What is the author's style in Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey?

This novel's exploration and/or utilization of various points of view is easily its most notable and narratively engaging characteristic, more so than its characters, story or themes. The constantly shifting and re-aligning of various tenses, between first and third person and between past and present tense (not to mention the generally more omniscient, objective perspective of each chapter's prologue) functions on several levels. The first is to stylistically reinforce the previously discussed central thematic point relating to the relationship between truth and interpretation, as the shifting perspectives create the clear sense that there is in fact NO truth, only individual perspective. The second level of function of this stylistic choice functions on a more pragmatic level, simply to draw the reader in. S/he is constantly placed in the position of reading carefully, of having to constantly be aware of which perspective is being explored at which point in the narrative and above all what that perspective means. It's simply very good and very evocative storytelling. On a third level, it might be useful to compare the narrative style of this novel to other, perhaps more traditional, single point-of-view novels. Such writings tend to be realistic in the sense that they are told from a single person's perspective - after all, an individual can only truly experience life from his own, individually lived perspective. Nonetheless, such novels are by necessity a limited view of "reality." The narrative style in Sometimes a Great Notion, on the other hand, is perhaps less realistic but is, in a broader sense, more "real," since the tapestry of reality is woven of a multiplicity of perspectives and attitudes and actions. In other words, the narrative style of this novel comes close to portraying at least a portion of the tapestry, as opposed to simply defining one of its experiential threads.