SOURCE: Safer, Elaine B. “The Absurd Quest and Black Humor in Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion.” In The Contemporary American Comic Epic: The Novels of Barth, Pynchon, Gaddis, and Kesey, pp. 138-55. Detroit, Mich: Wayne State University Press, 1988.

In the following essay, Safer characterizes Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion as a work of epic vision and scope that derives its most poignant power from elements of black humor.

Sometimes a Great Notion—more so than the novels of John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and William Gaddis—focuses on traditional heroic subjects: the conflict between two brothers, the Oedipal bind, and the reaction to the death of a loved one. Its tone however, like that of the other postmodern novels, is one of black humor. It also shares with these novels an encyclopedic, epic scope and an absurdist vision.

Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), which has received less critical attention...