What happened? How did this book manage to go from being Fight Club to Five Point Someone via The Old Man and the Sea?

The start of the book is taut and stark and evil but a little past halfway through the book Kesey totally loses the plot and the book meanders to the end. I found myself skipping entire pages and was feeling guilty about it till I figured that ol’ Ken’d probably had enough of this goddamn book by then anyways.

I was going to see the movie as well, but now suddenly I’m not so keen.