I am about 200 pages into Ken Kesey’s novel Sometimes a Great Notion (which will arrive on the PCS stage in April) and already I am struck by the sheer subversive glee that Kesey takes in storytelling.

The story, about an Oregon coastal logging family in the midst of a union strike, contains enough gorgeous descriptions of lush pastoral scenery and the sheer abundance that is Oregon to lull you into a false sense of security. This, you think, is going to be one of those novels where you get to revel in Garden of Eden imagery, follow brave men acting, well, bravely, and come away feeling awful darn proud of this state we call home.
And so far, I have come away feeling awful darn proud of the place I call home, but not quite in the way that I expected.

For one thing, Kesey never lets you get too comfortable with the beauties of the state. The Wakonda River (where the story is set)? Beautiful? Yes. Lyrical and bubbling? Yes. And prone to tearing down homes in just a few hours of flooding in order to carve out a new riverbed for itself. The greenery? Gorgeous. Towering. Impressive. And invasive- filing every nook and cranny with the constant threat of creeping fungal rot.

And the people? Well, the people that Kesey populates this novel with are not the kind of people that I usually enjoy. Loud, brash, cussed strongmen who stamp bare feet on unfinished plank floors and demand that the world submit to their will. Men who slag home womenfolk, by brute force when necessary, to do the cooking, cleaning and rearing, with little regard for the delicate needs of the feminine soul. Men whose sheer cussedness gives rise to a family motto: NEVER. GIVE. AN INCH.

As a post-feminist Florida transplant, I was prepared to love the scenery, the natural resources and the independent spirit of Oregon, and prepared to keep a careful distance from the kind of backwoods ignorance that I suspected would find me as soon as I left the safe haven of Portland. But it turns out that I actually adore these crazy cantankerous coots that Kesey describes, the ones who just kept moving until they hit ocean, under the basic philosophy that west was always better than east- the future always better than the past- and what you make with your own two hands always better than what you could get from some store back east.

And it’s a good thing, too, because you don’t have to look too hard to see their legacy in Portland today. What are these constant streams of twenty and thirty something creatives flooding into this city doing except marching in the footsteps of Oregon’s early pioneers, seeking freedom to live their life how they want, and brave enough to create whatever there is to create out of the materials they find at hand? To what do we attribute our incredibly functional public transportation, Do it Yourself aesthetic, fiercely progressive and independent social policies and complete unwillingness to tax ourselves, even for programs we know we want, if not to the spirit of men who came out west to be left alone and do their own thing (darn it)? Kesey builds these men with an unabashed delight for their worst qualities, just as he describes an Oregon that is all the more beautiful for its wild uncouthness.

It’s a world with elbow room to be unpolished and imperfect in, as long as you’ve got the passion to pull it off.

And that makes me terribly excited to see what some of my favorite Portland actors (including the always wryly funny Kevin Michael-Moore and my drool worthy good friend Scott Coopwood) will do with these cussed wild men. I expect a big bracing breath of fresh Northwest air to come blowing off this beautiful new stage in Portland’s greenest new building. And I for one will be waiting with baited breath to see what happens next.

Read More from Trisha’s blog here.

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