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Nice appreciative letter from Dr. Bookish. Many thanks Doctor...My bit of the oral history is more based on a literary experience of the pranksters than a lived one. Nonetheless, in hopes of inspiring others to contribute, here goes.... As for myself, I rediscovered Kesey's work while completing my Ph.D. in English at the University of Virginia. In fact, I had read both One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as an undergrad, and I had wanted to come back to them for some time. While teaching a one-year appointment at Mary Washington College, I decided I had a good chance to rediscover Cuckoo's Nest by teaching the book. I added it to the syllabus for one class. Loved it again, although I really couldn't decide whether Kesey was a true hero or a total jackass. (Sorry, but it's true.) For a while, I thought I could figure this out by more exposure. But then I read a piece of "Over the Border" from Kesey's Garage Sale. Somewhere in there the author writes something like "People make judgments and decisions where no judgment or decision is called for." Sounds simple, but for me this was big. Why was I so determined to pigeonhole someone I had never met? For that matter, why so determined to pigeonhole anyone? or anything? Why not just live it? Why not just experience? I cast the I Ching, which, like drugs, I had fiddled with long before I met the pranksters. Came up with one yang line on top of five yins. (I'd draw the hexagram, but I don't know how to do it on the computer). A veritable volcano of yin energy about to burst a rigid shell. Hmmm. Anyway, that was the beginning of a long journey, which has yet to end. I continued to teach for another four years, and I probably exposed about two hundred students to either Cuckoo's Nest or Sometimes a Great Notion. (Kesey's best book, although I must say I can't figure how anyone could like Lee. Hank rules, however). Also taught Homer, Chretien, Shakespeare, Milton, Hemingway, Twain, Fitzgerald, and many others. They're all great books, and, to my mind, through the early work, Kesey earned the right to walk with the giants. What have I learned from Kesey's work? A lot. I learned openmindedness and courage, and these qualities led me on further real-life adventures that taught me more. I can't stress that enough. I also learned an appreciation for the Gospels. There is an excellent mini-sermon on the meaning of "Turn the other cheek" and "Resist not evil" toward the end of Kesey's Garage Sale. I branched out into Tai Chi and meditation, and this still-snot-nosed country Easterner learned a new appreciation for some aspects of blue-collar country life. I wish I could have been there in the day. And I still hope to visit Oregon and the Northwest in the future. Once I was even lucky enough to meet Ken himself at a dinner party in Charlottesville. But, all in all, I feel my experience through the books and my experience outside the books have made me more a prankster than anything could.
© Copyright 2001, Dr. Bookish
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