Ken Kesey
I can always tell a fisherman from a sailor, by the eyes. A fisherman’s eyes is kind of set certain, because he always knows what he’s after and when he gets it – or when he don’t. A sailor never knows.
There’s all sorts of way to classify and differentiate sailors (take a peek at Defining a Dirty Sailor): by job, by ship, by locale, by how many STDs are on board… Ken Kesey, in his novel “Sailor Song,” sticks to the basics – Sailor/Fisherman. The book is a must read. Yeah, sure it has menial and even poor reviews, though these reviews are all comparing Sailor Song to “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest,” Kesey’s gold mine. Kesey has a very unique view on the world, it showed during his days with the Merry Pranksters, and it shows in this book. His characters are bold and climatic, his setting is nautical and stormy, and his plot is twisted with ripping currents, swallowing tides and other mariner types of nomenclature. It does you, nor me, any good to summarized this story. The plot is just a tool the author uses to introduce his characters and his scenic seascapes. There is adventure, there is humor, and there is drive within the fluidity of the story, and all of this leads us to the Coast of Alaska, in the future, when elsewhere the world is shit. It is here we are introduced to the heroes and the foes, the winds and the seas.
“I can always tell a fisherman from a sailor, by the eyes. A fisherman’s eyes is kind of set certain, because he always knows what he’s after and when he gets it – or when he don’t. A sailor never knows.” – Ken Kesey, “Sailor Song”
