I love how Penguin has started publishing a whole bunch of classic novels and some rather good non-fiction in these inexpensive no-frills volumes that you wouldn’t have too many qualms about bending and sticking in your back pocket for the commute to work. In the spirit of all things vintage as well, they stay true to the way these imprints used to look way back when. What I wouldn’t give right now for a wall full of these orange numbers.
But I digress. What better way to start than with a classic. I opened One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with mild trepidation that it would turn out like one of those dreary ancient volumes of my schooling days, lulling one into catatonia faster than a rabbit down a hole. Instead I turned out very pleasantly surprised. The story is a promising one already, set in an asylum and pitting Nurse Ratched, the tyrannical Big Nurse, against the new arrival to her ward – the boisterous scoundrel McMurphy who immediately sets about working loose her iron-grip upon the place and its inhabitants. The battle of wits that ensues is classic, a game of cat and mouse in starched white uniforms and olive green patients’ togs; driven by Kesey's lovely easy-to-read style, and making this a far cry from the epic snore-fests that so many "critically acclaimed' and "award-winning" novels turn out to be.
Cuckoo is nothing if not an icon of anti-establishment, Nurse Ratched playing the role of big bad authority and McMurphy the heroic dissident. Yet the deeper you get the more you realise that things really aren't as simple as they seem, and the lines between oppressor and oppressed not as clearly demarcated. Hallmarks of a fantastic read and highly recommended.
