Just reread this. I'm not sure how many times I've read it, but it's been a while since I last did. This go around I was taken once again with how complex the issues of guilt and responsibility are in the novel, extending far beyond the problems facing Jack and Willie. The image of the spider web--with the idea that if you graze against one corner of the web the structure shakes--is a powerful representation of how actions reverberate over time with often unforeseen and catastrophic consequences. A great book, filled with great scenes and characters, even if it pushes towards the melodramatic in places. The opening scene describing the drive through the Louisiana countryside as well as the final sentence--"But that will be a long time from now, and soon now we shall go out of the house and go into the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time"--are simply magnificent.

There aren't tons of great American novels that deal in great depth with political figures, but this is one of them. Given the current political climate in the United States, this is a novel that should be on everyone's reading list.

OK, I gave up on this earlier, resumed it, and now I'm about to give up on it again, about 65% of the way through it. I just can't. Here are some random thoughts:

1) Willie Stark is a great character, in equal measure charming and appalling. If only the book were really about him, as it promises to be. All the stuff about him is fantastic.

2) The narrator, Jack Burden, is a pompous bore. I hate him. I hate his name. "Jack." I've always hated that name. (Apologies to anyone called that. It's me, not you.) And "Burden." Well, it's surely not by chance that his surname weighs so heavily, though what its significance is, I cannot tell. But the word "burden," besides naming something that is unpleasant, is also, like "Jack," a word I've never liked the sound of. And when Jack's 17-year-old girlfriend starts calling him "Jackie Bird," over and over again, in the section I am now in, I became literally nauseated. This nom d'amour, more than anything else, is what has made me give up reading this book. I hate it!

3) Stylistically, the book is an odd mixture. Most of it is written in an almost - but timidly, only almost - experimental way (not in a good, Oulipian sense, but in an earnest, mid-century sense, deliberately turgid and repetitious to capture the turgidity of the human soul and the heavy miasma of the Southern cultural and natural environment). But injected into this, every so often, like the splash of Bourbon over ice, there is spasm of wise-guy, Chandleresque humor. These bits were funny, but they always felt incongruous, out of place.

If you have read this book already then I feel safe in saying that we probably haven't read the same book. In my attempt to fill voids in my literary history I picked this book up. It is one that I have always meant to read but just never got around to it. Inadvertently, I picked up a copy of the "Restored Edition" which is the book that the author actually wrote and submitted to his publisher for publication. The original 1946 edition of this book is 464 pages long while the book I just finished is 609 pages. At the end, the book also contains an original first chapter as well as an Editorial Afterward describing how this book was assembled and the process the original editors engaged in with the author to produce the 1946 publication. So what I read was the uncut, unedited version of Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece which is ironic because as I was reading the book I thought how much the book suffered from lack of editing.

I think the story of this book is fairly well known. It is a fiction loosely based on the life of Huey Long of Louisiana in the mid-1930's. It is the story of a populist politician and his rise to prominence in a corrupt political system and those around him that help and hinder the progress of his career. The story is also about the narrator, Jack Burden, who is an out of work reporter that goes to work for the protagonist, Willie Talos (Willie Stark was the name used in the original publication). To be accurate the story is more about Burden than about Talos but that is a matter for debate among readers. However, what struck me was another element of the story which I found to be as impressive and noteworthy as any of the characters and that was the writing of the author. I have never read a book written quite like this. The closest I can recall any author whose writing reached this level of fascination with me is Mark Helprin with his surrealistic novel A Winter's Tale.

initially, I was really annoyed with the writing. The author through his narrator goes into descriptive detail about completely insignificant things. This detailing can go on for a few sentences or paragraphs, or pages and in language so florid and generous that if it were sugar it could probably send you into a diabetic coma. The first chapter was the worst and as you might suspect I did not take advantage of the opportunity to read the original first chapter at the end of the book. The author seems to allow the reader to enter the brain of Jack Burden as he sees and thinks things and as he lets his mind meander across random thoughts and memories and perceptions. What does this have to do with advancing the plot? Nothing, but in retrospect it did flesh out the character of Jack Burden but I thought that could have been accomplished in fewer words and more directly. I was not surprised to learn that the original editors managed to cut nearly 150 pages from the author's manuscript. The author's writing was so excessive that it became quite noticeable and, to me, became as significant as any character in the story. Is that a good thing? I don't think so. An author's words like an artist's brush strokes should disappear and the picture they have either written or painted should should shine forth as a whole. I was frequently distracted by the beauty of the writing whose excess seem to diminish the further into the story I got but was no less masterful. I did get fully engaged in the story and the characters but I also found myself stopping to appreciate the author's skill. While I started off being annoyed at the writing I eventually came to admire it and the story and both made an impact on this reader. If you haven't read this book you should but I recommend finding an original version. Enjoy.

Mr. Warren wrote an impressive, engaging piece of southern fiction, one that evokes storytellers like James Clavell and James Michener, however, rather than William Faulkner and Saul Bellow; it falls short of its reputation as a great work with lasting cultural significance and consequence. This book is really the tale of one Jack Burden, his adolescence, educational experience, love interests, family history and ultimately, his role as aide to a sly, ambitious governor, told through a nonlinear narrative. In creating a captivating read, Mr. Warren immerses us with a bounty of human failings and twisted ambitions, the stuff that lives within the past or present of many a friend, family member or neighbor and that will forever remain hidden to our pathetic, lurid appetite. Am I alone in finding this continuing social charade depressing? Ever wondered what’s really going on in the heads of those fellow cocktail party visitors?

The publishers have rendered a disservice with this title, creating a heavy association with Huey Long. Willie Talos, the governor in this tale, is the principal minor character, yet Jack Burden is really the main character. Published in the 19th century, the title would have been “Jack Burden.” A more appropriate title, I think, would be “Southern Secrets.” Seems the publishers might have learned a small trick from old Willie Talos.

Disappointing.

I had heard that this was an epic take on the rise of a nativist politician, a firebrand, a demagogue. Folks liken this tale to Huey Long or the latest fella who was good at giving a rip roaring stemwinder.

But that’s not the story.

The story is Jack Burden, the sallow psyche, the disproving jaundiced nature. Willie Stark’s political rise is charted through his downbeat gaze.

Warren’s Book, like a Faulkner work, is about the South, the milieu, the spittoons , the hyacinth, the Great sin, and the tired road to an undesired repentance.

And finally, the ending is sooo melodramatic, but again it’s the south.

I believe it is impossible to understand American politics without having read All the King's Men. And as an inveterate reader who has read thousands of books, I remain convinced All the King's Men is the greatest American novel.

Loosely based on the story of legendary Lousiana Governor Huey P. "Kingfish" Long, this novel tells the story of the rise and fall of a southern politician in the 1930s. But the novel's character of Governor Willie Stark is far more developed, fascinating and complex than even the legendary Kingfish was.

The genius of this book is it is not directly about Willie Stark, but is rather the memoir of Jack Burden, an elite old money former newspaper writer whose aimless life finds himself in the personal employ of the governor, who has grown from an idealistic polticial neophyte into a powerful demagouge. The writing of the novel itself is lyrical and masterful; only another novel of the 1930s, Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel can begin to compare.

While the book is the story of Jack Burden and Wille Stark, the novel's real central theme is expressed in one of it's own phrases: "Maybe a man has to sell his soul to get the power to do good."

Willie Stark finds that being honest in politics gets him nowhere, and like Long, he becomes a champion of the common poor person and he seeks to bend the powers that be to his will. He taxes big business to help the poor, building roads, improving schools and other public services. When the powers that be fight back he beats them down in impeachment and tells a huge gathered throng, "Your will is my strength... your need is my justice" and the common people back him absolutely despite his strong-arming, bribery, coercion, blackmail and bullying.

Jack Burden, an historian, uses his historical research skills to aid Wille, who says every man has a demon..."Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the diddie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something." But what Burden finds in the case of Judge Irwin, a local old elite, changes his life forever and sets up Governor Stark's ultimate demise.

In the end, Governor Stark cannot win. He champions the people through brutality, but when he seeks redemption after his son is horribly injured in a football game, casting off his mistress and ensuring that his new public hospital for the poor is contracted free of graft and corruption, a demon of his own making guns him down, and Jack Burden is left facing for the first time in his life responsibilities for his own actions.

Don't read Huey Long too much into this story. While Huey's story is one of the great dramas of American politics whose reverberations are still with us today, this story of Willie Stark and Jack Burden if anything is even more mesmerizing, impactful, illustrating and haunting. As a prolific reader and as someone in government and politics now for almost three decades, I still state without hesitation this is the greatest American novel and it impossible to fully understand politics in America without reading All the Kings Men. A must read.

The original New York Times review of All the King’s Men in 1946 praised it overall, but called it as “uneven as a corduroy road.” I couldn’t agree more.

Going into this novel, I expected at least a majority of its 650 pages to be dedicated to the titular King, Willie Stark. The back of the book included a blurb from Joyce Carol Oates claiming that Stark belongs in the pantheon of American characters. After the first 100 pages or so, which read like the absolute best of House of Cards, with rapid fire dialog, hilarious barbs, and political jockeying, I was expecting a gripping and deep examination of Stark and his rise and, I assumed, fall in American politics.

What I found instead was hundreds of pages of back story and character development for the narrator and I think main character of the book, Jack Burden. Burden is Stark’s right hand man and a well drawn, interesting character, but outside of some arguably tenuous thematic connections to Stark, not terribly relevant to the story. The novel includes a nearly 100 page detour into the history of Burden’s 19th century relatives and even more pages on Burden’s life before Stark and his relationship with the love of his life, Anne Stanton.

The book is never boring, but it feels incredibly disjointed and even unfinished at times when certain descriptive phrases repeat themselves in close succession and other sentences feel entirely out of place in the novel. Warren was a beloved poet, so perhaps this was all intentional, but I’ve never read anything like it and it felt unpolished.

The final 100 pages are full of great twists and surprises that bring it to a very satisfying conclusion. It also features an incredible brain surgery scene that is impossible to put down. I would recommend in spite of the unevenness, but it’s far from a favorite of mine.

To write only one novel, early in your career. And it’s a perfect book. Then just go on writing poetry for the rest of your life. Badass

At first glance, Willie Stark seems like he would have been the perfect Tea Party candidate. He uses fiery rhetoric to stir up crowds by claiming to be just like them and that he’s going to bust the heads of those evil ole politicians at the state house to force them the straighten up and do things the right way. But on the other hand, Willie actually knows something about government and uses his tactics to improve the lives of poor people by taxing the wealthy and using that money to do things like improve roads and provide free health care so maybe he wouldn’t fit in with Sarah Palin after all.

This classic novel tells the story of Willie Stark through the eyes of Jack Burden. Jack came from a privileged background but eventually turned his back on that life and became a cynical political newspaper reporter in an unnamed corrupt southern state. When Jack first meets Stark, he thinks of him as ’Cousin Willie from the country.’ because of his rube manner. Stark is a smart, hardworking and principled county commissioner, but he gets in over his head when he tries to award a government contract to the actual best bid and the corrupt politicians trash him for it.

Then Stark is tricked into running for governor by the state political machine to split the rural vote and make sure that the party favorite wins. Stark had been getting nowhere with his carefully planned speeches that patiently explained needed changes to the tax codes and other government business, but when he finds out he’s been played for a fool, Stark finds his voice as an angry hick who is tired of being abused by the politicians. Using his new populist tactics of playing up his upbringing as a poor farm boy who taught himself law at nights and promises to kick the collective ass of the political good-ole-boy network, Stark eventually does win the governorship, and Jack joins him as his political hatchet man.

Stark no longer cares about doing things the right way. He becomes a political force in the state through a combination of bullying, cajoling or bribing anyone who gets in his way. To Willie’s way of thinking, the state is full of sons-of-bitches that he either has to buy or break to get things done, and he is now fully convinced that the ends justify the means. He does actually follow through on his promises to try and help the common people of the state, but many consider him even more dangerous than the corrupt people he’s fighting.

Jack has no problems with the way that Willie runs thing until the governor gets angry at the incorruptible Judge Irwin for backing a rival in an election. When Willie can’t charm or bully the Judge into falling into line, he orders Jack to dig up some dirt on the man. However, Jack has known and admired the Judge since childhood so he has reservations about the assignment. Trying to find the Judge’s dirty laundry brings back Jack’s issues with his mother and father, and the girl he loved and lost, Anne Stanton. Things get even stickier when Willie decides that the only man to run his new pet project, a huge modern hospital, is Ann’s brother and Jack’s childhood friend, Adam.

I absolutely loved the way that Stark is portrayed in this book. It was inspired by Huey P. Long in Louisiana, a politician who accomplished a lot for the poor of his state but did so with highly questionable methods. Willie does indeed want to protect the common people from the ‘sons-of-bitches’ who have let the state wallow in poverty and neglect while lining their pockets, but this isn’t a simple case of power corrupting either. Willie always had a lot of ambitions for his political career, and he tried to play it straight at first because he thought that‘s how it was done. Once he saw the ugliness of reality behind the scenes, Willie seemingly adopts the same tactics without a second thought. Power didn’t change Willie, he changed to get and keep power, and he seems to relish his opportunities to take revenge on the types who screwed him over early in his career.

Warren’s prose is elegant and lyrical. He brings an entire region alive with a cast that includes everyone from the high society to the poorest farmers. His descriptions are so good that you can almost feel the humidity and hear the insects at times. However, he did tend to go on a bit long for my taste when relaying Jack’s personal history and insights. I would have liked more of Willie laying on the charm or ruthlessly taking down an opponent.

They say that watching government work is like watching sausage get made. Everyone wants the finished product, but no one wants to see how it‘s done. This story gives weight to this idea. It’s something that will make any reader think about whether one can get anything done in a democracy without deals being cut or threats being made. Even if the goal is accomplished, is the whole thing tainted because of how it came about? And how can a person with even the best of intentions work in a system like this without becoming corrupted?

I remember that one time where I was so uninterested and practically falling asleep that I gave up on my PhD/law school/love of my life, married this random lady, then got divorced cause I didn't like that she could talk, and later got hired as a private detective to ruin people's lives for political gain because it was something to pass the time....oh wait. That wasn't me. That was the aggravating asshole main character of this novel.
I think some classics do not age well. Maybe this one had enough thrill and interest for previous readers, but it was pretty painful for me.

I wasn't disappointed in the writing. I was disappointed in the action. Actually it was the lack of action in the plot.

It might just be the slow and languishing writing style, but major climatic events felt silly and washed over. They were as well described as the change of the seasons and the fat guts of the political idiots. Which meant that they were not thrilling, and if you hadn't been paying much attention or skimmed, you might miss deaths and other significant events, especially because they might be just one sentence here or there. This seems like a poor method of conveying interesting events to the reader, and I guess the goal was to demonstrate how politics moves on and forward in the unforgiving, lying machine it is, but it made the story SO BORING.

Jack was a blasé, uncaring, unmotivated, lazy character and since the entire story was told through him, the story itself felt like a slow tale you might listen to while sipping lemonade on a hot day when you aren't really in the mood to pay attention. The author's idea might have been to show politics through an unbiased view that made this book so famous...but it just made the book forgettable and so boring I wasn't sure if I could finish it.

Willie was an interesting man and his rise in politics and his end made sense and was well-done. I can see why this part of the story is revered, however having to listen to Jack not really complain, more like try to explain his laziness and complete and total lack of interest in anything, was mind-numbing.

HOLY SHIT Jack if you love Anne, please by God just marry her. But NO, let's wait 25 years or so and then in ONE SENTENCE say she is your wife. HOW IS THAT A CLIMATIC ENDING?

And curveball on who Jack's father was, but he isn't all that interested anyways so let's just throw that plot twist down the drain.

*trying not to pull out my hair or scream over Jack's personality* Geez man just do something!

Robert Penn Warren's, All the Kings Men won the 1947 Pulitzer prize, and could also have won that prize in the next three years.　

Is this 400 pages of poetic prose or a great epic prosaic poem? This work would make a great primer for college English lit majors, I think Warren used every literary device and may have made up some more.　

And like so many master performances of art or sport, he makes it look effortless, he makes it look easy. This was like watching Joe DiMaggio glide across the outfield or Ted Williams at the plate, or Led Zeppelin on stage, this was swaggering virtuosity.　

Telling the fictionalized account of Huey Long, Warren goes on to create the great American novel. Though the setting is politics, the book is not really about politics, the political stage is just a vehicle by which Warren explores a multi-layered, complicated series of thematic, interwoven observations on Western Civilization, and particularly our American chapter in that saga.

This is periodically correct and yet timeless. Beautifully written and absolutely brilliant.

This is a poetic tragedy of Greek proportions set in the Deep South of the United States. It is written with such lyrical quality that it attains a mystical charm.

Jack Burden is one of fiction's best shadowy narrators, and Warren's voice here is on par with the giants of world literature.