you simply can't describe some things with mere words. LSD is one of those things. I think he did a fine job writing a 3/5's readable tale. Do I recommend it? Yes and no. You old heads out there know you need to read it....the rest of you shouldn't bother unless you found Proust and Joyce easy literary mountains to climb and understand. Maybe you masochists will make it to 5/5? Namaste.

Seems really dated and irrelevant now. Meh.

I read this in (probably) high school. I should pick it up again and refresh myself.

Wild ride!

[the cover is silver with black type -- thick because it has the book along with several essays] his style really grabbed me and i proceeded to read the rest of his books.

Read stoned and "america' will finaĺly make sence

A rite of passage.

I love this mind bending kaleidoscopic hippy trip book!!!

Whew! Finally finished this book ~ What a long, strange trip it's been.......