First off, I would nominate this book as one highly in need of a much improved cover design. That being said, it perfectly fits the old adage about judging a book by it's ( mundane) cover. I love it when a book surprises me and the dread of reading it ( club choice) turns into excitement. The back-page blurb praises it as a Pulitzer Prize winner following the political career of Willie Stark, a fictional character loosely based on that of Huey "Kingfish" Long a post Depression Era Louisiana governor. Stark who starts out as a refreshingly idealistic man " of the people" ultimately ends up caught in a web of the corruption often associated with power. So yes, it's a precautionary tale, but perhaps even more about the life of Jack Burden, a sort of " every man" who works for Stark in a "holding it all together " capacity and learns a lot of life lessons the hard way. Though cited on the cover as THE definitive novel about American Politics ( NYTimes) I was happy to find it is written in a descriptive "old classic" format which makes it truly an enjoyable read. If you read it remember it was published in 1946, as it is very filled with characters who have stereotypical notions of the time ( meaning racist and very sexist) including our narrator who though interesting enough, is not always easy to like. Anyway to my total surprise , I'm giving this book a five star rating and thanking whomever it was who chose this as an April Selection for On The Southern Literary Trail. Great choice !!
Timely note: The 2006(audience rated 4 star) movie with Sean Penn, Jude Law, and Kate Winslet will be on Starz 4/25 and 4/26. I watched it on Amazon and quite enjoyed it since I liked the book. There is an earlier movie that is supposed to be very good ( thanks Diane B.) but that I cannot readily find.

Wow, this is a fantastic book! The story and the characters are first-rate, but it is the language that really got me. Sentence after sentence of verbiage that is so evocative, so perfect, you just want to savor it, to make it last, running its sweetness over your tongue and your teeth and just keeping the taste of it around as long as possible.

I knew for sure that this was going to be a rare and wonderful read when Jack Burden, the narrator, described his own nose as a hooked, askew, cartilaginous montrosity. (I also knew instantly that the casting of the recent film adaptation of this novel was really, really off, as the part of Jack was played by Jude Law [I mean, really - cartilaginous monstrosity = Jude Law???]).

Jack tells the story of Willie Stark, a country boy who becomes a politician (based on Huey P. Long, Willie Stark would seem like a caricature if we didn't sadly know better). But the story of "All the King's Men" is much more than just Willie Stark's story, much more than a tale of avarice and political corruption, it is more than a love story, more than a study of good and evil, though it is all these things. But it is also Jack's story and Jack is someone you want to spend 600+ pages with.

I could not recommend this book more highly.

Look out world, I have a new favorite book.
All The King's Men by Robert Penn Warren may be long, but it is worth every word. This book begins as the story of Willie Stark, a politician who enters politics as an idealist but ends up becoming the very thing he fought against. Yet, this isn't so much Willie's story as the story of the narrator, Jack Burden, Willie's right hand man. Jack strives to be a cold-hearted cynic but he is driven by a moral idealism.
The writing style of this book is beautiful and poetic. It is thought provoking. I can't tell you how much I loved this story. There is so much character growth and so many different themes and ideas at play. There are stories within stories within stories. While this is the story of Willie Stark and Jack Burden, it is also very much the story of Sugar-Boy and Tiny Duffy and that random guy at the beginning whose son was a good boy who went to jail because of bad luck. Somehow, every character, not matter how brief their interaction with the plot, is brought to life and seems like a relevant, important part. And the women! I love how strong and different the women are. Lucy Stark and Sadie Burke and Anne Stanton represent such different perspectives yet have such critical, strong roles.
Most of all, though, I love Jack Burden. I love him for his character growth. I love him for his denial. I love him for his flashbacks and internal struggles and his loyalty. I love him because just when I thought the plot had forgotten or given up on something, it would circle around and complete itself and Jack's character growth would be right in the middle of that circle.
I love this book for its slow buildups and sharp twists. I love it for its poetic writing and the deep thoughts. I love it for telling an interesting story. I love it for its ending, which once again dips for a sharp, final, and oh-so-satisfying twist.
I don't think this is a book everyone will like. In fact, I am almost positive that if I had tried to read this book a few years earlier, I wouldn't have enjoyed it. However, I'm so glad I found this book when I did. I want a hard copy so I can read it again and savor it more.
So good.

Δεν έχω λόγια να περιγράψω το πόσο αγάπησα αυτό το βιβλίο και πόσο απολαυστική ήταν η ανάγνωσή του, απ'την αρχή ως το τέλος. O Robert Penn Warren κι ο Τζακ Μπέρντεν,ο χαρακτήρας, μέσω του οποίου επιλέγει να μας αφηγηθεί την ιστορία του Κυβερνήτη Willie Stark αποτελεί μια από τις πιο γοητευτικές μυθιστορηματικές φωνές, που έχω συναντήσει. Σ' αυτό συμβάλλει η πλοκή του έργου κι οι χαρακτήρες που εμπλέκονται στην ιστορία, χαρακτήρες τόσο σωστά δουλεμένοι και ολοκληρωμένοι, που αποκτούν σάρκα και οστά και νιώθεις την ανάσα τους, ενώ διατρέχεις τις σελίδες του βιβλίου. Όλοι αυτοί όμως, αποκαλύπτονται στον αναγνώστη μέσω ενός ευφυούς, ειρωνικού και διεισδυτικού παρατηρητή, ο οποίος παραθέτοντάς μας τα γεγονότα μιας ιστορίας, που θα μπορούσε να ειδωθεί ως μια ανατριχιαστικά ακριβής ανατομία της εξουσίας, ανακαλύπτει κι ο ίδιος τον εαυτό του, έναν εαυτό ανθρώπινο, πάρα πολύ ανθρώπινο.

"Όμως έπρεπε να μάθω. Ακόμα και τη στιγμή που μου περνούσε η σκέψη να σηκωθώ και να φύγω χωρίς να έχω μάθει, ακόμα και τότε ήξερα ότι έπρεπε να μάθω την αλήθεια. Γιατί είναι φοβερό πράγμα η αλήθεια. Τσαλαβουτάς λιγάκι μέσα της και δεν τρέχει τίποτα. Αν κάνεις όμως πως πας λίγο πιο μέσα, αρχίζει να σε τραβάει σαν αντιμάμαλο, σαν ρουφήχτρα. Το πρώτο τράβηγμα είναι αργό, τόσο σταθερό και βαθμιαίο, που καλά καλά δεν το παίρνεις είδηση, μετά αρχίζει η επιτάχυνση, μετά μια ιλιγγιώδης περιδίνηση και η καταβύθιση στο έρεβος. Γιατί υπάρχει και το έρεβος της αλήθειας. Λέγεται πως το να πέσεις στη Χάρη του Θεού είναι φριχτό. Δεν δυσκολεύομαι να το πιστέψω."
Κάτι που μου θύμησε τη γνωστή ρήση του David Foster Wallace: The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you, και που βρίσκει την τέλεια ενσάρκωσή της στην ιστορία που θα διαβάσετε.

From the bad, the good must come*

All The King's Men is a political drama that tells the story of Willie Stark, a populist governor of a Southern state in the 1930s, and Jack Burden, a journalist who becomes his right-hand man. The idealistic, popular lawyer Willie Stark becomes a charismatic and powerful governor in the 1930s who, once in power, leaves little of all the idealism he promised.

“Hang them up,” Willie shouts boldly at the beginning of his career against 'those in power', but at the end of the book that slogan only rings hollow in the long corridors of the Senate, where behind closed doors his puppets hang around. And yes, haven’t we heard the similar phrase “Lock her up” in our time? The echoes of these slogans across time reveal a persistent theme of disillusionment with those in authority.

Willie Stark remains an enigma that is never explained. He is driven by ambition and even could draw on my sympathy in the beginning. Initially, his ambition is evident as a builder of schools where his ideals shine through. But when he realizes that he is being manipulated by those in power, he suddenly changes in a modern-day Machiavelli, driven by his monstrous ego, power and domination. Stark engages in as much corruption as the industrialists he once railed against.

But in the end this is a novel about Jack Burden. Jack Burden is the witness to Stark’s rise and demise. Jack, who was a reporter for a newspaper, is fascinated by Willie's story, and joins his staff as his personal researcher and adviser. Jack possesses a keen intellect and an analytical mind, navigating the intricate web of political power with a certain finesse and helps Willie to expose the scandals and crimes of his enemies.

But beneath this lies a man grappling with his own moral dilemmas and personal demons. His estranged relationship with his father, his love for Anne Stanton, the daughter of a former governor, and his friendship with Adam Stanton, Anne's brother and a respected surgeon all form the backbone of this book. He tries to find the delicate balance between these personal connections and his political dirty work, in the end trying to retreat from the moral ambiguity inherent in his political work for Willie Stark.

* My translation / Read in Dutch

A novel about politics and how it corrupts. Applicable to both the past and the present. One of the greatest dangers is the person who sets out to do good and gets blinded by power.

I finished this book a few days ago and have been wavering on how to rate and review it. Prose-wise, this book is definitely a 5-star read. I can understand why Robert Penn Warren won a Pulitzer Prize for this novel, won two additional Pulitzer Prizes for poetry, and was designated America's first Poet Laureate. I am at a loss as to how to describe his style of writing. It is unique, flows so smoothly and just draws you into the story. I loved his writing style. However...

I found Warren's views of life and people in this book truly sad. Every one of his characters is deeply flawed. Even though the book's main character is Willie Stark (loosely based on Governor Huey P. Long of Louisiana), the book actually highlights the men and women who revolved around Stark and the compromises they were willing to make to stay near to Stark's power. As a person who believes in grace, I found it hard to like Jack Burden, the main character and narrator, who devised The Great Twitch as a means of understanding his hollow life. Warren did a masterful job of developing all of his characters... I just had a hard time liking any of them. For that reason, I gave this book 4 stars.

That being said, I would highly recommend this book, as it is so well written.

Compelling, overstuffed, overplotted, sexist, labyrinthine, poetic, atmospheric. To me this book's status as The Great American Political Novel seems like a terrific bitter joke, because the author's vision of "politics" is comprised entirely of blackmail, physical intimidation, pork-barreling, rabble-rousing, nepotism, bribery, rigged elections, and hilariously contrived "family values" photo shoots. (I love the scene where a photographer and two aides attempt to wrestle a comatose, foul-smelling dog into position for a shot of the dog leaping up to greet its beloved master, the Governor!)

I would place this novel in the Philosophical Potboiler genre (together with "East of Eden" and "Sophie's Choice"). There are lengthy meditations on the Human Condition, the nature of History, the problem of Free Will, the Original Sin of slavery as a hereditary taint corrupting the southern upper class, etc... woven among scenes featuring such archetypes as the Angelic Woman (Anne Stanton), the Demonic Woman (Sadie Burke, and Cass Mastern's mistress), the Saintly Aesthete and Crypto-Homosexual (Adam Stanton), the Seductive Mother, the "Colonel Sanders" With a Secret (Judge Irwin), and What's Bred in the Bone Coming Out in the Flesh (Tom Stark, the embodiment of his father's egoism and brutality). In the ranks of minor characters we find the Long-Suffering Wife in the Country (Mrs. Stark), and Flannery O'Connor-style Mad Missionary (Jack's father). What an array!

There are a number of rather heavy-handed themes, of which I thought the most interesting was the contrast between Jack the self-identified "student of history" and product of History, and Willie the man without a history... no family, no formal education, no tradition, nothing to explain his ambition, charisma, ruthlessness, and power over others. There seems to be a trade-off between History and Act. Jack is Burdened by the past at every level -- his parents' broken marriage, his half-mad father, his unfinished dissertation, the end of the plantation class's reign in Southern politics, the guilt of slavery. He lives in a fog of depression, cynicism, sophistication, and rationalization. He is fascinated by Willie at their first meeting because Willie is his opposite: an earnest rube who seems unaware of his own dorkiness and believes the political game could and should be played fair.

But Willie isn't just a naif. He's also a kind of monster. Even at that early stage there's a monstrous ego and ambition germinating inside him... ambition not for political goals but for personal power and domination. Where does his ambition come from? What sets Willie apart from any other impoverished child of dirt farmers in any other wretched little town like Mason City? And which side is the true Willie Stark -- the idealist who fights on behalf of poor farmers and families, the builder of new roads and schools and hospitals, or the bully who fights for the sadistic joy of humiliating and dominating others?

These mysteries haunt the novel, and Penn Warren never offers a solution. Willie remains an enigma from start to finish. In fact I felt that Penn Warren wrote himself into a corner - he COULDN'T solve the enigma of Willie Stark's origins and essential nature, so he shifted focus to the more solvable mysteries in Jack Burden's past.

I don't think the Jack Burden plot has aged particularly well. It has the kind of heavy-handed Freudianism you see in 1950s movies... the seductive mother, the discovery of the True Father; the taboo of virginity; the sorting of women into angels and whores, spirits and bodies. Almost every character has at least one light or dark "double" (Willie/Jack, Willie/Adam, Jack/Adam, Sadie/Ann, Burden/Irwin, Lois/Ann, etc), which is very schematic. The happy ending is only achieved by the death/disappearance of everyone but Jack and Ann... they don't so much overcome or escape the Burden of history as have history conveniently relax its grip on them.

It is clear why this political novel based on the career of Huey Long is a classic. The colloquial voice of the narrator was perfect and utterly engaging. The characters were brilliantly nuanced. And the language, the similes and turn of phrase were fantastic.

This book was unlike anything I have ever read before and I doubt I will read many of its caliber ever again. It is an epic, biblical, human yet quintessentially American saga, disguised in the bizarre circumstances surrounding a particular brand of local Southern politics. In Willie Stark, Penn Warren has created the ultimate American antihero -- describing to the tee the populist circus the campaign trail becomes, with Willie playing off the parasitic needs of potential voters and staffers and loved ones and then making every one of them fall in love with him -- and in Jack Burden, Warren questions the notion of a passive, Common Man-type narrator, for Burden is anything but. I am convinced that Penn Warren must have studied Buddhism or some type of Eastern religion, for there is a focus on the Nothingness of man and the impermanence of all things, the passages of straight philosophy in this book being the most surprising element for me. I re-read many passages in this novel because they were so painfully true and beautiful. "God and Nothing have a whole lot in common." And through all the heartbreak and drama and political intrigue, there is the love story -- or perhaps only just the pursuit? -- of Jack for Anne, a gut-wrenchingly honest story that makes me want to re-read all love stories with new eyes. Whatever book I read next has some huge shoes to fill. This one was simply perfect.

This is the kind of fiction I like--fiction with a strong moral and message, fiction bent towards standing against power. It's obviously a very famous book so I don't need to sell it too much here. It is the fictional account of a Huey Long-type demagogue in the 1930s, told from the perspective of one of his fixers-a sort of disenchanted but entangled observer not unlike those of Budd Schulberg's novels or The Great Gatsby. If you enjoy this book and want to explore a real-life embodiment of it (other than the Ken Burns' documentary on Huey Long) then I would definitely recommend The Power Broker by Robert Caro. It is incredibly long, but as one of the first books someone gave me when I moved to Hollywood, it holds a special sway over me. Like Huey Long and Willie Stark, Robert Moses was a man who got power, loved power and was transformed by power. We can learn from him-mostly what not to be and who not to become.

This can only be described as "an epic saga" which I say sort of tongue-in-cheek because you do get the sense reading it that Warren himself thinks that he is writing "an epic saga" or an "important book" about a lot more than one man. He weaves in the Civil War, Southern history, and American history. So yes, I thought it was a bit too long and too serious at times. But that doesn't take away from some truly majestic writing. The book is well-written and well done, though it is dated.