One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I don't remember last time when I was this busy ( or I think I do... the IIT enrance exams). You start at 9 a.m. and finish it at 11 p.m. There seems no end to this; all you do is study, study and study coz it's placements time. Anyway, even with my busy schedule I can always find some quality time for reading :P. So this time I have finished one flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey. Regarded as a classic, it has also inspired a movie made in 1975.

The book describes an asylum, in which a group of cronics and acutes live under the dictatorial Big Nurse. She runs the asylum as per her wishes and every patient in the ward follows her mutely. All was going well before McMurphy came in. McMurphy is a criminal who decided that it was easier to spend his sentence of 4 month in an asylum instead of working day and night in a workfarm. He finds nurse's tyrannical control unbearable and tries to unbalance the system. In his mission slowly he starts gaining the support of other patients too. All those people who have forgotten how it feels to laugh freely were enjoying it to the fullest. But this fairy run of McMurphy haults when the Big Nurse uses her trump card, converting McMurphy into a symbol for all those people who dare to go against the system.

What amazed me in this book is the level of detail by which author has articulated the characters. The books is evenly paced and captures your attention with each paasing page. By this book author has tried to say that people who live in asylum are just diffrent and have been rejected by the society. Instead of fighting for their place, they have given up on life. It shows how society manipulates anyone who is different or think independently. Definitely one of the best I have ever read.

Next project: An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott.