Jimyanni's Reviews > Demon Box
Demon Box
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Not sure what to make of this one. This book, while not badly written, is not what I read Ken Kesey for. Generally I love his bigger-than-life heroes, be they Randall Patrick McMurphy, Leland Stanford and Hank Stamper, or even the trio of cowboys from "Last Go-Round" (who aren't memorable enough for me to recall their names, but are definitely pretty impressive in their own rights.) The main character in this episodic collection of stories is Devlin Deboree, who may or may not be an avatar of Kesey himself; the last couple of chapters suggest this. (Perhaps if I knew more about Kesey's early life I would find more evidence of it earlier.) But Deboree doesn't seem nearly as larger-than-life as Kesey himself did in the only other biographical tale I've read of Kesey (Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), and in fact one of the secondary characters in this book (Houlihan) seems somewhat more Kesey-esque than Deboree. So I'm left a little confused as to what was intended, and in any case, I wasn't all that impressed by the main character. He seemed nice enough, in a soft-focus, frequently stoned kind of way. In a couple of the sections (notably his trip to Egypt, as well as to a lesser extent China and Disney World) he actually seemed very reminiscent of Bill Bryson and I definitely don't read Kesey for a self-deprecating, humorously tongue-in-cheek travelogue. If I want that I'll read Bryson. What Kesey excels at is larger-than-life antiheroes beating the establishment at its own game, and there's none of that here. The book was well-enough written that it wasn't without interest, but I was definitely disappointed.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May 24, 2017
–
Finished Reading
May 25, 2017
– Shelved
May 25, 2017
– Shelved as:
literature
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This isn't a book you should read as a story, but rather as a piece of journalism, in classic, 1980s gonzo glory.