Oh, that hand twisting in the wind on the Columbia River, or wherever. It was so long ago, and it painted quite the image.

This falls under the category of 'Please, please read this.' To be honest I almost gave up on it twice within the first one hundred and fifty pages because of Kesey's shifting point-of-view, and because of what seemed like extraneous details and story filler. Giving up would have been mistake. The story--of a life-long rift between two brothers in a logging town in Oregon--twists and turns and is amazingly written. I was surprised by the ending but it was better than if it had ended how I wanted it to. It takes patience to get through all of the six hundred tweny-odd pages but it was well, well worth the time spent.

This might just be the perfect novel: epic and sprawling in scope yet meticulously constructed; completely absorbing and able to sustain a pretty incredible tension. The midcentury cold war doomsday bit that Lee suddenly takes on for about five minutes near the end of the book struck me as a bit random and was about the only part of the book that really felt "dated" in a limiting way. Even all of the incestuous homoeroticism - brothers watching each other through peep holes until fin...more This might just be the perfect novel: epic and sprawling in scope yet meticulously constructed; completely absorbing and able to sustain a pretty incredible tension. The midcentury cold war doomsday bit that Lee suddenly takes on for about five minutes near the end of the book struck me as a bit random and was about the only part of the book that really felt "dated" in a limiting way. Even all of the incestuous homoeroticism - brothers watching each other through peep holes until finally they exorcise the woman so that they can be together with their logs? Come ON Kesey - manages to escape being ridiculous (although a queer reading of this book would be rich and hilarious.) There's only about four books in the world I can imagine starting over again directly after you finish them, and this is one of them. Totally fantastic. ( )

I read this almost 30 years ago and was bowled over. Found it to be compelling, layered and relevant. One of those books that I'd like to re-read and see if it was the book or the time in my life. ( )

Absolutely stunning. Kesey takes a subject I normally wouldn't care about and a group of characters I normally wouldn't like and makes me really care about their outcome. The writing in this is amazing: scenes are written from several points of view simultaneously, so you get an amazing understanding of the characters and their actions. The landscape of Oregon is as active and strong a character as any of the people in the book. It's not the kind of story I generally enjoy, but the writing is just so phenomenal that this ranks among the best books I have ever read. ( )