Jan 2, 2010

Harvey | What Do I Read Next?

Ken Kesey’s 1963 novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, also raises questions about whether the people running psychiatric asylums are necessarily more sane than their patients. Kesey’s novel shows the cynicism that developed in the twenty years between it and Harvey: its protagonist is more like a dangerous sociopath than a lovable eccentric, while Kesey’s asylum is a place where victims are mirthlessly drained of all personality.

Arsenic and Old Lace is another comedy about eccentrics that appeared about the same time (it was made into a movie the...