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Sometimes a Great Notion Paperback – July 28, 1977
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A bitter strike is raging in a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers: Henry, the fiercely vital and overpowering patriarch; Hank, the son who has spent his life trying to live up to his father; and Viv, who fell in love with Hank's exuberant machismo but now finds it wearing thin. And then there is Leland, Henry's bookish younger son, who returns to his family on a mission of vengeance - and finds himself fulfilling it in ways he never imagined. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals, Ken Kesey crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.
- Print length640 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Books
- Publication dateJuly 28, 1977
- Dimensions5.09 x 1.36 x 7.76 inches
- ISBN-100140045295
- ISBN-13978-0140045291
- Lexile measure1020L
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Editorial Reviews
Review
--Ralph J. Gleason, San Francisco Chronicle
"Sometimes a Great Notion, a big book in every way, captures the tenor of the post-Korea America as nothing I can remember reading . . . Beyond the PTA and the beer commercials, beyond the huge effluvium of the times, exist people who live by the ancient passions, and Mr. Kesey in the fullness of his material discovers them for us."
--The New York Times Book Review
"A tremendous achievement . . . Set against the damp and brutal background of an Oregon logging community, the book by turns gasps, pants, whoops, and shrieks . . . you cannot help but admire Kesey's vigor, his profligate command of the language. And you have to stand back in awe of the man's ability to create character."
--The Cleveland Plain Dealer
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Penguin Books (July 28, 1977)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 640 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0140045295
- ISBN-13 : 978-0140045291
- Lexile measure : 1020L
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.09 x 1.36 x 7.76 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #62,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #234 in Classic American Literature
- #2,250 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- #4,811 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Ken Kesey was born in Colorado in 1935. He founded the Merry Pranksters in the sixties and became a cult hero, a phenomenon documented by Tom Wolfe in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He died in 2001.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book compelling and engrossing. They appreciate the insightful narrative and well-developed characters. The writing style is captivating, poignant, and beautiful at times. Many readers find the book worthwhile and rewarding. However, some feel the story is too long and contains too much minutiae.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book engaging. They describe the story as original, compelling, and engrossing. Readers consider it a classic of literature that is required reading for fiction fans. The book contains many characters and stories that are entertaining.
"...Highly recommended for serious readers as well as anyone who enjoys a story about relationships unveiling themselves at a tense and reflective pace...." Read more
"...Absolutely incredible book. Loved the way Kesey was able to smoothly switch narratos, sometimes mid-paragraph. Definitely in my personal top 10 books." Read more
"Lots of pages, lots of characters, lots of story, lots of heads gotten into...." Read more
"...underbrush, Sometimes a Great Notion depicts some of the most compelling harrowing scenes I’ve read in a novel—in particular, the calm yet desperate..." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and engaging. They appreciate the effective way it layers meaning and motivation with personal history. The book contains content that requires re-reading and has potential for greatness, but some feel the delivery is subpar.
"...is outstanding as a combined celebration of artistic pathos, structural innovation, comic timing, and mastery of dialect...." Read more
"...The writing is outstanding, beautiful. In particular, the description of natural events, animals and the outdoors; but tough going...." Read more
"...Very interesting treatise and glimpse into what Kesey was up to when he wrote "Sometimes a Great Notion" and prior to the bus and the..." Read more
"...deeply into a culture in decline in America, and it is a fascinating study of political and emotional turmoil...." Read more
Customers enjoy the well-developed characters with their quirks and personal histories. They appreciate the meaning, motivation, and connections between the characters over time.
"Lots of pages, lots of characters, lots of story, lots of heads gotten into...." Read more
"...old growth forest of a book is a dizzying often non-linear mishmash of characters, shifting points of view, and drenching unremitting rain and..." Read more
"...His characters are three-dimensional individuals, replete with warts and quirks that make them seem as though we've known them all our lives - and..." Read more
"...The character development in the movie was absolutely superb...." Read more
Customers enjoy the captivating and poignant storytelling. They appreciate the vivid imagery, brilliant narration, artful descriptions, and profoundly imagined portrait of a time, place, and people. The book is described as poetic, funny, and Tom Robbins-like.
"...This novel is outstanding as a combined celebration of artistic pathos, structural innovation, comic timing, and mastery of dialect...." Read more
"...The writing is outstanding, beautiful. In particular, the description of natural events, animals and the outdoors; but tough going...." Read more
"...If you do, you will miss the best parts of the book. Vivid descriptions of places and thoughts put the reader in Oregon and the minds of the..." Read more
"...Thereafter this is a profoundly imagined portrait of a time, place and people that should be considered an American classic, if it isn't already...." Read more
Customers find the book worth reading and a great purchase. They appreciate the writing style and find it rewarding and unique, worthy of its prizes.
"...If you can get into it, keep going. Worth the ride." Read more
"...But his books are worth reading. He has a different outlook than most any other author I have ever read...." Read more
"...Not easy to read. Worth the concerted effort." Read more
"...It's unique, challenging and powerful with expansive prose and rapidly shifting narrative perspective with several characters often narrating in..." Read more
Customers find the book funny, heartwarming, and emotionally engaging. They describe it as a soulful, tender, and psychologically challenging work of art that explores the American psyche across three generations.
"...a Great Notion” is a terrific, funny, tender, and psychologically demanding work of art that has few equals and no superiors in the entire body of..." Read more
"...in America, and it is a fascinating study of political and emotional turmoil...." Read more
"...this novel speaks to the uniquely America psyche, albeit the psyche of a different era, and across three generations of an blue collar logging family..." Read more
"...Poetic, witty, insightful and achingly painfully sad...." Read more
Customers have different views on the writing style. Some find it eloquent and powerful, with an expansive prose and rich language treatment. Others find it difficult to get into and confusing at first, but once they settle in, it's mesmerizing.
"...Sometimes a Great Notion” is a terrific, funny, tender, and psychologically demanding work of art that has few equals and no superiors in the entire..." Read more
"...The writing is outstanding, beautiful. In particular, the description of natural events, animals and the outdoors; but tough going...." Read more
"...characters and letters and internal ruminations made it difficult to follow the thread and get in the groove...." Read more
"...Florid, beautiful prose, with as rich a treatment of the language as I have ever been exposed to. Absolutely incredible work...." Read more
Customers find the story too long and repetitive. They struggle to keep up with the story, finding it uninteresting and forgettable. The storyline has problems and doesn't make sense at times.
"...The characters are boisterous, depressed, bogus and belittled for their choices...." Read more
"Everyone in this book had their issues, and I had mine: struggling to stay with the story...." Read more
"The story line has its problems and Kesey's fondness for mind enhancing (?) chemicals leaves a mark on the narrative drive...." Read more
"...The story is long and complicated, but intriguing. The characters are well drawn, and definitely not cookie-cutter. I found it engrossing." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2021“Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in the town
Sometimes I haves a great notion
To jump into the river an’ drown”
“Goodnight Irene” — Lead Belly (1933)
“Sometimes a Great Notion” is a terrific, funny, tender, and psychologically demanding work of art that has few equals and no superiors in the entire body of 20th century American literature. Some parts “The Grapes of Wrath,” “Absalom! Absalom!” and “The Brothers Karamazov,” Ken Kesey weaves together a compelling story of a labor strike in a coastal Oregon town while simultaneously crafting a portrait of the Stamper family — Henry, Hank Jr., Leland, Vivian, and Joe Ben — expertly alternating between first person narrators w/o warning or indication (e.g. Faulkner), often in the middle of a paragraph. The Stampers quickly usurp the logging strike as the main window into what Kesey wants to show his reader about the doomed tragedy of masculine hubris (the family motto, carved on a board nailed to their wall, is: “Never Give A Inch!”). A closer read will pay higher dividends in direct proportion. This novel is outstanding as a combined celebration of artistic pathos, structural innovation, comic timing, and mastery of dialect. Highly recommended for serious readers as well as anyone who enjoys a story about relationships unveiling themselves at a tense and reflective pace. Also if you’re into logging.
“Time overlaps itself. A breath breathed from a passing breeze is not the whole wind, neither is it the last of what has passed and the first of what will come, but it is more — let me see — more like a single point plucked on a single strand of a vast spider web of winds, setting the whole scene atingle. That way it overlaps....As prehistoric ferns grow from bathtub planters. As a shiny new ax, taking a swing at somebody’s next year’s split-level pinewood pad, bites all the way to the Civil War. As proposed highways break down through the stacked strata of centuries.”
- Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2021Kesey’s towering, epic, sprawling, Northwest old growth forest of a book is a dizzying often non-linear mishmash of characters, shifting points of view, and drenching unremitting rain and violence. Ultimately it’s a dynastic story of a rough hardy logging family that thwarts a strike against the dominant logger in the area by cutting its own deal and how its ethos of stern individualism allows it not only to sustain the opposition but to tweak their neighbors. It’s also the story of the return of the black sheep intellectual of the family from his eastern elitism, where he discovers the value of labor but also the joys of taking revenge on his older brother by sleeping with his wife under his nose. It is no spoiler to understand from page one that the dynasty’s family home is perched on unstable soil along the river’s edge and will not survive the novel.
In Kesey’s rich decaying world full of rot and rotten livers and failed ambition sparked by early high school achievements and a crazily dangerous logging world which in an instant can widow a wife kill or unlimbers a man or end a dream, Kesey poses the question of what it means to be a man.
The novel could have used some editorial trimming, cleaning out the literary underbrush, Sometimes a Great Notion depicts some of the most compelling harrowing scenes I’ve read in a novel—in particular, the calm yet desperate slow-drowning of one of the most sympathetic characters as a result of a logging accident is something I’ll never forget.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2021Lots of pages, lots of characters, lots of story, lots of heads gotten into. Read it for the writing, stay for the story (which is good once it begins). Sometimes I get a great notion to be jealous of a book like this. We regular everyday writers study technique and painstakingly rewrite in order to create clear prose that draws the reader effortlessly through the veil of words to the meat of the story. Ken Kesey doesn’t feel it necessary to cater to the reader this way. So as a reader, you have to be a bit like his lead character, Hank Stamper—ready to whip ‘er down, grab ‘er ‘round ‘er girth with a 5/8” steel cable and drag ‘er to the water, where she can float … okay, torturing a metaphor here, but you have to really, really want to read this book to get through it. In fact, it almost seems as if Kesey is daring you to keep on reading. 265,000 words of often elegant, sometimes frustrating prose. Hopscotching through points of view and tenses. He often writes wonderfully, but for too long. About 2/3 of the way through, he tells about the migrating Canada geese, weaves them into the story so artfully. The introduction of the idea is, good lord, so artfully drawn; but good god, it’s three freakin’ pages long.
The writing is outstanding, beautiful. In particular, the description of natural events, animals and the outdoors; but tough going. It reminded me of the famous New York Times 1925 critique of Joyce’s Ulysses: “A few intuitive, sensitive visionaries may understand and comprehend ‘Ulysses,’ James Joyce’s new and mammoth volume … but the average intelligent reader will glean little or nothing from it … save bewilderment and a sense of disgust.” But the reviewer then goes on to opine, “ ‘Ulysses’ is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the twentieth century.” Ulysses is written stream of consciousness; A Great Notion is many streams of consciousnesses, often careening off each other like bumper cars. Kesey relies on random italics and different characters’ voices to let us know which head we’ve hopped into. And because his voices are skillfully differentiated, it often works … but he doesn’t make it easy. In one particularly difficult skirmish mid-book, Hank runs through first person, third person, and first person italics punctuated by in-paragraph diversions to Vi and Lee, to get his point across. Oftentimes we roll through four or five characters at a point in time. Usually this is skillfully done, a writer showing off his versatility and talent. Sometimes, it’s frustrating because the story stops dead, the prose gives no hint of whose head we’ve hopped into just when the reader might like to move along.
Then there’s the length. A thumb in Hemingway’s eye. And in that of Hudie Ledbetter, too, to poach a line from a very simple song for the title of a very complex book. The Amazon description starts: “A bitter strike is raging in a small lumber town along the Oregon coast.” That, apparently, is the plot of the story. It’s mentioned tangentially in the first book-length half of the novel, which is extended character development and backstory. At about 150,000 words or so, the story begins, and, yup, that’s the plot.
The last half of the book is compelling. The death of Joby is heartbreaking and Hank’s one stupid mistake is just as painful because we’ve come to respect him, even if we don’t always like him. Hank’s firm knowledge that Leland will bed Viv is an interesting side of Hank, but I didn’t see the act itself coming. Maybe it was because I didn’t much like Lee, who seemed to me a self-absorbed prig. Viv was so lovely and down to earth that the act itself came as a shock, and Lee’s one-upmanship motivation was disgusting. I’m sure Kesey meant every gorge-raising bit of it.
When an author writes a book that’s difficult to wrangle, is he intent on putting his brilliance on the page, reader be damned? Self-centered? Selfish? All three?
Writing, 5-star ++; story-telling 3 -; overall, 4. Can’t be lower than 4. If you’re willing to read a 700-page book that begins with 300 pages of backstory, Sometimes a Great Notion is for you.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2024I read Cuckoo's Nest probably 20 years ago and loved it, but just now got around to reading this. Absolutely incredible book. Loved the way Kesey was able to smoothly switch narratos, sometimes mid-paragraph. Definitely in my personal top 10 books.
Top reviews from other countries
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FátimaReviewed in Mexico on August 14, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente
La compré como regalo, llegó en magnífico estado y antes de lo estimado. Por lo que me contaron, es una novela muy buena, aunque el inglés es un poco complicado, ya que no es "estándar", sino prácticamente dialectal.
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Francois le LorrainReviewed in France on August 18, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Une langue fascinante, une histoire improbable
On pourrait penser à Louis Ferdinand Céline, dans un registre américain, très américain. L'histoire d'une famille douée d'une énergie étonnante, avec un mélange de brutalité et de tendresse, parfois désespérée par la violence de la société environnante. Au coeur du roman, la rivalité entre deux demi-frères. Toujours surprenant!
- JazzguyReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 27, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars A great saga
Persevere with this book it will reward you. It starts off with a flourish but then the next 100 pages take a bit of getting through. Once you get the hang of the multiple voices used (and who is using them ) all becomes clear and it really demands your intention. I raely finish a novel and then immediately go back and re-read the first fifty pages. But I did here..........just to make sure I'd got it right.
- Big DaddyReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 30, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Great seller
Great book, great seller. Book as described. I would be happy to purchase again from this seller.
- christopher hugh courtenayReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2018
4.0 out of 5 stars Great read.
Great read, everything bit as good as one flew over the cuckoo's nest?.