[There] seems to me to be part of an unfortunate trend among male critics to overpraise [One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,] a novel which may be conservative, if not reactionary, politically; sexist, if not psychopathological, psychologically; and very low, if not downright lowbrow, in terms of the level of sensibility it reflects, a sensibility which has been influenced most strongly not by the Bible or a particular literary tradition as much as by comic books, particularly the Captain Marvel variety. (pp. 222-23)

Despite the fact that it became a favorite of the counter culture in the sixties, Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest may actually be much more representative of the older, alcoholic, he-man, rather than the newer, drug, hippie culture…. Like Hemingway and Steinbeck before him, Kesey presents as ideals in his first novel the arrogantly masculine ones of drinking, whoring, hunting, and gambling. Kesey...