Sometimes a Great Notion - Ken Kesey Audiobook

Written by Ken Kesey
Read by Tom Stechschulte
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Recorded Books, LLC
Release date: September 28, 2010
Duration: 30:38:43

“Sometimes I lives in the country
Sometimes I lives in town
Sometimes I take a great notion
To jump into the river an’ drown”

Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls “one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century.” This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family’s rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel that some critics said had the “impact of Greek tragedy”.

It is a large book with many levels….some thoughts from readers at Goodreads.

This is a book about people, filled with some of the most fascinating and deeply drawn characters I have come across in a terribly long time. Even the supporting cast have rich backstories, like the town prostitute (Indian Jenny) who calls men to her bed by throwing clamshells and then buying them drinks; Biggy Newton, the overgrown class bully who has been beating up (and getting beaten up by) Hank since they were in school together; Les Gibbons, an old drunk made bitter by a life of grudges; Boney Stokes, Henry’s alleged best friend, who wishes for his downfall more than anyone who hates him; Teddy the fat bartender who thinks he knows everything about the human condition as he waters down all the drinks.

And listen: Kesey is not without his own literary machinations. For example, he manages to tell the story from several points of view. At once. As in, in the same paragraph there would be three “I”s: one in italics, one in parentheses, and one in regular type. But where with a modern-day irnoicist, this might come of as metafictional gimicry, here it felt not only smooth and effective, but necessary. Because everyone is thinking all the time, right? And all these characters have rich internal lives to match their rich outer ones, and so a major climactic scene needs to be told by everyone at once, just like it happens. Each narrative augments and enhances the other, making for a stunningly complete picture.

Go on over to Goodreads and read a few more.

Tom Stechschulte, the narration is almost essential to read the book. Because of the Faulkner-style free association of the writing, it is sometimes difficult to figure out who is talking. But the narrator’s voice changes with each character and time-frame and that helps tremendously to follow the threads. And his characterization of Joe Ben will be a particularly lasting memory.