Sometimes a Great Notion (1964)

I like novels that aim high and strive for greatness and this is such a book. Kesey puts you in the landscape so thoroughly that even those of us in drier climes almost feel the rain running down the back of our necks. The characters are developed lovingly, with splendid detail and absolutely no hurry. The tension rises palpably however, and the climactic scenes are not to be forgotten.

Kesey's writing is beyond extraordinary. What he does with point-of-view could be the basis of an entire creative writing classs. He breaks the rules because he can.. because he knows exactly what he's doing and why. The effect is almost a 360 degree look at the people, their town, their world. A 'camera' that swings around and in and out and under.

Weaknesses there are and are inevitable in a book this huge. Some of the many subplots could have been dispensed with. The woman is a bit more shallowly drawn than the men, remaining too angelic, without the gritty depth given to the rest of the Stamper household. The book is not the easiest to get into. But very very worthwhile. ( )

It's certainly an engaging book though you really have to give yourself some time (or at least I did) to adjust to its idiosyncratic rhythms. It's due tomorrow, though, and I'm not entranced enough to keep going with it right now, though I'd love to revisit it sometime since it does seem like an interesting take the Pacific Northwest. ( )

SAGN's story unfolds confusingly, and almost makes you put down the book and forget anything ever happened. It switches first-person narratives without warning, and if the reader isn’t careful, he’ll find himself staring at a paragraph and not knowing who is thinking what. I’m not even talking about “Hank’s paragraph, then Lee’s paragraph, then Hank’s paragraph…” No. Not at all. Some parts of the book are literally “Hank’s sentence—Lee’s senten—-Hank’s—Lee’s s—-.” By the end of these literary interruptions, you’re ready to take a break.
The upside to this is the fact that Kesey captures a 360-dimension of human interactions. You are in the head of all the main characters. As annoying as it may seem, you understand what they’re thinking AND what they think others are thinking about (if you are befuddled now, good. That’s the point). Funny thing is, everyone is usually wrong. Isn’t that what happens in real life? Classic example: a couple argues. Girl watches boy plop down in front of the TV after the altercation. She thinks, “God, he’s not even concerned about what just happened. All he cares about is football.” False. He is actually thinking, “I’m bad with words and I don’t really know how to approach this again.” This is SAGN, except on a much, much deeper level. It follows two brothers who want nothing more than to reconcile the past, but their inability to communicate—as in say what needs to be said, not just spit out words—is what makes it an authentic tragedy.
That the story is about lumberjacks can be off-putting to some. 780 pages about family troubles in some hick logging town in Oregon? But why? Because it’s well-written. Because the characters are well-developed. Think of a more rugged version of Tom from The Prince of Tides and you have Hank Stamper. Add a more off-kilter version of Holden Caulfield and you have Leland Stamper. It’s a recipe for disaster. A slow disaster, but it will happen. The tension is paramount. So while this book isn’t a page-turner in the normal sense, the fact that the reader wants to do everything to stop the inevitable but can’t (it’s so simple!)… that’s all Kesey really needs. ( )

It's hard to know where to begin - the back of my edition proclaims, "The earthy, torrid story of a lusty, yelling, Paul Bunyan of a man and his battles with society." (In fact, it proclaims that all in caps.) That sort of describes an aspect of the book, but mostly it's kind of like those ads for action movies where they play up the love story angle to try to get the women to come and see it - you know how they cut together the 5 minutes of time actually devoted to the supposed love story and then have a voiceover of something like, "a love that wouldn't be denied"? Like that.

Okay, let me back up and explain a little about the bones of the book. It's about the Stamper family, who came west to Oregon sometime around the turn of the 20th century. We get to know Henry, the patriarch of the family, who came to Oregon and found his occupation logging and trying to "whup" the land. He has two sons: Hank, by his first wife, and Leland Stanford by his second. The second wife eventually leaves him (she was from the east and not the kind of woman cut out for living in a shack on the shore of a river in the middle of nowhere Oregon), taking young Lee with her. Lee leaves with not much feeling at all about his father, but a hatred for Hank because Hank has been carrying on an affair with Lee's mother. Years later, Lee is a college student in New York when he receives a postcard from his family in Oregon requesting that he come back and help out with the family business. Lee comes back, much to everyone's surprise, but he returns with complex motivations.

He gets to know his family - irascible Henry; his cousin Joe Ben, who is the self-appointed ray of sunshine; Viv, Hank's wife; and of course brother Hank, who Lee immediately sets about sizing up and deciding how best to take his revenge on. Against this backdrop is the drama the family is embroiled in with the town, involving a loggers' strike and a deal the Stampers have made with a lumber company. A multitude of themes are at work in the book - what family means, loyalty, the need for every man to prove himself, whether any man can truly be an island, revenge and its price, the lines between love, obsession, and duty, strength and weakness and what defines each are just a few.

The writing style is a little confusing at times - Kesey employs a few tactics that can be difficult to follow at first. In order to cover several viewpoints, he will jump between scenes of what different characters are doing and saying at any given moment in time. He uses parenthetical or italicized text to give a character's thoughts on whatever is going on. He also switches from third-person to first-person narration at the drop of a hat, and the first-person narration is not always by the same person, even within the course of a few paragraphs. These techniques can definitely be hard on the reader, but they're very effective once you get into the rhythm of it.

I really loved this one. Recommended for: people who like stories about the wilderness and man's relationship with it, people with daddy issues, people with mommy issues, people with brother issues, lumberjacks, and people who like to read descriptions of rain.

Quote:

"This is an insidious malady chiefly common in that mythical organ that pumps life through the veins of the ego: care, coronary car, complicated by galloping fear. The go-away-closer disease. Starving for contact and calling it poison when it is offered.... Never accept candy from strangers. Or from friends. Sneak off a sack of gumdrops when nobody's looking if you can, but don't accept, never accept ... you want somebody taking advantage? And above all, never care, never never *never* care. Because it is caring that lulls you into letting down your guard and leaving up your shades...." ( )

Absolutely incredible work of literature. What surprises me most is that no one ever recommended this first-rate piece, for it is exactly the kind of writing I enjoy most. Faulkner meets O’Neill and goes logging. An understated pretentious masterpiece! ( )