(Book #5) Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Last Thursday a friend emailed to tell me that he had just seen this great older movie and he suggested that I see it as soon as possible. Perhaps it was merely coincidence or maybe there was just something in the ether connecting our thoughts, but when I got that email the very novel that movie was based on was packed in with my camping gear to start reading over the weekend. A strange twist that certainly solidified that 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' was exactly what I was supposed to be reading this week. Now, before I actually start in on the actual content of the book, I just want to touch on how I have noticed certain themes acting as a string between the books that I am choosing (or are choosing me as the case may be). A particular topic or theme from one book is sometimes mentioned in the next book, which has some other idea that is touched on in a third book and so on. In school, I often found that in reading several different texts in tandem or in parallel would often draw similar notions and complement each other even though they were of completely different classes. I am finding the same thing happening now, and I am left to wonder if these sweeping thoughts are being applied to all of these different writings coincidentally? Am I touching some deep seeded string of content that is universally being addressed in any writing? Or maybe I am merely that string applying my own personal spin on of these readings. I'm thinking that it could be all of them to a degree, but beyond all that it was certainly strange to have someone suggest the very story I was about to read.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, written by Ken Kesey in the 1960's, is a fictional peek inside a ward at a mental institution. It's a story about what happens when a chaotic force, a wild new patient named McMurphy, challenges the order, discipline and unbalance of power that the domineering Head Nurse Ratched holds over the institution. Most people know that this story was a movie starring Jack Nicholson and had a colorful cast of supporting characters as the other patients on the ward, and as a whole the stories were pretty similar. What I was not aware of was that the book was written entirely from the perspective of "The Chief", the enormous Native American character silently in the background of most of the story. This was actually a great way to remove myself from what I remembered of the movie and get a completely different perspective on the actions.

It was also great to get a more in depth reading of the power struggles that happened between the characters, as they were fleshed out a bit more. The interpretation of those struggles by the Chief reflected the view of the reader. Someone that is outside, but empathetic towards the actions that are happening. As the reader, we envision the actions that are happening and can't help but wonder how our own personal reactions to these very extreme and dichotomous individuals would be.

The book overall was really well written and was surprisingly easy to follow even when the pages digressed into hallucinatory visions or casually slipped into back story. While it was good that the story was coherent in that it followed through on the inner workings of one character, I almost wonder how different it would have been if it jumped around between the different patients and the different mental perspectives. I suppose trying to get into the mindset of one particular kind of psychosis would be difficult enough let alone several different ones. It also grounded the story in a way and gave the reader a relatively fixed perspective whose interaction with the other characters progressed as the story went on. The change in one character reflected a change in all of the characters, and I am forced to wonder if perhaps the reader is meant to change as well.

(Book #3) John Hodgman - More Information Than You Require

For the third week of this little experiment, I decided to change gears once again in the style of book. Having started with Fiction, followed by Philosophy, the next logical step is an almanac of "truthy" factoids, lists and mad ramblings. This week I read 'More Information than You Require' by John Hodgman, formerly a professional literary agent and currently a minor television celebrity ("PC" from the Mac commercials) as he is so want to tell us many times throughout the book. It is not so much a sequel as it is a continuation of his first book 'The Areas of My Expertise', another volume of fake real trivia, or as he likes to call it "complete world knowledge". When I initially picked up the book, I was briefly intimidated by the amount of pages. I immediately wondered if I could make it through nearly 600 pages of madness such as this. Thankfully, I realized that this volume started on page 234 and was a perfectly smooth transition, aside from all those worthless¹ copyright and title pages, from the first volume

The content and manner of writing is what makes this such a tough book to categorize, but a fun book to read. There were many times when I found myself literally laughing out loud (LLOL) to some of the ridiculously nonsensical statements, obscure references and witty blurbs that Hodgman wrote. If I had to place this book anywhere on my shelves, it would likely initially get nestled in the comedy section next to the John Stewart and Stephen Colbert books, but would likely travel around to various other shelves when it felt it was being improperly categorized. Yes, in fact², the book is sentient and has feelings.

In the introduction of his last volume, Hodgman tells the reader that there is no right way to read the book, because the content is so varied. In this second book of complete world knowledge, there are two strains of information running parallel throughout. The first being a more well-informed string of facts³ on a wide range of topics such as Molemen, Presidents (and if they were actually women or had a hook for a hand), how to tell the future using a pig's spleen, and how to become a famous minor television celebrity. The second string of facts were a day by day calendar of all sorts of interesting things that happened on that particular day in history. All 366 days were represented and each page had a respective day. Thankfully these dates were all in order, and I did not have to jump around throughout the book to get the full effect of all these facts. I would surely still be reading if this were the case.

All in all, this was a whimsical read that was entertaining every time I picked it up and certainly lived up to its title, offering the reader more information than they required. Unless, of course, they required a list of 700 noteworthy Molemen, in which case they got just what they bargained for.

1. They were not actually worthless, as Hodgman wrote much information and fake copyright information to frame the book and information contained therein.

2. Unsubstantiated.

3. Many of these facts were often riddled with footnotes and side tracks (just like this!)of additional information that was vital for a well informed reading of the various topics, OR a reference to other passages within the two volumes of complete world knowledge.

(Book #2) Jose Ortega y Gasset - What Is Philosophy

As I went into the second week of this endeavor I felt it would be good to change the tone a bit and jump into something heavier than a fiction novel. I chose a book called "What Is Philosophy", by a Spanish philosopher named Jose Ortega y Gasset. Now, I have taken a few humanities, theory and philosophy courses through my education, and never did I come across this guy or this writing, which was recommended to us in my very first Architecture Design class eleven years ago. Since that time it has been on my bookshelf, unread and likely unopened. Having far too many unread books and too little shelf space, the time seemed right to pick this one up.

The title of the book seemed passive enough, and assuming that it would be an "Introduction to Philosophy" or a "Philosophy for Beginners", I was proven naive. After a few pages I was forced to pick up a pencil so that I may underline and highlight passages and jot notes in the margins. The book jumped headlong into some of the meaty roots of philosophy, of questioning and doubt and the process of philosophizing as a serious and worthy enterprise. Ortega posits that science attributes too much value and worth to sensory observations and seemed to be even hostile towards the notions of Physics, or at least in the wide "imperialistic" acceptance of these ideas, but assigned value to some of the methodical scientific processes in the investigation and pursuit of truth.

The book was adapted from a series of lectures and indeed read that way. Ortega seemed to seldom touch on many specific ideas that are discussed in philosophy and focused more on the act of philosophizing. Sure, he touched on many of the all-encompassing ideas, but intentionally danced around many of the literal ideas. He tried to circle around his points and slowly draw closer to his deductions, but in this became somewhat repetitive. Responding to the question of "What is Philosophy?" is like reading about philosophy itself. One sentence sometimes must be read multiple times in order to really understand what the sentence is saying. Each word in this sentence carries with it volumes of background grappling with a particular notion and poses its own set of unique questions. A loaded question in turn generates a loaded answer which must be dissected in a peeling-away of its layers like that of an onion. Much of this book was addressing those very 'layers' by taking side tracks on notions such as 'knowledge', 'doubt' and 'problems' in an effort to better enunciate a fully charged and weighted response to that very question.

Throughout the text I felt myself disagreeing with some of what Ortega had to say and wondering that If I had read this book 11 years ago without having a prior experience to many of these ideas, would I have bought into it more? Certainly the content is debased somewhat by its age, originally being presented in the 1930's, though the more broader strokes are still valid. I think it would have fit into my worldview more then when I had more positive feelings towards religion thank I do now. Overall, I did come away with a few morsels which I found interesting and as a whole it was still worth reading, as tedious as it got at times. It was also certainly worth the exercise in getting back into the mindset of reading philosophy which often requires more time and a deeper level of processing during the actual act of reading as opposed to simply reflecting back at the end of a text.

(Book #1) Stephen King - The Stand

For the first book in my "52 Books in 52 Weeks" resolution, I finished The Stand, by Stephen King. Some people might be thinking "How is it possible that he read an entire 1142 page tome in a week?". Well, I didn't. I have been grinding away at this behemoth for about 2 months and jammed through the last 200+ pages this week. So, while I didn't read the entire book this year, I did "finish" it this year, and thus... didn't cheat. That being said, and since this is my first week, I will keep the review somewhat casual.

First off, I must disclose that for a long time I considered King a paperback-rack kind of writer, right up there with Tom Clancy or Nora Roberts (Okay, maybe not that bad). I had tried reading a couple of his books when I was a teenager (IT and The Dead Zone) and couldn't get past the first chapter or two. I did, however, eventually pick up the first two books of his Dark Tower series and finished those. Even then, King's writing style didn't really appeal to me, the prose being too dry and lacking a certain meatiness. Strangely enough, his forewords about his process and the art of writing were totally compelling, so at the very least I always respected him as a writer. After some hesitation, I decided to pick up the grand-daddy of them all and give it another go...

Without giving away too much of the plot, I will just say that The Stand is about The Apocalypse, occurring in the 1990's. It comes in the form of a "super"flu, which is apt given the current Swine Flu scare. The book doesn't waste much time getting right down to it, and after a few chapters, bodies start to pile up. The story has an insane amount of detail, telling back story after back story, and yet mostly remaining relevant to the overall arc of the story. Now, I never saw the miniseries (most notably starring Gary Sinese) which aired a while ago, but a lot of people seem to remember the TV show over the book. My wife always said that the mini-series was great and the book got too tedious and she eventually gave up. I will admit that there were some slow parts, particularly a daunting 75 page chapter about a fellow named Trashcan Man, and I could completely understand if someone couldn't finish, but overall the story moved along at a good clip for me.

The book, though, was really not so much about the story as it was about the characters and their development (or collapse) through the horrendous events. We can guess who our protagonists and antagonists will be and eventually the characters all fall into their lots and we see them struggle with the world around them, but mostly with themselves. We see a lot of Good vs. Evil, but also a lot about the human condition. It was obvious that King was trying to stay away from caricatures and tie in as much reality as possible, and I think because of that I came away respecting his writing a little more. He's still not my favorite author, but he is a Writer nonetheless and this was definitely a worthy read.