I've seen the claims that this is THE great American political novel. I admit I was skeptical at first. I was struggling to connect with the characters, as likeable attributes seemed to be in short supply. And while the book is beautifully written with poetic imagery and brilliant but subtle observations, the pace is slow and there are a lot of long, often seemingly rambling, passages. I was even still skeptical about the greatness of the novel when I turned the last page. However, as I let the story sink in and I thought through all the events and the evolution and struggles of the characters, I was awestruck, and somewhat overwhelmed, by the complexities and multiple layers that were woven into this book. As a result, I've decided won't argue with anyone who says this is one of the finest novels on American politics.

There is so much to unpack in this book, but above all else, the book is about politics. It's about the way politics get done and the often unsavory mutual dependance of politics, power, and influence. And politics aren't restricted to elected officials. Politics are very present in human relationships and bring forth uncomfortable soul-searching questions about loyalty and intentions. The beliefs, actions, and evolution of four key characters (Willie Stark, Jack Burden, Anne Stanton, and Adam Stanton) cleverly exposes the reader to all aspects of politics and all the complications, uncomfortableness, and insecurities that come along with it.

As an unexpected benefit, this book also helped me gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of Southern Literature. I've read books set in the American South before, but I haven't given too much thought to the genre of Southern Literature as a whole. This book is set in a very particular place and time, the American South during the Great Depression, and the strong sense of this place and time felt like one of the central characters in the book. You can feel the heavy humid air, and the age-old traditions and themes of Southernness are radiating from the events, the characters, and the landscapes. It's impossible to read this book and not think "Southern Literature", and I realized it's a lens that I've been missing in my past reading that could have increased my appreciation of certain books.

This is a beautifully written, layered novel, and I'm still a little surprised by how much this book delivered. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a long while. It's not an easy read, but it's definitely worthwhile.

I almost gave up the ghost at 60% because it’s an exhausting read and requires a lot of work. But then I couldn’t completely abandon Warren’s crazy, creative, poetic writing of rambling passages so I set it aside while I read something easy. When I returned it was a don’t-talk-to-me-speeding-train-ride to the end.

In short, this is the transformative journey of politician Willie Stark and his assistant Jack Burden. Set in the 1930’s deep American South so it is disturbingly racist. The machinations of the American political system from grass roots to powerful elected positions is how Warren presents a complicated and tragic scenario and propels an argument of free will (The Great Twitch) vs accepting responsibility for one’s planned actions.

I would have missed so, so much if I hadn’t returned to this amazing work by Robert Penn Warren.

"There isn't ever anything to say to somebody who has found out the truth about himself, whether it is good or bad".

Before the above line there lie some 650 pages of small-print, which shows that RPW had plenty to say about politics, virtue and crime and the defects of each and love of course. This is a no-named southern state in 1939 and there is corruption, betrayal, ideals, regrets and far too many secrets. It is indeed over-plotted at points, for no apparent or at least persuasive reason, BUT it is superbly written.

Imagine you have a top-notch driver, a real virtuoso, who drives along wherever the road takes him. Whilst he does have a destination, he also has plenty of time, so he follows no specific route. The road takes him to sublime places, dark forests, seaside little towns and coves, but also to mundane landscapes and indifferent granite hills. At no time does our driver lack driving skill, neither does he ever stop looking and being filled with wander of what he sees. Like a journey, some places are beautiful others not so much, but just around the corner something new and wonderful catches you by surprise.

That's the book, our driver and this journey. The language and prose are alive and amazingly sharp; it reminded me at places of hard-boiled novels but also of sad poems. RPW was also an acclaimed poet and All the King's Men can also be viewed as a sad, truly sad story, told like a verse but looking like a novel.

It should be read much more outside of the US and should be in print in more languages. A long read, which could benefit from a more courageous editing, but easy-flowing and the end impression is rewarding.

"Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud."

n  n
Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren is the only person to win the Pulitzer prize for fiction as well as poetry. He won the prize for fiction in 1946 for this very book. If you are lucky enough to have a great aunt who reads, and bought a lot of books in the 1940s, you might take a gander at her books some time and see if she has a first edition, first printing of this book in her library.

n  n
First edition, First printing of the 1946 edition

Depending on the condition of the dust jacket a true first will bring anywhere from $2,000 to $7,000. It will be up to you; if you decide to "liberate" the book, tucking it under your shirt, and sneaking it out with the paper bag of home made oatmeal cookies she always sends you home with. If you are not a natural felon you might just say "hey auntie couldn't you tuck this in a safety deposit box and put my name on it".

The last time I was in New Orleans they were shooting the new movie version of All the King's Men. We sat in a little cafe across from where they were setting up a shoot hoping for a glimpse of one of the marquee actors involved in the production. No luck, just film crew people bustling around trying to build a street scene. We were anxious to explore the little bookshops and artist galleries in the French Quarter, so we left before seeing anything truly interesting. I have not seen the 1949 or 2006 film versions. From the reviews I skimmed, both movies seem to struggle to capture the true essence of the book. I'm not surprised, even if they put the book through a small holed strainer, they would still have way more material than what a standard length movie can handle.

n  n
1949 Movie Poster

n  n
2006 Movie Poster

Jack Burden, newspaper reporter, finds himself following around an ambitious, well meaning, but naive candidate named Willie Stark. A man hand picked to split the vote in the primary and insure the nomination of the customary corrupt, crony, politician that Louisiana is famous for. Stark is the only person who is unaware that the fix is on. He is stumping and receiving discouraging indifference from his crowds as he tries to tell them the truth. As he finds himself on the ropes more than he is in the ring, he starts to understand that to be successful he will have to give the crowds what they want. He replaces substance with hyperbole, and Burden observes the emergence of a candidate and the corruption of an honest man. Warren based Stark on the dynamic personage of Louisiana governor Huey P. Long.

n  n
Huey P. Long

Burden soon finds himself unemployed, but Stark always liked him and gave him a prominent position on his staff. Stark, though soundly defeated, uses the time between elections to become a polished orator and electable candidate. Burden studied for a history degree in college and believes from his studies that truth will always win out. As he becomes more ensnared in the shady activities of Governor Stark's administration he starts to stumble over his own high ideas of the worthiness of truth. He tries to convince himself that he just does what the boss wants him to do. What the boss does with the information he brings him has nothing to do with him, but the longer he is involved, and the more people he knows who become victims of Stark's ambition the less distance he can claim.

"I didn't mean to cause any ruckus. I didn't think--" And all the while that cold, unloving part of the mind--that maiden aunt, that washroom mirror the drunk stares into, that still small voice, that maggot in the chess of your self-esteem, that commentator on the ether nightmare, that death's-head of lipless rationality at your every feast--all that while that part of the mind was saying: You're making it worse, your lying is just making it worse, can't you shut up, you blabbermouth!"

Burden is in love with Anne Stanton, his childhood friend and the daughter of a previous governor. Briefly they are an item and then they drift apart. Burden marries Lois, the woman who has the "peach bloom of cheeks, the pearly ripe but vigorous bosom, the supple midriff, the brooding, black, velvety-liquid eyes, the bee-stung lips, the luxurious thighs." Despite these attributes they have different goals and different ambitions and the elephant in the room is the fact that Jack is still in love with Anne. He becomes close friends with Anne again. He can't help but make allusions to the fact that his marriage proposal is still on the table. Even though she is 35 and never been married she continues to dance around the issue. Burden can't ever see her as just a friend.

"It was Anne Stanton herself, who stood there in the cool room of the looking glass, above the bar barricade of bright bottles and siphons across some distance of blue carpet, a girl--well, not exactly a girl any more, a young woman about five-feet-four with the trimmest pair of nervous ankles and smallish hips which, however, looked as round as though they had been turned on a lathe, and a waist just the width to make you wonder if you could span it with your hand, and all of this done up in a swatch of gray flannel which pretended to a severe mannish cut but actually did nothing but scream for attention to some very unmannish arrangements within."

Stark still sees himself as one of the good guys despite the number of men he has felt compelled to destroyed. He came to the conclusion that it was better to destroy them than to bribe them. If he bribes them he still has to keep those untrustworthy associates in his organization. If he destroys them they can no longer thwart his ambitious aims. He is on a self-imposed mission to use the corrupt system, but use it for good.

"Goodness. Yeah, just plain, simple goodness. Well you can't inherit that from anybody. You got to make it. If you want it. And you got to make it out of badness. Badness. And you know why? Because there isn't anything else to make it out of."

When Burden experiences the ultimate betrayal it hit me like a left hook coming out of the smokey darkness of an Oklahoma bar. I never saw it coming and I had to stagger away from the book for a while. Jack took 8 days and ran away to California. I took thirty minutes to go stand out on my deck and let some fresh air sort my scattered thoughts.

There is a whole marvelous section on Cass Mastern, Jack's relative, who provides a colorful history for Jack to research for his PHD. I almost need a separate review to handle the intricate betrayals explored by Warren in that section. I notice that the departure from the main story line bothered other reviewers. I just thought I'd been handed another thick seam of gold to be mined. I like history and I especially like family history, so I didn't mind the story in the story at all.

Political cynicism wrapped in lyrical prose makes this one of the more fascinating books I've read in many, many years. It is an honest book, exposing all the worst elements of human behavior. We are so good at fooling ourselves into thinking that when we do wrong for the greater good we are still on the side of the angels. Highly recommended!!

If anyone has any political novels that they love, and feel I should read, please send me your recommendations.

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

All the King's Men: Robert Penn Warren's Spider Web

This Novel was chosen as a group read by members of On the Southern Literary Trail for July 2012 and again in October,2014.

n  "It all began, as I have said, when the Boss, sitting in the black Cadillac which sped through the night, said to me (to Me who was what Jack Burden, the student of history, had grown up to be) "There is always something."
And I said, "Maybe not on the Judge."
And he said, "Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something."n

n  n
n  There is always something, even on the Judge. Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, John Ireland as Jack Burden, and Adam Greenleaf as Judge Stanton from the 1949 film. The film changed the identity of Judge Irwin to Judge Stanton. A slight problem with the object of Jack's romance.>n

n  n

First Edition, Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, 1946

If you're expecting a fictional recounting that serves as a short cut to T. Harry William's masterful biography of Huey Long this isn't it.

n  n

But Williams does have something to say that pointedly echoes the themes Robert Penn Warren wove into a masterpiece of American politics.

n"I believe that some men, men of power, can influence the course of history. They appear in response to conditions, but they may alter the conditions, may give a new direction to history. In the process they may do great good or evil or both, but whatever the case they leave a different kind of world behind them.", p.ix, Preface, T. Harry Williams, Huey Long,Alfred A. Knopf, 1969.

That Willie Stark is a stand in for Huey Long, Robert Penn Warren frankly admits. I was fortunate to find the Thirty-Fifth Edition of the novel, published in 1981. It contained a new, and very informative introduction by Warren.

Warren did not originally envision this work as a novel, but as a tragic drama entitled "Proud Flesh." Warren ended up putting that manuscript away. He realized that he had focused on a man of power rather than those few people who are always surrounding that man of power, and in writing All the King's Men, Warren focused on the "Greek" chorus to whom he had not given proper voice in his originally conceived work.

So, there we have the title, "All the King's Men," the chorus that relates the rise and fall of Willie Stark. For all great men have an inner circle, some of whom are as vague as phantoms, performing the will of the King and they will perform that will whether it be good or evil. But all the King's Men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again should the King fall.

Warren proposes the question of whether those minions are mere pawns or whether they recognize the consequences of their actions and accept responsibility for them, and if so, can they find redemption for the evil they do, even when it is couched in terms of doing good. Willie Stark, the Boss, is a practical man. So, politics is a dirty business. He tells us,

n  "Dirt's a funny thing, come to think of it, there ain't a thing but dirt on this green God's globe except what's under water, and that's dirt too. It's dirt makes the grass grow. A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot. And God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you do with the dirt.">n

Jack Burden is a one man Greek Chorus that tells us the story of Willie Stark. And it is Jack Burden who provides the moral center of the novel. In one long narrative voice, Jack, a child of privilege, intrigues us relating the present and the past, not only Willie's but his own. Willie's rise is rather straight forward. As Williams tells us in Long's biography, Willie appears on the Louisiana scene in response to conditions of the Great Depression, which seemingly provided the fuel for Populism common to that era.

Jack comes from a level of society that comprised the previous leaders of Louisiana, a class who would forever be opposed to a man of Willie Stark's origin and philosophy. He is the friend of Adam and Anne Stanton, the children of the governor preceding Stark. His mentor is Judge Irwin who advised and influenced Jack from his youth. His father, Ellis Burden, the "scholarly lawyer" is a good friend of the Judge. His mother is beautiful, poised, and confident.

So, why would Ellis Burden walk out of his law office one day to become a street evangelist? But Jack's mother has no problem keeping a stream of husbands in her bed. It's enough to make a fellow a little cynical. Rebellious, too. Rebellious enough to go to State University and study history.

Jack has a future. He's working on his doctorate, studying the papers of an ancestor named Cass Mastern. The papers of Mastern serve as a mirror of Jack's life. But Mastern, who betrayed a friend by having a love affair with his friend's wife, lives the rest of his life with the knowledge of that betrayal. It is Cass who writes in his journal,

n  The world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but springs out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things. Your happy foot or your gay wing may have brushed it ever so lightly, but what happens always happens and there is the spider, bearded black and with his great faceted eyes glittering like mirrors in the sun, or like God’s eye, and the fangs dripping."n

The long and the short of it is that our actions have consequences and we owe a responsibility for the consequences of our actions. This is a premise that Jack would rather reject.

Rather, Jack grasps on to the theory of the "Great Twitch," a world in which the actions of people are no more controllable than the muscles of a frog's leg twitching in response to an electrical impulse. However it is Cass Mastern who was correct. In rejecting his ancestor's journal, Jack becomes the cynical, wisecracking news reporter assigned to cover Willie Stark's first gubernatorial election. It is Jack Burden, along with savvy political advisor Sadie Burke who tell Stark he's been duped into running to split the vote of the opposing candidate to bring about the win by yet another politician.

n  n
n  Jack Burden and Sadie Burke telling Willie he's been had.n

It is that campaign that transforms not only Willie Stark into a Kingfish lookalike, but transforms Jack into Stark's most trusted fix it man. "Maybe not the Judge." Oh, yes, even the Judge. And so it is that a chain of consequences begins to be unveiled, each the result of a deliberate, undeniable action.

Even the death of Willie Stark is a consequence of one of the Boss's improvident decisions. As Warren wrote,

n  "The end of man is knowledge but there's one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it would save him."n

n  n
n  Do the ends justify the means? Can Willie Stark find redemption?n

Willie's death comes about, not from an assassin who believes him to be a dictator, but for a very personal reason. Nor will I even resort to a spoiler alert. I'm simply not going to tell you, because I want you to read this book.

And what of Jack? I will share the final sentence, and I remind you that Jack is the narrator.

n  "Go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time."n

Perhaps Jack Burden has come to terms with his ancestor, Cass Mastern.

To say this is a masterpiece about American politics is true. But it goes much further than that. It is a reminder that the past is the father of the future. They are inevitably inseparable.

EXTRAS! EXTRAS!

Huey Long: The Man Behind Willie Stark

Huey Long's "Share the Wealth Speech"

Huey Long on the Difference between Democrats and Republicans

The Assassination of Huey Long

A Biographical Documentary of Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men, and Huey Long  WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS

Soundtrack

Louisana 1927 by Randy Newman

Kingfish by Randy Newman

Every Man a King, written and sung by Huey Long.

This book grabbed me by the collar and pulled me in when I picked it up at the bookstore and I couldn't breathe until I finished it.

This is exactly what American politics, in the essential or fundamental sense, are about. Innocense gets you into the game, experience gets you further, ruthlessness gets you ahead.

Its narrated with zest and sarcasm and this particular version is great because it throws in all of Warren's original extras- references, allusions, extra plot points, details, etc. More of a good thing is always good.

Too bad Warren apparently never pulled anything like this off again. This is one of the centerpieces of American social culture. There's more than a little "Huey Long" in all our politics. Laugh about it, shout about it, when you've got to choose....

The first movie, with Broderick Crawford, is pretty good. Avoid the remake of the movie with the great Sean Penn at all costs.

Meaning to do good, Willie Stark rises from self-educated lawyer to political bigwig and eventually governor. Along the way he loses his moral compass and develops a taste for power, resorting to bullying, bribery, blackmail - whatever it takes - to get what he wants.







Willie does manage to help some of his constituents, taxing the wealthy to provide schools and hospitals for the poor. But he also betrays his wife; raises a selfish, self-absorbed son; corrupts good people; and eventually reaps the consequences of his actions.





Willie's story is told by Jack Burden, a journalist who signs on to be Willie's right hand man. Thinking of himself as essentially a good guy Jack believes he's 'only doing his job' when he betrays some of his closest friends at Willie's behest.





I gave the book 4 stars (rather than 5) because the philosophical rantings of some characters was tedious and incomprehensible (to me). Overall, this is a superbly written book with fascinating characters and the trajectory of a Greek tragedy. Though published in the 1940s the book seems just as relevant today in it's depiction of political machinations. Highly recommended.

You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....

Το Όλοι οι άνθρωποι του Βασιλιά, αφορά στην περίπτωση του Πολιτικού Γουίλι Σταρκ και στην εκλογή του ως Κυβερνήτης στον Νότο των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών του 1930, όπου από ένας ακόμα απλός άνθρωπος καταλήγει αδίστακτος λαϊκιστής ικανός για το οτιδήποτε.
Προχωρώντας παράλληλα με Μοντέρνες ιδέες, την φρέσκια Αστική Δημοκρατία και το Άτομό της που ξέφυγε από τα κοινωνικά σύνολα της προνεοτερικότητας, το βιβλίο φέρνει στην επιφάνεια ένα σημαντικό ερώτημα: Τι ποσοστό ευθύνης κουβαλάμε για τις επιλογές που παίρνουμε στη ζωή μας; Μέσω του Τζακ Μπέρντεν πρώην φοιτητή ιστορίας, δεξί χέρι του Γουίλι Σταρκ στην άνοδό του ως πολιτικός, και αφηγητή του βιβλίου, μας δίνεται η ευκαιρία να αναρωτηθούμε.
«Ήμουνα ένας θρασύτατος Ιδεαλιστής εκείνα τα χρόνια. Αν είσαι Ιδεαλιστής, δεν έχει σημασία τι κάνεις ή τι γίνεται γύρω σου, γιατί έτσι κι αλλιώς δεν είναι αληθινό.» Λέει ο Τζακ Μπέρντεν στο 1ο κεφάλαιο και από εκείνη τη στιγμή και έπειτα παλεύει με τις ιδέες του μέσα από γεγονότα που μπλέκει είτε λόγω του Γουίλι είτε λόγω του παρελθόντος του. Ανθρωποι που δεν κάνουν το παραπάνω βήμα, άνθρωποι που καταρρέουν υπό το βάρος των ζωών τους, άνθρωποι που ήταν απίστευτα μικροί και ασήμαντοι μπροστά στα γεγονότα που τους περιέβαλλαν, γίνονται το όχημα που κάνει τον Ιδεαλιστή (ο κόσμος προκύπτει από τη σκέψη) Τζακ να γοητευτεί από την Υλιστική θεώρηση της ζωής (η σκέψη προκύπτει από τον κόσμο).
Το βιβλίο ξεχωρίζει γιατί:
Δείχνει πετυχημένα και χωρίς να κουράσει, το πόσο περίπλοκες δυναμικές δημιουργούν οι ζωές μας και πώς αυτές οι δυναμικές δείχνουν με τη σειρά τους πως οι ζωές μας πολλές φορές παίρνουν τέτοια έκβαση που η όποια ηθική πυξίδα χάνεται από το σημείο εστίασης και το μόνο που μας ενδιαφέρει είναι το λιγότερο κακό σενάριο.
Ακολουθώντας έναν λαϊκό και συχνά προφορικό λόγο, καταφέρνει να δημιουργήσει ένα κείμενο με προσωπικότητα, στιβαρό, με φράσεις ικανές να εντυπωθούν στο μυαλό, με τον ίδιο τρόπο που το καταφέρνουν και άλλα βιβλία της εποχής που απέρριψαν τον Ακαδημαϊκό λόγο.
Αν και σε πολλά σημεία η αφήγηση έκανε κοιλιά, το χάρηκα. Είναι βιβλίο που μπορεί να σε πιάσει από το λαιμό χωρίς πλούσια εφέ και φιοριτουρες, μόνο με τον λόγο του, και αυτό είναι σπάνιο.

Ο άνθρωπος συλλαμβάνεται μέσα στην αμαρτία, γεννιέται μέσα στη διαφθορά και περνάει από τη μπόχα της πάνας στην αποφορά του σάβανου. Πάντα κάτι υπάρχει....

On my short list of "best novels ever written." Robert Penn Warren was one of the great American writers and this one based on the Huey Long era in Louisiana politics is his best. A stunning book and well worthy of all the awards* it garnered when first published in 1946.

Many may remember the Robert Rossen film of 1949 which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and also the mediocre 2006 remake. If you saw the latter don't be put off. The book is a masterpiece and even more so if you are fascinated by American regional politics. Brilliant!

My treasured copy is a beautiful 1981 edition published with a sturdy slip case by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. With a 12-page introduction by Robert Penn Warren and delightful chapter headings and drawings by Warren Chappell.
*Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, 1947; the first of three, the other two for his poetry.

Για χρόνια αναρωτιόμουν γιατί το συγκεκριμένο μυθιστόρημα δεν είχε μεταφραστεί ποτέ στα ελληνικά, όντας ένα από τα σπουδαιότερα και κλασικότερα μυθιστορήματα της Αμερικάνικης λογοτεχνίας (βραβευμένο μάλιστα με Πούλιτζερ), και έχοντας μεταφερθεί δυο φορές στους κινηματογράφους. Τελικά, οι υπέροχες εκδόσεις Πόλις το έφεραν στην Ελλάδα τον Οκτώβριο του 2020, εγώ φυσικά το αγόρασα την πρώτη κιόλας μέρα κυκλοφορίας του, να όμως που έπρεπε να περάσουν τόσοι μήνες από τότε, ώστε να το διαβάσω τελικά. Μάλλον έψαχνα την κατάλληλη στιγμή, όπως έκανα και με το υπέροχο "Το πλοίο των τρελών" της Κάθριν Ανν Πόρτερ που διάβασα πριν λίγες μέρες, όπως γενικά κάνω πολλές φορές με διάφορα βιβλία που περίμενα πώς και πώς να κυκλοφορήσουν στα ελληνικά και να τα αγοράσω και μετά με περίμεναν αυτά πώς και πώς για να τα διαβάσω. Λοιπόν, σας έπρηξα στο πολύ μπλα μπλα, αλλά να, σκέφτομαι τι μπορώ να γράψω για τούτο δω το αριστούργημα, γι' αυτό το απόλυτο δεκάρι (από τα πιο εύκολα δεκάρια που έχω βάλει σε βιβλίο), ώστε να σας δώσω να καταλάβετε πόσο πολύ με ενθουσίασε. Θα μου πείτε, το απόλυτο δεκάρι που του βάζω μιλάει από μόνο του, αλλά κάτι πρέπει να γράψω για το βιβλίο, έτσι δεν είναι; Ας πούμε: Από την πρώτη μέχρι την τελευταία σελίδα, το βιβλίο με κράτησε δέσμιό του, με καθήλωσε, με συγκλόνισε. Είναι τόσο ενδιαφέρουσα και καθηλωτική η ιστορία, τόσο απίστευτη η ατμόσφαιρα, τόσο καταπληκτική η γραφή, που με κάνει να απορώ για το μυαλό, για την οξυδέρκεια, για την ποιότητα, για το χάρισμα που έχουν ορισμένοι συγγραφείς. Εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε με ένα πολιτικό και φιλοσοφικό μυθιστόρημα, για έναν στοχασμό στην εξουσία, την πολιτική αλλά και τον άνθρωπο, για το Μεγάλο Αμερικάνικο Μυθιστόρημα του Νότου, με τον συγγραφέα να μοιράζει απλόχερα εικόνες και συναισθήματα, καθώς επίσης να προσφέρει και μπόλικη τροφή για σκέψη και περαιτέρω προβληματισμούς για την πολιτική, την κοινωνία, τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις, και πάει λέγοντας. Η γραφή είναι εξαιρετική, οξυδερκής, πότε ρεαλιστική και πότε πιο λυρική, με βαθύτερα νοήματα εδώ κι εκεί, με στοχαστική και φιλοσοφική διάθεση σε διάφορα σημεία, με τρομερές περιγραφές και εξαιρετικά φυσικούς διαλόγους. Γενικά, πρόκειται για ένα εξαίσιο λογοτεχνικό έργο, που προσφέρει απλόχερα αναγνωστική απόλαυση, όντας απόλυτα ικανό να κινητοποιήσει τον εγκέφαλο του αναγνώστη, να τον βάλει να σκεφτεί διάφορα πράγματα σχετικά με την πολιτική, την ιστορία και τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις, αφού προφανώς δεν μιλάμε για ένα απλό βιβλίο που το διαβάζεις για να περάσει η ώρα, μιλάμε για ολόκληρη εμπειρία, για ένα βιβλίο που ο αναγνώστης θα θυμάται για καιρό και που θα στεναχωριέται που τελείωσε και που θα σκέφτεται πότε θα έρθει ο καιρός για να το ξαναδιαβάσει και να το απολαύσει για άλλη μια φορά. Εγώ, για παράδειγμα, μόλις το τελείωσα και ήδη σκέφτομαι πότε θα το ξαναδιαβάσω! Υ.Γ. Η ταινία του 1949 σε σκηνοθεσία Ρόμπερτ Ρόσεν ευτυχώς ανήκει στη συλλογή μου και σίγουρα μέσα στη χρονιά θα τη δω, έστω κι αν αποκλείεται να νιώσω ό,τι ένιωσα διαβάζοντας το βιβλίο. Πάντως φαίνεται πολύ δυνατή!

Well written.
...but like I needed another reason to be cynical and depressed over politics right now.