Českým čtenářům se již dostala do rukou kniha "Skříňka s démonem", která začíná Keseyho propuštěním z vězení, kde autor v roce 1967 strávil šest měsíců kvůli obvinění z držení marihuany. Během pobytu v kriminále vznikly „Zápisky z lochu“ s podtitulem „Nechte ty k****y běžet“, v nichž se mísí záznamy bizarních snů s ještě bizarnějšími rozhovory mezi vězni, s dopisy ženě, anekdotami a básněmi, a vznikají tak výmluvné portréty spoluvězňů i dozorců. Obraz života vězeňské komunity, "šílenějšího než v pakárně", dotvářejí pestrobarevné koláže. Základem knihy byly poznámkové bloky, které Kesey ve vězení popsal a pokreslil. Při jeho propuštění byly některé ze zápisníků zabaveny a ztratily se, mnohé se ale podařilo zachránit. Po návratu domů Kesey přetvořil náčrtky a zápisky v koláže a uspořádal z nich soubor, který se podařilo vydat až téměř po třiceti letech, kdy dal autor knize její současnou podobu. Deník je nejen uměleckým dílem literárním, ale i výtvarným, a navíc slouží jako sonda do myšlení těch Američanů, kteří se v padesátých a šedesátých letech nechtěli smířit s americkou vnitřní ani zahraniční politikou.
Ken Kesey Book order (chronological)
Ken Kesey achieved international renown for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , a powerful exploration of institutional control and individual rebellion. Emerging as a counterculture icon in the 1960s, his life became intertwined with psychedelic exploration, profoundly influencing his literary style and themes. Kesey's narrative approach often delves into altered states of consciousness and critiques societal norms, drawing from his personal experiences within psychiatric settings and his association with the Merry Pranksters. Beyond his seminal work, his literary output included explorations of community, family conflict, and later, children's literature and experimental prose.
Kesey is the author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Featuring such characters as Buffalo Bill Cody and wrestler Frank "The Crusher" Gotch, this book is both a historical novel and a dime Western. It is set in the tiny town of Pendleton, home of the rodeo showdown.
Rodeo
- 293 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Sailor Song
- 574 pages
- 21 hours of reading
Een afgelegen vissersdorp aan de kust van Alaska schrikt op wanneer er plotseling een schitterend jacht uit Hollywood komt aanzeilen om er een Indiaanse sage te verfilmen.
251 S.
Demon Box
- 357 pages
- 13 hours of reading
In this collection of short stories, Ken Kesey challenges public and private demons with a wrestler's brave and deceptive embrace, making it clear that the energy of madness must live on.
Joskus tekee mieli
- 411 pages
- 15 hours of reading
The magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sailor Song is a wild-spirited and hugely powerful tale of an Oregon logging clan. 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.
One flew over the cuckoo's nest
- 311 pages
- 11 hours of reading
Ken Kesey's bracing, inslightful novel about the meaning of madness and the value of self-reliance, and the inspiration for the new Netflix original series Ratched A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into the mental ward like a blast of fresh air and turns the place upside down, starting a gambling operation, smuggling in wine and women, and egging on the other patients to join him in open rebellion. But McMurphy's revolution against Big Nurse and everything she stands for quickly turns from sport to a fierce power struggle with shattering results. With One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Kesey created a work without precedent in American literature, a novel at once comic and tragic that probes the nature of madness and sanity, authority and vitality. Greeted by unanimous acclaim when it was first published, the book has become and enduring favorite of readers.
