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Understanding 9/11tv Ken Kesey Collection CSPAN June 3, 2017 12:03pm-12:19pm EDT
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it is a center for education and health. you have hospitals, schools, it is a transportation center. but because of the beautiful environment and recreational opportunities, to this day it is and outdoorsy place as you see from the river. >> welcome to eugene, oregon, on booktv. in cooperation with our comcast cable partners over the next 90 minutes we will talk about eugene and the surrounding areas and we will hear from local authors whose books help tell the story of the nation. first we hear about counterculture writer ken kesey. >> we are at the university of oregon campus where in the night
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library, special collections and university archives and at the moment we are in the ken kesey classroom. ken kesey was an oregonian. he lived in springfield, oregon and attended university of oregon. he wrote two of the great american novels, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, his papers are at the university of oregon because he wanted his collection to be here. he felt he was an oregonian, so many experiences in oregon and he felt it was the right thing for the collection to be here in his alma mater. i brought a number of examples of manuscripts that are included in the collection and that includes things like correspondence. his artwork. he lives not just as a writer but an artist.
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we have examples of his artwork, literary manuscript in the collection. we have a diary he kept when he was an undergraduate at the university, which is a fabulous resource, what his experience was like at the university. because he was a student at the university we have the student yearbook and he is represented in the student yearbook, the oregona. the collection is rich in depth and scope in terms of documents in the collection, and correspondence revealing things that were happening to him at the time of the writing, they talk about his relationships with other people in his life. they are an exciting collection
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of primary sources to help the scholar learn more about ken kesey. ken kesey had an outgoing personality, that is reflected in the student yearbook, he was involved in, from 1955, a performer and one thing he did was he was a ventriloquist and here's an example of him with his dummy doing a performance. he was also involved in other student activities and a contributor to the oregon daily emerald, the student newspaper and he participated in a number of student groups, he was a member of the druids, must have been a student club of some
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sort. when he was a student, writing in some form or another, as an undergraduate he kept this journal and here, it is very extensive and this is a great primary source for research about his experiences when he was a student at the university. talk about sports events, talks about his relationship with faye, he met her when we were -- they were married at the
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university of oregon, in 1956 they got married. after he graduated from the university of oregon in 1959, ken kesey went down to the bay area to study creative writing, at malcolm crowley in the creative writing program, and he wrote extensively with his -- to his friend and sampling of the letters in the collection, and early one from august, summer of 1959, and somebody, and undergraduate at the university of oregon, the repository in 1998, read all the letters and each of these letters, not only does the scholar have access to
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the original letter, these annotations, letters that tell their research about who the people are, the letter they are talking about. about to gather, researchers gathering information in the letters scattered throughout the letters, details about what he is doing, things that are happening personally to him. they adopted a daughter, they had a baby, talked about faith, work, at stanford university, all kinds of personal information is presented to these letters. this is a letter in summer of 59, signed the letter.
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this is the original manuscript for one flew over the cuckoo's nest. this copy begins with page 2, or the earliest manuscript for one flew over the cuckoo's nest, the editorial marks, and changing the manuscript. can himself as i mentioned, the graphic artist too. and he drew these characters in one flew over the cuckoo's nest, the main character, one of the main characters, randall mcmurphy, and other characters in the story. after the book was published, lewis bartlett read the book and
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send a fan letter, and between the two of them, institution, psychiatry and those details, and in this letter, the first letter the psychiatrist sends, i found your book so well written, i enjoyed reading it and can write back. and he wanted to know how patients, and and electroshock therapy treatment that he actually experienced it and concluded it was terrifying and horrible and so he was able to
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portray that well in his book. doctor bartlett right back, horrified that he has done that. a friend is rigged in esp. and -- and undergraduate students, and and access to this original material. and research to be done on this material that i have.
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all of the notes that survived, and some examples of working around, the title that he wants to use. and then he has all these notes that he kept. and a great notion, and and write them down and categorize them and how he is carrying out their story. and writing into the writing
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process, and here is the document when he is writing the characters, more detail there. the mother notes, everybody else gets a great notion to jump into the river and drown. and the notion and people who get this notion, the river figures large in his story. here is the earliest manuscript for a great notion and text script. people have gone through and making changes and corrections on that manuscript. when ken kesey and mary pranksters got back from their road trip to new york, they through a number of parties in san francisco that became known
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as the acid test. ken kesey was arrested for marijuana possession which seems so quaint nowadays especially in oregon where marijuana use is legalized, he went on the lam to mexico, he spent eight months living in mexico. i guess he must have realized that that lifestyle was not sustainable for him because his wife and children were back in the states, he surrendered himself and his conviction was to spend five months in jail. with a work camp and while he was there, writing and artwork, paper, pencil, pens, paint and so on.
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friends are smuggled in the supplies to him so in the five months that he was there, wrote about his experiences in sheets of paper and created some of the material while he was in the jail and i call it the jailhouse manuscript. survive 43 panels in the collection and as you can see, day-glo, wild colors, he did some of the work when he was in the jail and after he got out he put them together in this collage forum. it is like an artist's book in a way. so he wrote letters to faye that were pasted on. he talks about what they did during the day, what their work was. he talks about his relationship
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with the fellow prisoners and again, my understanding is this is the first time he came to terms with his own racism, they were african-americans, people said the jailhouse manuscript is really his effort to deal with his own racism, part of the panel, there is a lot of research that can be done on this work. this research measures about 150 linear feet of material which is quite extensive. what we have shown is the tip of the iceberg for the ken kesey collection. one of the most important things for people to know is this is an
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incredibly rich collection in depth and scope, these primary sources, documents, something that he did, are essential to scholarship on ken kesey and his writings. these materials were available for people to use, any researcher can come here to use the collection. we are thrilled when people come to use the ken kesey papers. >> our visit continues with local offer mark whalan as he examines the culture and lives of african-americans during world war i in his book "the great war and the culture of the new negro". >> decided to write that because
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