Chapter IV What Do You Think of My Buddha? Summary and Analysis

Ken Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, grew up in Springfield, Oregon, and attends graduate school at Stanford University on a creative-writing fellowship. The author weaves the history of how Kesey went from middle-class, straight college student to one of the premiere leaders of the drug culture. The chapter title refers to a drawing of Buddha that a research subject creates on the wall while on LSD.

When Kesey arrives at Stanford, the 1950s-style bohemian culture of Perry Lane allows him in as a curiosity, an intelligent country bumpkin. Perry Lane is not very bohemian by the usual standards, more like an upper-middle class approximation of the lifestyle. Kesey works on a novel and fits into the society as per its expectations, but he...