One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

Now this is story about few fellow inmates in the mental asylum, told by one of them "Chief" who is half american indian & pretends to be deaf n dumb. The inmates here have a very restricted life which is further controlled by the "Big Nurse" there. Everybody is terrified by this Big Nurse who has her own definition of discipline. All this changes when "McMurphy" comes into this asylum. Now he really isnt mental, & comes there to escape imprisonment or something. He is a very jolly & happy go lucky fellow, who likes to have fun & make everybody have fun. Now obviously when he introduces his concept of having fun he clashes with Big Nurse. So the story goes about like this. It kind of becomes McMurphy vs Big Nurse. Ending is kinda sad for those who are on McMurphy side, cuz he had come to the asylum just to buy time & ends up there forever just because of his nature of questionsing things, of wanting to have fun rather than following a dreary subdued life. I mean whats the harm in watching a game on Tv? Even that was something unacceptable to Big Nurse. Actually everything was unacceptable to her, she wanted things to be exactly the way she wanted without anybody questioning. No denying that McMurphy did go beyond limits with the booze party & all, where he should have just concentrated on his escape plan. One good thing that happens is the Chief gets the strength & hope to escape from this kind of imprisonment...& the inmates there find their voice to assert themselves.

I really liked the way the story goes, the humor in it, different kind of characters in the asylum...their joys n fear ...it was a nice read. I also watched the movie after reading this book & Jack Nicholson has done justice to the "McMurphy" character :)

It seems the author actually worked in a mental asylum & thats when he spoke to the people there & witnessed the shock therapies & drugs that were administered to these people & so came about writing this book. This book gives a picture of how some people dominate & control the lives & mind of other people. And the whole thing is so subtle that the people being dominated dont even realize that they dont have any free will left. Its kind of sad to see how people at authorative position can destroy other peoples life just as a mere fancy..