Ken Kesey: biography, personal life, creativity, reviews

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

American writer Ken Kesey served as the primary link between the beatniks of the 1950s and the counterculture movement of the 1960s, and his 1964 bus trip with a group of followers was immortalized by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Cooling Acid Test. In time, Kesey would be seen as one of the main legislators of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. However, when he was a child and a young man, his dreams and achievements were "All-American".

Biography

Ken Elton Kesey was born September 17, 1935 in La Junta, Colorado, to Fred A. and Geneva (Smith) Kesey. Beginning in 1941, the family moved several times. She eventually settled in Eugene, Oregon in 1946. Kesey later described his family as "hard shell" Baptists, retaining a great respect for the Bible into adulthood.

Being a schoolboy, Kesey was actively involved in sports, in high school he was fond of wrestling. In addition, he decorated the scenery for meetings and plays, wrote sketches and even received an award for the best dramaturgy. After graduating from high school, Ken left his father's house and entered the University of Oregon.

As in high school, Kesey was an active student at the University of Oregon, participating in theater plays, sports, and fraternities. He won a college award and wrote several drama and nonfiction scripts for a course offered by Dean Starlin. Kesey simultaneously pursued his love of the sport, eventually earning a Fred Lowe Wrestling Scholarship. "His friends in the drama couldn't understand why he was on the wrestling team and connected with the athletes," noted Stephen L. Tanner in his book Ken Kesey. And of course, his friends among the athletes could not understand why he was engaged in a theater group.

Stanford

Kesey received his bachelor's degree in 1957 and returned home to work in his father's dairy business for a year. He decided to become a writer, although his future remained uncertain: at the urging of his teachers, he applied for a Woodrow Wilson Scholarship that would allow him to continue his education. His application was approved, so in 1958 Kesey ended up at Stanford.

Kesey took writing classes with Wallace Stegner and Malcolm Cowley and completed his first unpublished novel about college athletics. Kesey's teachers at Stanford provideda significant influence on his writing style, but no less influenced by his fellow students, as well as countercultural movements, which at that time were at the peak of popularity.

Ken Kesey visited the nearby beatnik commune of North Beach and read the works of Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Clellan Holmes. All these impressions formed the basis of the novel "Zoo". Although he was unable to find a publisher for the book, Stanford awarded him a $2,000 Saxton Award for a piece of writing.

Acid tests

As a student at Stanford, Ken Kesey was in dire need of money. He managed to get a job at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital for the Insane. There he worked from 1959 as a psychiatric assistant and night orderly. There he volunteered to participate in experiments whose purpose was to study the effect on consciousness of psychedelics such as mescaline and LSD. In addition, Kesey interacted a lot with the patients of the clinic, often while under the influence of hallucinogens. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" Ken Kesey will write based on this experience.

From now on and for many years, psychoactive substances will become the constant companions of the writer. In 1964, Ken Kesey founded a hippie commune called the Merry Pranksters. They arranged a kind of concerts, at which everyone was offered to take an "acid test" for free, that is, to use LSD. These events were accompanied by live music and lighting effects and were very popular. It is known thatfrequent guests at such parties were members of the Hells Angels biker club (about whom Hunter Thompson would write a novel of the same name) and the poet Allen Ginsberg.

In the same year, Kesey acquires an old school bus, on which he makes a famous journey with members of the community. The final destination was the International Exhibition in New York State. The path traveled by the Pranksters not only formed the basis of the novel by T. Wolfe, the best book about hippies according to the New York Times, but was also called the strangest journey since the Argonauts campaign.

In 1965, Ken Kesey was arrested for possession of illegal drugs, but he managed to fabricate a suicide and escape to Mexico. However, 8 months later he returned to America, where he was rearrested and sentenced to prison.

Kesey's friends raised money for his release by mortgaging their homes. Representatives of the law, having learned about this, offered the writer a deal: he would be released if he publicly delivered a speech about the dangers of drugs. It was not an easy situation at all, as for years Kesey was the mastermind behind an entire generation of beats. Had he agreed to the proposal, he would have been considered a traitor. And if he refused, he would not only go to jail, but also cross out the sacrifice of his comrades, who were actually left homeless for the sake of his freedom.

Ken Kesey ended up spending 5 months in jail. The speech was nevertheless delivered, and Kesey was released. After that, he moved to the farm he inheritedin the Willamette Valley. Here he will spend the rest of his life with his family.

In the last years of his life, Ken Kesey was seriously ill, he survived a stroke, he was also diagnosed with liver cancer and diabetes. The writer died on November 10, 2001. He was 66 years old.

Private life

Kesey spent his whole life with Faye Haxby. They ran away from home together after graduation. Since then, Faye has always been close to Ken, although they were not officially married due to the specifics of their views. The couple had four children.

Creative legacy

Among Ken Kesey's books, there are 6 novels, two of which were never published:

• Zoo (unpublished);
• "End of Autumn" (unreleased);
• "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
• "Sometimes a great whim" (translation options - "Times of happy insights" and "Sometimes you want to be unbearably");
• "The Sailor's Song";
• "Last Run" (co-written with Ken Babbs).

He also wrote the short story collections When the Angels Came, Garage Sale, Prison Journal, The Deceiver and Further Investigation.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The book was published in 1962. Ken Kesey "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" brought fame, and became a cult among hippies and beatniks. The work is included in the list of the hundred best books written in English, according to Time magazine.

The action of the novel takes place within the walls of a mental hospital. The story is told from the perspective of one of the patients named "Leader" Bromden, who pretends to be deaf and dumb. In the center of the story is another patient - McMurphy. He was transferred to the hospital from prison. The central conflict of the work is the confrontation between the head nurse, Ratched Mildred, and the patients of the clinic, led by McMurphy, who constantly breaks the rules and incites others to do so. He manages not only to organize a sea fishing trip, but also to secretly lead prostitutes to an establishment.

For McMurphy himself, everything ends sadly: he is given a lobotomy. The leader relieves him of the need to drag out a miserable existence by strangling him with a pillow. At the end of the work, patients leave the walls of the hospital.

Reviews

About Ken Kesey's novel, reviews are mostly laudatory, which is quite remarkable for a book with such a difficult subject. Readers unanimously note the excellent narrative style, which allows you to fully feel the atmosphere of the book. The central characters also enjoy constant reader love. The problems of the book, which touch upon the issue of the struggle of a person with the system, according to readers, remain invariably relevant.

Among the shortcomings of the book are some protractedness, as well as the sad fate of McMurphy at the end of the book. For some readers, his death was an unpleasant surprise, and also left a bitter aftertaste afterreading.

Screening

Ken Kesey's novel "Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was released in 1975. The film was directed by Milos Forman. The title roles were played by Jack Nicholson (McMurphy), Will Sampson (The Chief) and Louise Fletcher (Mildred's sister). The film was shown for the first time at the Chicago Film Festival.

The film was received equally positively by the audience and critics. This is the second film in history to win 5 Oscars at once. In addition, the picture has 28 other awards.

However, Kesey himself was by no means pleased with such success. Moreover, he sued the directors for distorting the idea of the work. In his opinion, in the film, McMurphy is mistakenly assigned the role of the main character, while the Leader's significance is leveled.