"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Fifty Years On

It is hard to believe that it has been just under 50 years since Ken Kesey's novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was published in 1962. As an article by James Wolcott in the December 2011 issue of Vanity Fair points out, this novel "helped father the 60s counterculture." I, like a large portion of the Baby Boomer generation, well remember the huge impact of this novel, and of the film version that followed. Who could forget the way the mental hospital represented all the institutions in society that repressed and oppressed people, especially rebels and those who were a bit "different"? Who could forget the standoff between Randle Patrick McMurphy, played by Jack Nicholson, and Nurse Ratched, played by Louise Fletcher? Wolcott goes on to note that in January, Viking will publish a 50th-anniversary edition of the novel, and speculates that it "may inspire a whole new generation of agitators." A few months ago, I would have dismissed this last clause as hyperbole, but given the recent "Occupy" movement's rapid growth, and the great breadth and depth of outrage it represents, those words sound prescient.