Sometimes A Great Notion
I have been reading "Sometimes A Great Notion" by Ken Kesey for over a year now. It is very good. It is hard to describe why I keep putting it down. (the foreboding, the aching beauty, the depth) But it is fabulous and I keep picking it up again and remembering everything that happened before when I do. I wrote the following down on the back page of my copy: "society - a venal conspiracy of the weak - attempts to tear down and level off (cut off at the knees or fingers) the Strong Man Alone (Hank Stamper). The SMA has struggle enough in his Personal Struggle against/with Nature. He is too strong to show his struggle because he enjoys it and draws strength from it. So, he appears above the struggle, easy with it. This ease spurs society on its quest to level off the thorny edge of wild freedom
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"Then also, this book involves mother fucking. (*step* mother fucking) The Strong Man Alone has trouble with the Close Family Individuals He Knows. They complicate his relationship with nature and with society--- as his wife, step mom, dad, step brother are NOT a Venal Conspiracy of the Weak to cut him down. [But that Lee is in a VCoW against Hank's SMA] Family is where SMA's struggle vs. society & vs. nature meet --- it is where he is most vulnerable as he is not in direct opposition to his family, more his struggle is for a clarity in his relationships with his family." so I don't remember writing that, but it is pretty good. Also now below this I will have a bit of the book,"because an echo is an inflexible and pitiless taskmaster: you sing the echo's way because it is damned sure not going to sing yours. And even after you leave this mossy acoustical phenomenon to go on with your hiking or fishing, you cannot help feelingm for a long time after, that any jig you whistle, hymn you hum, or song you sing is somehow immutably tuned to an echo yet unheard, or relentlessly echoing a tune long forgotten." (page 286)
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"Then also, this book involves mother fucking. (*step* mother fucking) The Strong Man Alone has trouble with the Close Family Individuals He Knows. They complicate his relationship with nature and with society--- as his wife, step mom, dad, step brother are NOT a Venal Conspiracy of the Weak to cut him down. [But that Lee is in a VCoW against Hank's SMA] Family is where SMA's struggle vs. society & vs. nature meet --- it is where he is most vulnerable as he is not in direct opposition to his family, more his struggle is for a clarity in his relationships with his family." so I don't remember writing that, but it is pretty good. Also now below this I will have a bit of the book,"because an echo is an inflexible and pitiless taskmaster: you sing the echo's way because it is damned sure not going to sing yours. And even after you leave this mossy acoustical phenomenon to go on with your hiking or fishing, you cannot help feelingm for a long time after, that any jig you whistle, hymn you hum, or song you sing is somehow immutably tuned to an echo yet unheard, or relentlessly echoing a tune long forgotten." (page 286)
