This is another selection from my deck of cards that I just got around to reading last month. Though, for some reason, I've had a copy of this book since high school. The same copy, mind you. Which means that for ten years (jesus, ten years!) I moved this exact same book across countries and states, from college dormitories, to graduate family housing, to cheap apartment living, to this new house...without having even read it. I swear I'm not a hoarder.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was written by Ken Kesey and published in 1962. Kesey drew from his own experiences as an orderly at a mental health institute to write the book. Told from the perspective of half-Native American patient "Chief" Bromden, it tells the story of Randle McMurphy after he joins the psychiatric ward to avoid staying at a work farm to serve out his prison sentence. The story focuses on the power struggle between McMurphy and the ward's overseer, Nurse Ratched. During the course of the book, McMurphy antagonizes Nurse Ratched, upsets the established routines and rules, and incites the patients to stand up for themselves instead of being intimidated and emasculated. By virtue of his strong, independent, and sexually liberated (for the 50s) character, he becomes a natural leader and source of inspiration for the mentally ill patients, most of whom are in the ward voluntarily (and therefore in control of when they can deem themselves as cured). The narrator's story (Chief Bromden) is also told during the course of the book, though he immediately proves to be an unreliable narrator. Highly paranoid, he is convinced that the entire ward is operated by a mechanical collective known as The Combine that seeks to control society. The story culminates in a series of disturbing events, with some interesting role reversals (that's about as much as I want to say about where the book goes from the main premise so as not to spoil anything, though I imagine it's a fairly well known story at this point).
As a book, it is very straightforward. The narrator may be unreliable but never in the sense that you don't understand or believe what is going on, only in the sense that he is irrationally paranoid and prone to (obvious) hallucinations. The main themes regard authority and rebellion, and the insidious control exerted by Nurse Ratched. The book also comments on the oppressive nature of mental wards at the time that made them comparable to prisons.
The book was successful during the time it was published, particularly as it criticized American institutions during a time of social upheaval. Kesey would go on to consume massive quantities of LSD and become a main figure of the hippy movement (among many other notable things).
Overall, I enjoyed the book. It is a slow starter and doesn't really count as radical or eye-opening in today's age, but it is a good yarn. McMurphy ends up a much more complicated character than I've described here, and there are several notable supporting characters. The ending really shouldn't have taken me by surprise but the last quarter of the book was the most gripping portion for me.
Also, an aside (cause where else can I say it?): the movie is really not that much like the book. I didn't finish the movie because it was all crazy people and lots of yelling and Doc Brown throwing a hissy fit...and the book was not that at all. Unless I missed something in the book, what I took away from it was that the inmates were not that crazy at all, they just weren't conforming to what people expected and they weren't able to conform. Sure, there was some degree of mental instability, but overall I got the impression that they could mostly be helped if not for the domineering and dehumanizing nature of their care. But Jack Nicholson is awesome.
32 down, 20 to go.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
CB-III Book #3: The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
Damn. Well, here I am, finally. It's a very awkward moment right now, finally writing a post after such a long absence. I got no excuse. You would think that my newfound free time would have resulted in an overabundance of posts detailing every tired minutiae of my day. In fact, unemployment has been a very weird time. Sure, I spend a lot of time job-hunting, nitpicking my resume, and writing and rewriting cover letters to suit each job description. But you may be surprised to know that I haven't been playing WoW nonstop for 8 hours for the last two months (which is kind of where I saw my days devolving at first). I think this is a very good thing. I haven't been reading that much either. That's not so good. I have been watching a lot of Netflix streaming. This has had mixed results: on the one hand, I've caught up with some shows I always wanted to try; on the other hand, my brain very nearly turned to mush when I tried to cram as much Buffy and Angel as I could in one week because the stupid PS3 led me to believe that Netflix was removing them from the instant stream (but that will be another post...maybe). And I've been very good about going to the gym every day. The house is generally very clean. Most of the windows finally have curtains, which was no small task actually. I guess I'm saying that it's been a weird time in no specific way but it clearly translated into me losing interest in writing.
On to a book review. This was a very nice birthday present from Subie. I actually finished reading this a couple of months ago.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is told in two alternating halves, both of them centered on Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit missionary. One half details Sandoz's experiences back on Earth following a scientific exploration mission to an alien planet with a diverse team of scientists and other missionaries. The other half details how the space exploration mission came about, beginning with how the different team members came to know each other, how the alien planet was discovered, how the mission was put together, and what happened when the team arrived on the planet. If it was a movie, the scenes following the mission would be very dark and gloomy, probably with an overall blue hue to the film, with very somber dialogue and scenes of human despair; the other half would be very bright and colorful, with quick and witty dialogue, beautiful locations and people, and the overall tone would be one of exploration, adventure, and awe. Eventually, the two halves would meet, on the alien planet, as Sandoz retells the fateful events that occurred towards the end of the mission. The scenes prior to Sandoz's return to Earth would take a dark turn, almost (almost) horror movie-style, while the scenes after his return would see the main character gain some clarity and peace. I see Alfred Molina in the starring role, but I guess those higher up see things differently. The tagline and plot synopsis would reference the overall themes of the book, which are religious faith clashing or coexisting with scientific discovery, the meaning of fate, and the difficulties of First Contact.
Without giving plot points away, I think that describes the overall feeling and story of the book.
At the center of it, the book is really about religious and philosophical inquiry set in the science fiction trope of meeting an alien race for the first time. Several of the characters in the book struggle with their faith when confronted with extreme adversity, asking themselves the typical question of why do bad things happen to good people, how can a path of fate or divine intervention lead to suffering, how can God allow bad things to happen. While I'm not an overly religious person, or a creationist, my own personal faith allows the possibility that something initiated that first super spark that put us here, that there are dusty blueprints sitting in some long-forgotten past. However, I don't really think of God as sitting in a control room, watching over football games, deciding what babies are born alive or stillborn, watching people get married, and jotting down the names of murderers, thieves, and adulterers in a little black book. I think bad things happen to good people because shit happens, life is a crap shoot and often unfair, it is what we make of it, but it is also the random hand we are dealt. While the theological discussion in the book is interesting and well presented, it was not personally compelling and, because of that, I did feel like it slogged down the pace of the book. This is probably the complete opposite of what Russell was going for.
Much more interesting to me was the science fiction storyline that brings together a ragtag group of people as they make an amazing discovery, how they are able to explore the vast reaches of space, and what they find when they get there (though this is by no means completely new territory). I'm fascinated by science fiction stories of First Contact, even though I bet any First Contact with alien intelligent life would lead to violent confrontations and laser blasts in the face. Although the mystery of what happened to the science team on the alien planet kept me somewhat hooked, it's not really that important (you know something happened right off the bat, you just don't know how bad it got).
Overall, it was an interesting read, but not as important to me as it might be to someone else.
On to a book review. This was a very nice birthday present from Subie. I actually finished reading this a couple of months ago.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is told in two alternating halves, both of them centered on Father Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit missionary. One half details Sandoz's experiences back on Earth following a scientific exploration mission to an alien planet with a diverse team of scientists and other missionaries. The other half details how the space exploration mission came about, beginning with how the different team members came to know each other, how the alien planet was discovered, how the mission was put together, and what happened when the team arrived on the planet. If it was a movie, the scenes following the mission would be very dark and gloomy, probably with an overall blue hue to the film, with very somber dialogue and scenes of human despair; the other half would be very bright and colorful, with quick and witty dialogue, beautiful locations and people, and the overall tone would be one of exploration, adventure, and awe. Eventually, the two halves would meet, on the alien planet, as Sandoz retells the fateful events that occurred towards the end of the mission. The scenes prior to Sandoz's return to Earth would take a dark turn, almost (almost) horror movie-style, while the scenes after his return would see the main character gain some clarity and peace. I see Alfred Molina in the starring role, but I guess those higher up see things differently. The tagline and plot synopsis would reference the overall themes of the book, which are religious faith clashing or coexisting with scientific discovery, the meaning of fate, and the difficulties of First Contact.
Without giving plot points away, I think that describes the overall feeling and story of the book.
At the center of it, the book is really about religious and philosophical inquiry set in the science fiction trope of meeting an alien race for the first time. Several of the characters in the book struggle with their faith when confronted with extreme adversity, asking themselves the typical question of why do bad things happen to good people, how can a path of fate or divine intervention lead to suffering, how can God allow bad things to happen. While I'm not an overly religious person, or a creationist, my own personal faith allows the possibility that something initiated that first super spark that put us here, that there are dusty blueprints sitting in some long-forgotten past. However, I don't really think of God as sitting in a control room, watching over football games, deciding what babies are born alive or stillborn, watching people get married, and jotting down the names of murderers, thieves, and adulterers in a little black book. I think bad things happen to good people because shit happens, life is a crap shoot and often unfair, it is what we make of it, but it is also the random hand we are dealt. While the theological discussion in the book is interesting and well presented, it was not personally compelling and, because of that, I did feel like it slogged down the pace of the book. This is probably the complete opposite of what Russell was going for.
Much more interesting to me was the science fiction storyline that brings together a ragtag group of people as they make an amazing discovery, how they are able to explore the vast reaches of space, and what they find when they get there (though this is by no means completely new territory). I'm fascinated by science fiction stories of First Contact, even though I bet any First Contact with alien intelligent life would lead to violent confrontations and laser blasts in the face. Although the mystery of what happened to the science team on the alien planet kept me somewhat hooked, it's not really that important (you know something happened right off the bat, you just don't know how bad it got).
Overall, it was an interesting read, but not as important to me as it might be to someone else.
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