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I have put this book on my schedule at least a dozen times in the last two years and then passed it up because I felt I just could not tackle a book about politics. Stupid me. This book is about political shenanigans, lust for power, and greed, but it is so much more about human relationships, the complex ways in which our lives are tied to the people who float in and out of our lives, and how we choose to judge ourselves and others.
At one point in the narrative Willie Stark says that everything in life is bad, and that goodness is something man must create from the bad he is given. It is much “the ends justify the means” for Willie, and we see, like a slow-motion reel, as that philosophy leads him and his followers deeper into a quicksand. It is this that makes the novel work so perfectly, for Penn Warren does not create any perfect individuals here, each of them is flawed and very, very real. One of his major themes is that of responsibility. When are we responsible for what happens to us or around us? Can we shuffle off bad events to fate, or do we have to accept our role in them, however small or untraceable that role might be?
There is that weighty, intelligent element of this book, and believe me when I say this book is about something on every single page; but there is also the remarkable command of language that comes from the heart of the poet who is Robert Penn Warren. Long passages of lyrical quality are peppered throughout, and not once did I have the temptation to skip a single word. In fact, I read many of them more than once.
Her eyes were glittering like the eyes of a child when you give a nice surprise, and she laughed with a sudden throaty, tingling way. It is the way a woman laughs for happiness. They never laugh that way just when they are being polite or at a joke. A woman only laughs that way a few times in her life. A woman only laughs that way when something has touched her way down in the very quick of her being and the happiness just wells out as natural as breath and the first jonquils and mountain brooks. When a woman laughs that way it always does something to you. It does not matter what kind of a face she has got either. You hear that laugh and feel that you have grasped a clean and beautiful truth. You feel that way because that laugh is a revelation. It is a great impersonal sincerity. It is a spray of dewy blossom from the great central stalk of All Being, and the woman’s name and address hasn’t got a damn thing to do with it. Therefore, the laugh cannot be faked. If a woman could learn to fake it she would make Nell Gwyn and Pompadour look like a couple of Campfire Girls wearing bifocals and ground-gripper shoes with bands on their teeth. She could get all society by the ears. For all any man really wants is to hear a woman laugh like that.
Come on–is that not heavenly?
Finally, there is an entire chapter, about half-way through the book, that is devoted to another story entirely. Our narrator, Jack Burden, recounts a history he researched for his college thesis, and tells us the history of Cass Mastern. I was engrossed in this tale, but wondered how Penn Warren was ever going to link it to the other, modern, political tale he was writing. Suffice it to say, he does, and with such a delicate hand that it seems like a gossamer thread that was lying, waiting to be pulled at just the right moment. I think this might have felt like a disruption in the wrong hands, with Penn Warren it is just another bit of magic.
I am reading all the Pulitizer winners for a challenge I set for myself in 2016. I have not always been impressed with the acumen of the Pulitzer Committee, but this time, oh my, yes, they got it right. This book is timeless, for it is about humanity, and in many ways, no matter the outward transformations time brings, humans do not change.
At one point in the narrative Willie Stark says that everything in life is bad, and that goodness is something man must create from the bad he is given. It is much “the ends justify the means” for Willie, and we see, like a slow-motion reel, as that philosophy leads him and his followers deeper into a quicksand. It is this that makes the novel work so perfectly, for Penn Warren does not create any perfect individuals here, each of them is flawed and very, very real. One of his major themes is that of responsibility. When are we responsible for what happens to us or around us? Can we shuffle off bad events to fate, or do we have to accept our role in them, however small or untraceable that role might be?
There is that weighty, intelligent element of this book, and believe me when I say this book is about something on every single page; but there is also the remarkable command of language that comes from the heart of the poet who is Robert Penn Warren. Long passages of lyrical quality are peppered throughout, and not once did I have the temptation to skip a single word. In fact, I read many of them more than once.
Her eyes were glittering like the eyes of a child when you give a nice surprise, and she laughed with a sudden throaty, tingling way. It is the way a woman laughs for happiness. They never laugh that way just when they are being polite or at a joke. A woman only laughs that way a few times in her life. A woman only laughs that way when something has touched her way down in the very quick of her being and the happiness just wells out as natural as breath and the first jonquils and mountain brooks. When a woman laughs that way it always does something to you. It does not matter what kind of a face she has got either. You hear that laugh and feel that you have grasped a clean and beautiful truth. You feel that way because that laugh is a revelation. It is a great impersonal sincerity. It is a spray of dewy blossom from the great central stalk of All Being, and the woman’s name and address hasn’t got a damn thing to do with it. Therefore, the laugh cannot be faked. If a woman could learn to fake it she would make Nell Gwyn and Pompadour look like a couple of Campfire Girls wearing bifocals and ground-gripper shoes with bands on their teeth. She could get all society by the ears. For all any man really wants is to hear a woman laugh like that.
Come on–is that not heavenly?
Finally, there is an entire chapter, about half-way through the book, that is devoted to another story entirely. Our narrator, Jack Burden, recounts a history he researched for his college thesis, and tells us the history of Cass Mastern. I was engrossed in this tale, but wondered how Penn Warren was ever going to link it to the other, modern, political tale he was writing. Suffice it to say, he does, and with such a delicate hand that it seems like a gossamer thread that was lying, waiting to be pulled at just the right moment. I think this might have felt like a disruption in the wrong hands, with Penn Warren it is just another bit of magic.
I am reading all the Pulitizer winners for a challenge I set for myself in 2016. I have not always been impressed with the acumen of the Pulitzer Committee, but this time, oh my, yes, they got it right. This book is timeless, for it is about humanity, and in many ways, no matter the outward transformations time brings, humans do not change.
