With its epic sweep and radical experimentation with narrative techniques, Sometimes a Great Notion is not a novel easily grasped in a casual reading. Indeed, it almost demands a second or even a third perusal. Discussion of this book will likely center on individuals' responses to the intellectual demands Kesey places upon them.

Literarily sophisticated readers will probably react most favorably to Kesey's Faulknerian treatment of multiple points of view and Lee's allusions, reflecting his Yale education. Serious students of film will probably appreciate Kesey's adaptation of cinematic devices that relate this novel to a screenplay.

1. Do you find Kesey's combination of the vernacular and intellectual idioms an artistic achievement or an awkward yoking of two disparate traditions?

2. Are Kesey's experiments with rendering time, his multiple points of view, and his use of cinematic techniques effective for rendering full reality or too ambitious and innovative for...