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Ken Kesey by Stephen L. Tanner

1986; University of Nebraska Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wal.1986.0141

1948-7142

Jim Hoy,

American and British Literature Analysis

Reviews 79 century classic in American literature threatened now and again with censor­ ship and banishment” (pp. 6, 30). In five sections the editors group essays on Twain’s writing problems, his sources and influences, his social background, basic attitudes, and public reception. Interesting sidelights involve classroom presentation (Eric Solo­ mon), reception in Japan (Jan B. Gordon), illustrations (Allison R. Ensor), and Huck’s management of his money (Paul Taylor). They agree that Twain’sbasic aim was to expose the “defunct southern society” and the “world ofhypocrisy, violence and greed” of the Gilded Age on the frontier, symbolized by the confidence man (p. 198). Basically a moralist and a preacher, Twain construed a “counter mythology” from Christian tradition, fulfilling the modern demand for “comic Doomsday vision” (pp. 299, 306). It is his assumption that we live in a “corrupt society” among “moral savages” (pp. 244, 248) that recommends Huck to a generation which accepts Waiting for Godot aswisdom and truth. All the contributors but one are English teachers, and they write more or less for each other, but non-specialists, especially historians, can learn much about their country from this deceptively simple tale about Huck and Tom and Jim and Pap on the banks of the Mississippi a century and a half ago. C. L. SONNICHSEN Arizona Historical Society Ken Kesey. By Stephen L. Tanner. (Boston: Twayne, 1983. 159 pages, $13.95.) I have sometimes, in response to puzzled students who have just read The Electric Koolaid Acid Test and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, attempted to reconcile for them Ken Kesey the traditionalist author and Ken Kesey the hippie drug experimenter and counter-cultural guru. This to today’s students who have no problem with traditional (i.e., materialistic) values but who cannot seem to comprehend either the style or the substance of the Sixties. Stephen Tanner’s book, the first critical study devoted exclu­ sively to Kesey, goes a long way toward effecting this reconciliation. To be honest, I have had trouble answering my students preciselybecause Kesey’s novels (Cuckoo’s Nest and Sometimes a Great Notion) do seem to embody a very traditional view of America (particularly the individualistic values ofwestern America portrayed in filmand inmuch of the popular litera­ ture of the American West), a view that seems not only contradictory but inimical to Kesey’s communal lifestyle so colorfully documented in Tom Wolfe’sbook. Tanner usesbiography to showhow these novels (experimental in some aspects of form if not theme) fit Kesey’s own character, and, more importantly, he convincingly traces Kesey’s artistic roots to Emerson and the Transcendentalists (through the Beats and Whitman). Thoreau’sconcluding words in Walden (“I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extravagant 80 Western American Literature enough . . .” are cited in conjunction with Kesey’ssearch for a new means of artistic expression, a means more direct than writing. I, along with many others, think it unfortunate that Kesey veered from serious writing during the later 1960s. Tanner helps to explain the Merry Pranksters aspect of Kesey’s career. Kesey was not only seeking new vehicles and approaches for his work, he was actually reverting to some of his earliest artistic inclinations—acting and film. Tanner’s controlling metaphor in this study is contained in the title of his introductory chapter, “From Oregon to California”: the two states are, in essence, states of mind. From there, Tanner examines Kesey’s work and life in chapters that give plot summaries, distillations of scholarship, and his (Tanner’s) own critical commentary. Wisely, he does not attempt to recount Tom Wolfe’s Electric Koolaid Acid Test when he comes to that period in Kesey’s life. Instead he examines the effects of that period, and notes that Kesey himself has realized the limitations that drugs place on creativity. The final chapter, “Influences and Achievement,” nicely summarizes Tanner’s main points. These, in conjunction with the initial chronology of Kesey’scareer and a useful bibliography, make this an accessiblebook for both students and teachers. I believe that Tanner has done a creditable job of examining and explaining the Kesey canon. He ends with the happy sugges­ tion that this canon may be...