Just read
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey, the same author of
One Flew over a Cuckoos Nest. It is easily the most difficult book that I’ve finished. But this book is not about finishing it, as the long descriptive passages almost force you to slow down and not rush through it to cross it off of your list. As in this passage during a fistfight:
After one overcomes his natural aversion and hesitation and takes the first steps, enters into the spirit, so to speak, of this particular form of primitive gavotte, he finds it is not nearly so unpleasant as his apprehensions had given him to believe. Not at all. Certainly it can be a bit more difficult than fox-trotting at the Waldorf or mamboing at the Copa, but then it can also be, in the final analysis, a good deal less painful. For although a clout on the side of the head can set up a ringing sting that makes the ear burn like the fires of hell for the duration of the dance, who has not suffered more violent attacks on that same organ in the calm and cozy two-step? The clout will cease its ringing and the ear its burning, but who hasn’t suffered a few well-placed words breathed softly cheek-to-cheek over the strains of a hotel orchestra? words with the power to ring on for months and years, and not just burn the ear but char one whole side of the brain as well?
And maybe it takes reading 300 pages of it to actually, really, get into the book, but that’s probably why it is 600 pages long – so you can enjoy those last 300 pages. Part of the reason why it takes so long to get into the book is that the point-of-view changes constantly; Kesey separates the changes in narrators only through context and italics or paragraphs. For example, here is a part where a hunting dog becomes part of the narrator:
yes WHAT? Molly lifts her muzzle from her paws and turns her head stiffly toward the sound of Hank’s WHISTLE WHAT? The air around smells heavy with BEAR, but the smell is not right now. This is the smell where the BEAR had first made a STAND. Right here. And she has run him. The WHISTLE cuts through the dark to her again WHAT? HIM? she pushed her front quarters up, and the one good hind leg, and starts WALKing once more HIM YES . . . WALK.
And mixed with the descriptive passages is a great story that, for the most part, the reader can’t predict what will happen next. But what does happen, just because it isn’t predictable, isn’t contrived either. To sum up, great story, great characters, great descriptions, tough to get through. I’ll leave with another quote that I really liked:
Because nothing can be done about the rain except blaming. And if nothing can be done about it, why get yourself in a sweat about it? Matter of fact, it can be convenient to have around. Got troubles with the old lady? It’s the rain. Got worries and frets about the way the old bus is falling to pieces right under you? It’s the ruttin’ rain. Got a deep, hollow ache bleeding cold down inside the secret heart of you from too many deals fallen through? too many nights in bed with the little woman without being able to get it up? too much bitter and not enough sweet? Yeah? That there, brother is just as well blamed on the rain; falls on the just and unjust alike, falls all day long all winter long every winter every year, and you might just as well give up and admit that’s the way it’s gonna be, and go take a little snooze.
And I love those kind of philosophies tucked into novels. Oh, and don’t even consider watching the movie, even though Paul Newman is quite the looker.
