The Favorite Book

By Anonymous -
At the risk of veering into cult-like hero worship, note the following revelation from the Creative Loafing profile

Somehow, it's not surprising that Dean cites Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion as his favorite novel.

For anyone who has ever read the book, four words probably come to mind: "Never give an inch." The patriarch in Kesey's 1964 epic scrawls this admonishment on a painting and hangs it near his newborn son's bed. It's a commandment of intransigence, a screw you, to nature, convention and history.

It's the perfect Dean book. Not that Dean would ever think this way, but it also has resonance with groups of voters large and small: Oregonians, loggers, union members, and middle-aged men who worry they've compromised their values too many times. Also, Paul Newman and Henry Fonda fans who couldn't get through the book but saw the 1971 movie.

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