The novel, The Lovely Bones, is set mainly in a small town near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1973 to 1981. There are also minor settings in New Hampshire and California.
I will discuss the setting in more detail in a later post.
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters
In 1959 Ken Kesey, a graduate student in creative writing at Stanford University, volunteered to take part in a government drug research programme at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital that tested a variety of psychoactive drugs such as LSD, which was legal at the time. Over a period of several weeks, Kesey took these hallucinogens and wrote of his drug-induced experiences for government researchers. From this experience, Kesey wrote his most celebrated novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and began his own experimentations with psychedelic drugs. His goal was to break through conformist thought and ultimately create changes in American society. In the early 1960s, Neal Cassady showed up to meet the famous author and became the most celebrated member of Kesey’s group, the Merry Pranksters. Much of the hippie culture that would happen in San Francisco in the late sixties can be traced back to the Merry Pranksters who openly used psychoactive drugs, wore outrageous clothes, performed bizarre acts of street theatre, and engaged in peaceful confrontation. As Kesey put it: “What we hoped was that we could stop the coming end of the world.” By 1966, when Kesey had been arrested as a fugitive from the law, he denounced the powers of LSD as temporary and delusional, but nothing he said could stop the psychedelic era that was about to explode in San Francisco.
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a critical and commercial success. It was read as a cautionary tale that viewed society, represented by Big Nurse, as a cold, formidable negation of all that is free, open and nonconformist. McMurphy, escaping hard labour at a penal work farm, tries to rekindle a spark of life among his fellow patients but is thwarted at each step by the cold, calculating Nurse Ratched, who ultimately curtails McMurphy’s free wheeling ways. From this book, Kesey gained the notoriety and the income necessary to draw together his motley band of Merry Pranksters, who through their many antics and travels, set the stage for the Psychedelic Era that was to follow. A critically acclaimed novel that is still taught at schools today, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest remains Ken Kesey’s most popular work.
Why read One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey is probably the most difficult read from the list of Year 13 novels, but it is well worth the effort. This book is a tribute to the human soul and spirit. McMurphy is a tough, blue-collar character who loves women, gambling, alcohol and most of all, his freedom. Sentenced to a short stint on a work farm for statutory rape, he tried to beat the system by acting crazy enough to get sent to a mental hospital instead. Once there, he finds himself fighting for the rights of the adult male patients who have been systematically emasculated by calm, cool, and collected head of the ward, Nurse Ratched. Will Nurse Ratched succeed in beating McMurphy down like she did all the other men in her hospital? Or, will McMurphy teach these men how to stand up for themselves (or at least escape) a world that tries to take away everything vital to human existence: hope, desire, and self-respect?
Mother’s Day Fun
Two years ago, Barats and Bereta documented the process of taking a family photo for their mother for Mother’s Day. I am sure that many of you can relate to this video!
Killer Presentations
10 Tips for a Killer Presentation
18 Tips for a Killer Presentation
Try the links above for some tips to help you prepare for the Oral Presentations.
WikiSummary of The Lovely Bones
This WikiSummary gives a summary of The Lovely Bones and a chapter by chapter guide. I have added an extract from the summary below-
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| Author | Alice Sebold |
|---|---|
| Cover Artist | Yoori Kim (design); Daniel Lee (photo-illustration) |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Literary fiction |
| Publisher | Little, Brown |
| Released | 2002 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback and Paperback); audio book |
| Pages | 328 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-66634-3 |
The narrator of The Lovely Bones, Susie Salmon, is a normal fourteen year-old girl. She has just received her first kiss and is looking forward to going to high school next year. She is on her way home from school when she is stopped by a man who wants to show her something in the cornfield. Susie thinks she can trust this man because he is a neighbour who knows her parents. Unfortunately, this man, George Harvey, is a serial killer who rapes and murders Susie.
Susie is quickly taken to heaven, where she meets Franny, her guide in the afterlife. Heaven can be whatever she wants, and Susie chooses to create her heaven in the image of her hometown high school. However, the only thing Susie truly wants is to be back on Earth, growing up with the people she loves. This is the one thing Susie cannot have in heaven, but there is one way Susie can keep up with her family. From heaven, Susie can look down and watch her family as they struggle with their own feelings about her murder…
Litsum
Looking for Literature Summaries for your novel?
Try the Litsum links below
Review of The Lovely Bones
I have added an extract from a review of The Lovely Bones from Bookreporter.com. The review writer is Joe Hartlaub.
THE LOVELY BONES is a haunting work as well, but in the literal sense of the word - for the narrator of THE LOVELY BONES is a 14-year-old girl murdered during the commission of an unspeakable act committed by a quiet, monstrous man of such vileness that the reader wants nothing other than to reach into the pages of the book, grab him, and rip his face off. The victim, Susie Salmon (”like the fish,” as she tells us early on), relates her fate with a poetic matter-of-factness; she is at peace as she narrates, from her heaven, an account of what happened before and after her death as well as the repercussions of her death upon her family. What she wants is that her family achieve peace and that her murderer encounter justice.
What is most striking in THE LOVELY BONES, however, is Susie’s description of heaven, a place of many things to many souls. Some of the places intersect in spots, some do not. One has only to wish for a good reason for something in order to acquire it. When Jesus Christ said “My Father’s room has many mansions” He was talking about Susie’s heaven. Susie is able to witness events on Earth without the limitations imposed by time and space, and can thus witness her family, friends, and murderer, and know what they are thinking and doing. Sebold’s writing is masterful - no, it’s incredible. Although Susie’s voice never manifests itself beyond a quiet peacefulness, her tale of what has gone before and what is to be excites a passionate desire to know what is to happen to those left behind. Susie’s subtle delight in her burgeoning ability to influence things on this side of the shade raises hope that she will be able to fully realise her desire to bring peace to her family, who seem irrevocably fractured as the trauma of her sudden, senseless disappearance and passing lays fatal stress on already fractured relationships. It is, in the end, a false hope; but things have a way of working out in the end for how they are supposed to be, and they work out without Susie’s assistance. Well, that’s not quite right. Maybe she does help a bit.
Sebold’s bag of talents is large enough and complete enough that THE LOVELY BONES never even approaches the maudlin; readers, however, will be moved to tears several times during their encounter with this work. That Sebold is able to elicit sorrow, righteous anger, regret, and ultimately, hope through a narrative of events in a voice rarely raised above a peaceful whisper is a statement to the level of her artistry. If she never writes another word she will be known for decades for this work.
