Last Go Round : A Real Western

Rating:
Summary: Good Book, but not the best ever.
Review: For me this was a nostalgic trip back to the days when I sat next to my dad in the "sun bleachers" at Pendleton Round-Up. Mention of framiliar names like, Crabby's, and Hamley's enhanced the authenticity of this book. I didn't think it was near the best ever done by Kesey. I thought it could maybe have been more descriptive and a bit more knowledgable on Rodeo itself. (Maybe talk to some modern day Rodeoers?)

Rating:
Summary: Not Kesey's best but still worth a read
Review: I agree that this isn't Kesey's best work, but I have a personal reason for loving this book -- my great-Grandfather Parsons Motanic is a character (and he was a character) in this novel. Kesey never claimed that this was a true and factual account of the Pendleton round up, and he apologized to the people of Pendleton for taking liberties with the story. He got most of the details regarding my great-Grandfather wrong but I still enjoy the book and absolutely love that Kesey and Babbs included a picture of Parsons Motanic in the book. The narrative is jerky (much like motion pictures of the time) but some of the language is lyrical and almost lives up to Kesey's early works.

Rating:
Summary: Not a Dime Novel or a History,
Review: this novel recycles fact into fiction to create a tale about the original Pendleton Roundup. There's a heap of synthesis here, from oral and written histories, old photographs, interviews, newspaper articles and conversations. Kesey connects them and supplies imaginary material to create a farce with a gonzo tilt, as if he were on acid and explaining to Hunter Thompson. Kesey uses local color well and has an ear for period phrases, even when slapping them on with a palate knife, but that's the fun of it--watching Kesey stretch his brain around facts. The book is really about the author and how he chooses to indulge himself, not about what happened in Pendleton or what the reader should think about what went on there. In fact, the way Kesey jumps from one time frame to another shows how little he's concerned with keeping things straight for the reader. This book is bent. You can enjoy its distortions or look away, but you can't deny the brilliance or uniqueness of its colors. One burr under my saddle is that his cowboys aren't as "strong, silent and truthful" as I'd expect. Pendleton must have been far more polite and stuffy than Kesey lets on. But bizarre distortion reflects his intention of zonking out on history until it assumes a form more pleasing to him. In taking this trail, he proves that the humblest writer scribblng a dime novel from dubious fact is more of an author than all the librarians at the Library of Congress. The point, after all, is the mind in the act of making the mind. If connections seem bizarre, well, that's just Kesey taking on reality, whether the time is now or a century ago.