One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

This is a book that several peers of mine had to read at some point in high school. It's also been made into a very acclaimed movie that I have not yet seen. I've had a copy lying around for some time, and as such, it's been backlogged. Until now. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a story about a psychiatric ward. It's full of memorable characters - characters, really, in the truest sense of the word - and its central conflict is one between a bureaucratic dictator figure ("Big Nurse" Ratched) and the oppressed masses (patients). I don't want to give much away, but I do need to say that Nurse Ratched is truly one of the most evil characters I've ever come across in literature or film. She's passive-aggressive and capable of brainwashing the patients into doing her bidding. And she seems to act with no motive whatsoever aside from a sheer lust for power. The archetype exists, and she's not necessarily a unique spin on anything. (Think "manipulative bitch" and little more.) But the sly and cunning methods she uses to break her patients' spirits are just plain sinister. At one point, for instance, she berates and blames one patient until he commits suicide and then blames his death on another patient's actions, bringing that patient to a breaking point as well. McMurphy (the guy Jack Nicholson plays in the movie) becomes a knight in shining armor for the ward; he shows up one day and decides to challenge Ratched's authority, at first simply for kicks, but eventually for a much more noble cause: the mental stability of his new friends at the ward. He's supposed to be the "good" figure in the story, but really, his only praiseworthy actions are his power struggles with the evil nurse, and even those were mostly for his own amusement; I'm not buying McMurphy as a good-natured hero of any sort, really. In fact, I think any words of praise for this book that include the phrase "good vs. evil" are totally overblown and misguided. The book was more about a collection of tortured souls who (mostly) learn how to live again. The book was probably laden with symbolism the way high school English class reading books tend to be, but none of that was overt enough to warrant mentioning here. I definitely have a good deal of interest in the movie now, having read the book, but this story doesn't crack any lists that include my all time favorites. I reserve the right to change my judgment of this book at a later date, as it's one that feels like it could sit and marinate in the juices of my mind for some time, but for now I won't call it anything you need to seek out and read.