Sometimes a Great Notion

In this Ken Kesey novel there is a character by the name of Lee Stamper who is a failed English student from Yale. For reasons that stem beyond the pale, he can't pass his final semester, fails at trying to kill himself, and runs across the country to help his half-brother's logging company with vengeful intentions.

Anyways, here's a brief passage that got me a' thinkin':

"This, this same world. They all tried to do something with it. Dante did his best to build himself a hell because a hell presuppose a heaven. Baudelaire scarfed hashish and looked inside. Nothing there. Nothing but dreams and delusion. They all were driven by the need for something else. But when the drive was over, and the dreaming and the deluding worn out, they all ended up with the same dull old scene."

Harsh toke, Kesey. Of course, the novel's not over yet, so perhaps Lee finds another perspective on this. Or not. Nevertheless, I understand what he's getting at. I was an English Lit student, after all, and four years of reading novel after novel after bleeding novel can result in an angry revelation that it all blends together, it's all a part of the same bowl of chowder goin' down the hatch of some hungry feller.

I remember the winter break between semesters of my junior year of college. I picked up a new book at Border's or Barnes & Noble, delightfully brought it home, read five pages, and then never touched the damn thing again. Not that it was a bad book, whatever book it was. Just, suddenly, from somewhere, for some reason, I didn't want to read that book. So I tried with another, but to no avail. Once I was back in school the problem disappeared. I could tear through an assigned novel in a couple days to not sound like an idiot in the classroom. Then the semester was over and the problem returned. And so it dawned on me: I'd forgotten how to read outside of a classroom setting.

I finally rid myself of this horrible ailment once I moved here to Portland. I think the dramatic change in my life spurred my need to keep searching for new stories. Also the library system is pretty kickass.

That's what Lee Stamper did. He left Yale, where his life had become stale (tee-hee, that rhymes), and ran across the country to the Oregon coast. And who knows, maybe his passion will be renewed by the end of the novel.

Or not. I still have another two-hundred pages to go. If you know what happens don't spoil the end for me.