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.The novel opens with Jonathanand the business of writing the Duluoz Legend to Draeger, national representative for the loggingearn money.The Path represents solitude and a union on strike.Floyd Evenwrite, the local repre-do-nothing philosophy.To some degree, Kerouac sentative, informs Draeger that the Stampers havewas able to carry on this lifestyle.broken the strike.This opening sequence is illus-Buddhism influenced more than Kerouac s trative of Kesey s technique, as Draeger and Even-lifestyle; it also helped him develop a scheme for write become secondary to Vivian, Hank s wife, ashis writing.When he fully conceived his Duluoz the focal narrative character; she then gives way toLegend, he foresaw his work divided into six cat- a third person who retells of the clan s migrationegories: Visions, Dreams, Dharmas, Blues, Prayers, West.The novel s plot is told as a recapitulation ofand Ecstasies.This list provides serviceable divi- the past and through a series of point-of-view shiftssions for his life s work.Readers will find numerous which are often abrupt.In some cases, there areinsights to the ways that Some of the Dharma influ- several of these shifts in one paragraph.enced Kerouac s life and his work.The plot first centers around Hank s decisionto do  wildcat logging to fill an order to a saw-Matt Theado mill.When the novel opens, none of the timberhas been delivered, and only some of the contract squota has been cut.Due to the strike in the Wa-Sometimes a Great Notion Ken Kesey konda community, there is a shortage of help for(1964) Hank and his family.They must therefore send forThis second novel by KEN KESEY, which is often Leland  Lee Stamper, Hank s half-brother, whoconsidered to be his masterpiece, exhibits a con- is currently a graduate student at Yale University.cern with local color that is reminiscent of many Lee attempts suicide before receiving his invita-of America s best regionalist writers such as Wil- tion West.This establishes a contrast between Leeliam Faulkner and John Steinbeck.Kesey went as the bookish easterner who has no sense of self-to the Oregon logging country for several weeks worth, and Hank as a self-reliant western-frontierin 1961 and rode with loggers in their trucks and type who is secure in his own individuality.In anfrequented their bars.The novel was begun in interview with Gordon Lish in 1963, Kesey statedStanford and completed in La Honda, California.that there were some autobiographical elements in296 Sometimes a Great NotionColors, San Francisco, 1997.Photographer Larry Keenan:  Ken Kesey talking to a Hell s Angel at the Fillmore for TheGrandfurthur Tour party.He is celebrating the bringing of the Magic Bus back to Cleveland to be inducted into theRock-and-Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. (courtesy of Larry Keenan)each of these two characters.The entire Stamper will have dramatic consequences for Hank s emo-clan eventually goes to work on the lumber con- tional and psychic health.tract: Hank, Lee, their father Henry, and their The climax of the novel takes place duringcousin Joe Ben, who helps run the family busi- one of several logging accidents on the river, someness.This close family work environment is soon of which are caused by the union workers.Duringdisturbed by ghosts from the past.When Hank the pivotal accident, Joe Ben is trapped underwa-was a teenager, he had an affair with his step- ter.Hank tries to bring him air but is unsuccess-mother Myra, Lee s mother.Myra would commit ful in his surrogate breathing and Joe Ben drowns.suicide, and Lee blames Hank for contributing to In the same accident, Hank s father Henry losesher death.This background story soon leads to the his arm and is left on his hospital deathbed.Hankconflict between Lee and Hank over Vivian.She is left to take the logging run down the river withhas become a substitute for Myra, as Lee seduces one helper at the novel s close.The climax of theher in revenge for Hank s earlier indiscretion.Dur- love triangle culminates in Lee s successful seduc-ing the novel s action, Joe Ben serves as more of a tion of Vivian, who then realizes that she lovesbrother for Hank than Lee, a change of roles that both brothers.Now aware of the full scope of the Sourdough Mountain Lookout 297conflict between Hank and Lee, Vivian decides to work as a whole: a love of the natural world; anleave the Wakonda community and begin her life interest in Buddhist and Western philosophy; theanew.Vivian is portrayed as alienated from the use of the long poem as a format; and the inclu-community throughout the novel, a state that is sion of a variety of kinds and levels of languagemade worse by the loss of her unborn child.The in his poetry.The poem s dedication to KENNETHrelationship between Vivian and Hank is complex, REXROTH not only credits the encouragement thatand many critics see her as one of Kesey s most re- Rexroth gave Whalen early in his career but alsoalistically portrayed women characters.indicates both Whalen s affiliation with the SanKesey s technique of changing points-of-view in Francisco renaissance and the inspirational rolequick succession makes a first reading of the novel that Rexroth played in the Beat turn to Asian po-a bit difficult.However, many of Kesey s recurrent etry.The poem was first published as an excerpt inthe Chicago Review Zen issue of 1958, thereby as-themes come through in Sometimes a Great Notion [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]