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.

I read that President Obama considers AtKM one of his favorite books. n  The Power and the Gloryn is also on the list, and Graham Greene changed my life. Surely, that endorsement could not be misguided.

I hated AtKM. Hated. Hated every moment. I preserved because I bought the book (it was a kindle daily deal), and I kept hoping that it would get better. It got worse.
The book is laden with metaphors and drawn out images. I never thought that I would be annoyed by a book that shows, not tells, but the descriptions were so drawn out, so lengthy, so numerous, and often so unnecessary, that they detracted from the book. I don’t deny that they set a scene:

It looked like those farmhouses you ride by in the country in the middle of the afternoon, with the chickens under the trees and the dog asleep, and you know the only person in the house is the woman who has finished washing up the dishes and has swept the kitchen and has gone upstairs to lie down for half an hour and has pulled off her dress and kicked off her shoes and is lying there on her back on the bed in the shadowy room with her eyes closed and a strand of her hair still matted down on her forehead with perspiration. She listens to the flies cruising around the room, then she listens to your motor getting big out on the road, then it shrinks off into the distance, and she listens to the flies. That was the kind of house it was.

…. What were we talking about?
The woman does not exist in the book. She is just a tool for the description of a kind of house and the countryside. I love Clark Kent, and I have fantasies of moving to Smallville, and I want to live exactly that sort of life. But, tell me, would you read a book wherein every grain of sand is compared at length to something else? It is tedious. The descriptions were so lengthy and diversionary that, often, I forgot what Warren said before the description began.
Not that there is much of a story to tell. Willie Stark is a minor character. The back cover blurb (do they do back cover blurbs anymore?) says that the book is about the political career of Stark. AtKM is actually about the narrator, Jack Burden, wandering around the unnamed, oh-so-secret State, and droning ad nauseam about the people he meets, people during the Civil War, and his super creepy love affair when he was a college student. I’m not sure what the purpose of the book is.

And that’s really all I have to say: I don’t know what the purpose of All the King’s Men is.

Too Deep for a Movie

Amazon lists this as a movie tie-in edition, and I must admit that I bought it because I had been attracted by the movie trailers, but wanted to read the original first. Now having done so (and still not seen the film), I cannot imagine how it would be possible to translate any but the broadest outline of this subtle masterpiece into cinematic terms.

For one thing, how could one capture Robert Penn Warren's superb style? Not for nothing was he to be made the first American Poet Laureate; the story is enfolded in broad tracts of rich Southern prose-poetry, capturing the climate, the country, and the lives of the ordinary people who dwell in it. For example, consider this paragraph on page 33:

It looked like those farmhouses you ride by in the country in the middle of the afternoon, with the chickens under the trees and the dog asleep, and you know the only person in the house is the woman who has finished washing up the dishes and has swept the kitchen and has gone upstairs to lie down for half an hour and has pulled off her dress and kicked off her shoes and is lying there on her back on the bed in the shadowy room with her eyes closed and a strand of her hair still matted down on her forehead with the perspiration. She listens to the flies cruising around the room, then she listens to your motor getting big out on the road, then it shrinks off into the distance and she listens to the flies. That was the kind of house it was.

I quote this in full partly so that readers may get a sense of the riches that are in store: a style that is leisurely and expansive while remaining utterly straightforward. I quote it also because, like so many descriptions in the book, it captures a place in terms of the people who inhabit it, with a feeling for the rhythm and values of their lives. In that this is a political book at all, the charismatic politician at its center, the populist Willie Stark (loosely based on Louisiana's Huey Long), first derives his strength from just such a grassroots understanding of the ordinary people he represents.

But I question whether All the King's Men is a political book, at least in the sense that the movie trailer appears to be marketing it. When the novel opens, Willie Stark is already the Governor of his state, and even in flashbacks there are very few scenes of him campaigning or working up crowds with his oratory. Similarly, although we see him quietly collecting information with which to dissuade his foes or manipulate his allies, any graft or corruption remains mostly beneath the surface, and Stark's descent into demagoguery is nothing compared to what was going on at the same period (the thirties) in Germany or Italy. Warren does paint a very clear picture of old-style machine politics, with Stark at the center of his web, surrounded by a small circle of "the boys." But very little of the drama is played out in the public arena, but rather in the lives and loyalties of a small group of childhood friends from moneyed backgrounds quite different from Stark's own, who nonetheless get drawn into his orbit.

Chief among these is the narrator, Jack Burden, who gradually emerges as the principal character in the novel. I quote the passage of description above because it demonstrates Jack's voyeurism. Not only does he see a farmhouse and imagine the woman inside it, but he also writes a little story about her. This characteristic continues throughout the book; Jack's imagined stories are plausible, for he is very perceptive, but they are all things that he sets in motion and watches from the outside. A failed PhD student of history, he first encounters Willie Stark while covering him as a newspaper reporter, and his objective viewpoint, his insight, and his talent for uncovering facts make him very useful to the rising politician.

While Jack remains outside the political machine, fascinated but aloof, Willie Stark gradually invades Jack's own circle from his childhood home at Burden's Landing. Chief among these are Adam and Anne Stanton, the children of a former Governor, and Judge Irwin, who served as a moral guidepost and second father to Jack. Before even the first chapter is out, you know that Jack's personal allegiances will be tested. You gradually realize that because Jack is a watcher and not a doer he will fail these tests in many respects, though not utterly.

In the end, this book is about Jack's journey to self-knowledge. Willie Stark's story continues to propel the plot, but he fades into the background as a force, remaining more as a touchstone for all that Jack is and is not. In movie terms, the part requires a star performer, but it is not a starring role. By contrast, Jack is central, though anything but a star. His story would be hard to realize on the screen because so much of it is internal: a moral journey played out in memories, long (sometimes overlong) paragraphs of meditation, and occasional episodes of action, brief but brilliantly realized. A true cinematic adaptation of this book would concentrate almost entirely on personal relationships. It might have elements of romance, but it would be neither an action movie nor a thriller. It would be political only in the sense that politics highlights the question of how good intentions may lead to evil ends, and bad means may be necessary to achieve good results. But this moral conundrum is eternal, and Robert Penn Warren has found a wonderfully intimate and subtle means of addressing it.

«Ο άνθρωπος συλλαμβάνεται μέσα στην αμαρτία, γεννιέται μέσα στη διαφθορά και περνάει από την μπόχα της πάνας στην αποφορά του σαβάνου»

Με όλους τους διθυράμβους που συνοδεύουν το βιβλίο από τη στιγμή της έκδοσής του (επιτέλους) στα ελληνικά ξεκίνησα το "Όλοι οι άνθρωποι του βασιλιά" με ήδη μεγάλες προσδοκίες. Το αποτέλεσμα δεν ήταν τίποτα λιγότερο από ένα καθαρό αριστούργημα.

Όχι μόνο γιατί ο Γουόρεν, ορμώμενος από την αληθινή ιστορία της δολοφονίας του κυβερνήτη της Λουιζιάνα Χιούι Λονγκ, μιλά για το λαϊκισμό και τη διαφθορά που μοιάζουν να είναι εγγενές συστατικό του αμερικάνικου (και κάθε) πολιτικού συστήματος και μπορούν ανά πάσα στιγμή να μετατρέψουν τον αγνό ιδεαλισμό σε στυγνή δημαγωγία, και μάλιστα με ένα διαχρονικό τρόπο που αποδείχθηκε δεκαετίες αργότερα και πάλι επίκαιρος, αλλά κυρίως γιατί ο συγγραφέας σκιαγραφεί το πορτρέτο του bigger than life Γουίλι Σταρκ, την άνοδο και την πτώση, την ύβρι και την τιμωρία, με την άτεγκτη νομοτέλεια μιας αρχαίας τραγωδίας.

Απέναντι σ' αυτή την τόσο αντιφατική μορφή τοποθετεί τον Τζακ Μπέρντεν, γόνο αριστοκρατικής οικογένειας, ο οποίος, κάτω από μια επίφαση κυνικής ψυχραιμίας και διανοητικής υπεροψίας, αλλά και με μια μεγαλοαστική ennui, θα γίνει το δεξί χέρι του κυβερνήτη, ενώ κατατρύχεται από τους δικούς του δαίμονες και τις δικές του ηθικές και θρησκευτικές αναζητήσεις.

Ο αριστοτεχνικός ιστός που θα υφάνει ο Γουόρεν ανάμεσα στους δύο αυτούς άνδρες και, μέσα από μια μαεστρικά πολυπρόσωπη αφήγηση με συνεχή πισωγυρίσματα στο χρόνο, σε μια πλειάδα από πρόσωπα, το καθένα με τα δικά του αδιέξοδα και τα δικά του λάθη, καταδεικνύει το βαρύ τίμημα του Αμερικανικού Ονείρου για όλους, την ηθική αδιαφορία της Ιστορίας και τη ματαιότητα της ύπαρξης, που δεν είναι παρά ακόμα μια εκδήλωση της "ατέλειας στην τελειότητα της ανυπαρξίας που είναι ο Θεός".

Είπα πως είναι αριστούργημα; Ας το ξαναπώ.

“For this is the country where the age of the internal combustion engine has come into its own. Where every boy is Barney Oldfield, and the girls wear organdy and batiste and eyelet embroidery and no panties on account of the climate and have smooth little faces to break your heart and when the wind of the car's speed lifts up their hair at the temples you see the sweet little beads of perspiration nestling there, and they sit low in the seat with their little spines crooked and their bent knees high toward the dashboard and not too close together for the cool, if you call it that, from the hood ventilator. Where the smell of gasoline and burning brake bands and redeye is sweeter than myrrh. Where the eight-cylinder jobs come roaring around the curves in the red hills and scatter the gravel like spray, and when they ever get down in the flat country and hit the new slab, God have mercy on the mariner…”
-tRobert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men

Look, I understand that you may not want to read a political novel right now, especially not one about a populist demagogue who harnesses the rage of the people to gain power, while engaging in no small amount of corruption.

But here’s a little secret about Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. Despite its reputation, it really isn’t about politics at all. It’s about a man searching for himself by sifting back through history – his own and his family’s – and discovering a bit about the skeletons that live in the past, yet still haunt the present.

However you classify it, you should know this: All the King’s Men is a damn good read.

It is, in fact, one of my favorite books. Funnily enough, that makes it hard to talk about.

It’s easy to explain the things about a book you did not like. Poorly-drawn characters, lazy plotting, and clueless pacing are simple to highlight. It’s much harder to express appreciation or even love, because so much of that is tangled up in an emotional response that can be intensely personal.

I first read All the King’s Men at a turning point in my life. I had just passed the bar exam, I was engaged to be married, and I was weeks away from my first real job. It was in that heady environment that Penn Warren’s classic first came into my hands. To be honest, at that moment in time, I’d probably give a five-star rating to an Arby’s menu. Thus, it’s a bit hard for me to separate the objective from the subjective in formulating a review. In fact, instead of scratching out my thoughts, it’d be far easier to simply strip naked and run around the block screaming Robert Penn Warren’s many virtues at the top of my lungs. Since local law enforcement has asked me to stop doing that, I’ll try to put it into complete sentences.

All the King’s Men is a novel about local politics, back room deals, and bombastic speeches; it is about greed and corruption, secrets and lies, vendettas and murder; it is about the dreams of youth, the realities of age, and love.

At the center of this gloriously overstuffed novel is Willie Stark, who Penn Warren based on Louisiana’s Huey “the Kingfish” Long. When All the King’s Men opens, Stark is a small-time politico in an unnamed southern state who is tapped by the local Democratic bosses to run for governor. Unbeknownst to Willie, he has been asked to run in order to split the so-called “rube vote.” When Willie finds out he's been duped, he gets angry, and sets out to campaign as a vengeful populist with nothing to lose.

Over time, and with a plot contrivance or two, Willie climbs the ladder to real power, able to do good things like building roads and schools and hospitals. A real man of the people. Unfortunately, for Willie, his definition of “man” is not altogether sparkling, as expressed in his famous motto:

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

While the larger-than-life Willie gets top billing, he is not actually the central personage of Penn Warren’s opus. Indeed, All the King’s Men is about Willie Stark in the same way that Moby Dick was about Ahab. Stark, like Ahab, is the center of gravity, but not necessarily the focus. The story flows through them but is not necessarily about them. Instead, the main character here is really Jack Burden, the first-person narrator of All the King’s Men. It is Jack with whom we spend most of our time. It is through Jack, a natural cynic, that we gain our perceptions of Willie as an increasingly ambitious, unstoppable force:

“So you work for me because you love me,” the Boss said.

“I don't know why I work for you, but it's not because I love you. And not for money.”

“No,” he said, standing there in the dark, “you don't know why you work for me. But I know...”

“Why?” I asked.

“Boy,” he said, “you work for me because I'm the way I am and you're the way you are. It is an arrangement founded on the nature of things.”

Jack, like Melville’s Ishmael, has a lot to say. Unlike Ishmael, Jack is actually interesting most of the time. He is a former history student who begins the novel as a journalist and later joins Willie’s campaign. If I’m being honest, he’s a bit of a navel-gazing narcissist, with a penchant for long, digressionary detours that force you to pay close attention. For all the side-paths and narrative excursions, which see Jack putting together the mysteries of his youth, I was never less than fully engaged.

The reason – and the determining factor in whether you love or hate this novel (there seems to be no in-between – is Penn Warren’s distinctive style. He was a poet by trade – the nation’s first poet laureate, actually – and his writing takes on certain cadences, like poetry, that had an effect on me that I felt but cannot accurately describe. One element that jumps out are his long, detail-packed sentences, filled with rhythm and repetition, sentences that start one way, seem to veer off, then loop back to their origin. It can be exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I don’t like overwritten books, but though this came close at times, it always stayed on the right side of the line.

All the King’s Men is a novel that is more than a bit skeptical of the realities of American politics. Every bit of good in Willie is balanced by a bit of bad. The constant horse trading, in which ideals have less currency that expediencies, holds true today. Yet for all that, there is also more than a strain of unabashed sentimentalism in All the King’s Men. For all its uncertainty about politicians, it is more sure about humans in general. There is, for example, a beautiful passage where Jack is ruminating about falling in love:

[F]or when you get in love you are made all over again. The person who loves you has picked you out of the great mass of uncreated clay which is humanity to make something out of, and the poor lumpish clay which is you wants to find out what it has been made into. But at the same time, you, in the act of loving somebody, become real, cease to be part of the continuum of the uncreated clay and get the breath of life in you and rise up. So you create yourself by creating another person, who, however, has also created you, picked up the you-chunk of clay out of the mass. So there are two you's, the one you yourself create by loving and the one the beloved creates by loving you. The farther these two you's are apart the more the world grinds and grudges on its axis. But if you loved and were loved perfectly then there wouldn't be any difference between the two you's or any distance between them. They would coincide perfectly, there would be perfect focus, as when a stereoscope gets the twin images on the card into perfect alignment.

It is a surprising bit of writing to find in a book that has been sold – since the time it was first published – as a bracingly cleareyed look at the dark side of democracy.

To be sure, Penn Warren does not neglect that angle, and All the King’s Men is both a very particular Roman à clef about Huey Long, and also a general indictment of the political process as a whole, where gaining power requires convincing a bunch of people that you are what they want you to be.

All the King’s Men, however, has achieved its timelessness because it is far more than a fictionalized version of a New Deal-era public servant who lost his way. It is a novel filled with ornate prose and memorable passages and excellent dialogue, and which is populated by characters that are hard to forget. Though it is sometimes as slow as a summer afternoon in the deep south, it creates a world that you are in no real hurry to leave.

Este libro nos va envolviendo en una prosa depurada y certera que nos ofrece una historia épica sobre un hombre sureño, blanco, pobre pero que tiene dentro de sí un fuego que lo obliga a querer ser más y querer moverse de donde está.

La historia no se cuenta de manera lineal, se va moviendo entre puntos referenciales del camino de Willie Stark, y la maestría en la narración se la debemos a Jack el narrador, un personaje entre sombras con un punto de vista decadente de la vida, pero muy inteligente a la hora de juzgar personas y comportamientos, esta personalidad irreverente y al mismo tiempo sensible es congruente con las grandes descripciones que nos regala y nos deja pensando.

“Cuando nacemos, nuestros padres pierden algo propio y se destrozan en su intento por recuperar lo perdido, que somos nosotros. Saben que no lo conseguirán del todo, pero obtienen una parte nuestra tan grande como les es posible.”

Conforme avanzamos, la gran odisea de Willie Stark va dando paso a una historia paralela que también tiene su peso e importancia, y Jack emerge como un segundo protagonista digno de contender por la atención del lector.

Por un lado vemos un retrato de la política, aunque algo ingenua no deja de tener validez, nos muestra que no importa que tan íntegro y honesto sea un hombre, para alcanzar el poder, la fama o el dinero siempre tendrá que rodearse de gente cuestionable y realizar actos innobles para conseguir sus metas, lo que los distingue de los simple rufianes que abundan en el medio, es que deben ser honestos con las batallas que prefieren luchar y poder dejar un espacio sin mancha, pero también podemos observar que ese espacio también es perseguido y buscado, es como si ese pedazo impoluto y blanco desafiará y denigrará a los hombres que no lo tienen y de algún modo buscan eliminarlo. Willie es una mezcla compleja, con muchos defectos y virtudes, pero aunque comete actos cuestionables también es capaz de buscar realizar actos sinceros y nobles, buscar el bien común pero sin olvidar el medio en el que se mueve y las herramientas que se usan, es una radiografía exacta del poder y sus entrañas.

Cuando uno piensa que en ese tenor seguirá la novela, uno se sorprende con un drama digno de cualquier tragedia griega, Jack el asistente de Willie introduce esta variable mediante su historia de vida, su infancia manchada por el divorcio de sus padres, su madre una belleza llegada al sur que por coincidencia se queda, y se vuelve una mujer de muchos amores y poca estabilidad, Jack se vuelve un reaccionario y desprecia su origen acomodado, tratando de ir por su cuenta, pero las raíces son fuertes y lo hacen enfrentarse a su pasado que incluye a sus amigos de la infancia, que introducen al amor y la amistad en este juego que Jack llama vida y donde no logra acomodarse, adicional tiene un padre ausente que ejerce de religioso harapiento un poco loco que lo enfrenta con sus creencias o la falta de ellas.

Llega un momento que todo implosiona y nos deja pensando en los mecanismos que nos rigen a los seres humanos y nos hacen ser quien somos.

Hay una mezcla de entretenimiento y reflexión que es perfecta, y hace que la historia tenga una manufactura impecable, la manera en que el escritor describe ciertos sentimientos o sensaciones es tan única que asombra y nos indica su gran dominio del idioma, es una novela larga pero no se siente, tiene partes lánguidas pero se compensan con las partes vibrantes que abundan.

“Si el hombre supiese cómo vivir jamás moriría.”

Ένα κορυφαίο μυθιστόρημα το οποίο φέρει πολλές ομοιότητες με το αριστούργημα του Όρσον Ουέλς, "Ο Πολίτης Κέιν".
Η λογοτεχνία στα καλύτερά της.

1.5

I'll start by saying I get why this is a classic. It hits all those standard marks that most classics do: heavy symbolism, moral struggles (insert 'truth-seeking' and good vs. evil), unique characters, and a historical backdrop. Factor in Warren's gift for writing (it truly is 'poetic'), and you'd think you have a winning combination. Not so for me. For as sharp and introspective as the narrator was, I found him (and most everyone in this shambling plot) absolutely insufferable.
It's really a shame, because I wanted to like this book.

(Overall vibe of narration reminded me a bit of the Great Gatsby. Jack Burden resembles Nick Carraway in his observations.)

What I liked:

1. When the descriptions were good, they were *good.* I am not surprised in the slightest that he was the first poet laureate in the US. He had a gift. His turn of phrase was sharp and clever, and man can that man build atmosphere. That said... see the flip side of this gift under the 'What I didn't like' section.

2. Vocabulary: I learned a lot of new words while reading this. So that was pretty cool.

What I didn't like:

1. Rambling and bombastic (-1.5 points): I, like most people who read this, appreciated Warren's descriptive/poetic skills, but good God, sometimes I wish he would have just put it to rest. You know how someone might have a really great singing voice? Now imagine that they refuse to speak normally, and they'll ONLY sing at you in conversation. That's what this was like. I do not need an entire page describing "meaty faces" and sweaty lips.
Here's his description of a wink: "Inflamed, beclouded window of Mr. Duffy's soul, and the next you observed the puffy and slightly granulated membrane descend with deliberate emphasis, then twitch upward in its well lubricated track." <-- the whole book's like that. If you like that, you'll love this.

2. Depiction of women in the book (-1 points): I know this book is dated. But that doesn't mean I'll tolerate poor depictions of women in it any more than I usually would. We had the sharp, cunning Sadie Burke (who of course couldn't be pretty and eventually ended up enrolling herself into a sanatorium because she felt too guilty about seeking vengeance on Willie Talos, her ex-lover). We had the abused housewife, Lucy Talos who would be loyal and supportive to her jackass of a husband (Willie Talos) to the very end. We had the dream girl - picture of innocence - Anne Stanton. And let's not forget Jack Burden's ex-wife, whom he spent PAGES referring to as a fuck machine. Honestly, that last one I found the most disgusting.

At the 65% mark, Warren wrote: "...as long as she was simply a well dressed animal, as long as she was really a part of innocent non-human nature, as long as I hadn't begun to notice that the sounds she made were words, there was no harm in her and no harm in the really extraordinary pleasure she could provide..."

There were no other roles for the women in this book. They were either of the above female archetypes, or they were minor, background characters.

And let's not forget when Cass Mastern went searching for the slave woman that his mistress sold into prostitution and stumbled upon a bunch of perverts inspecting a naked slave woman. Because we needed that in this book. That was necessary.

On that note, POC were very poorly represented in this book (N-word thrown around.). Again, I know this book is dated (published initially in 1946), and I know we're in a southern American setting, but it doesn't mean I liked reading it any more than I normally would.

3. The summary didn't match the plot (-.2): I loathe when summaries don't match the books they describe. Based on the synopsis of this book, I seriously thought this was going to be about the rise and fall of Willie Talos. I thought this was going to be a book with plenty of clever political maneuvering, something akin to House of Cards. It very much was not. Not only was this focused MUCH more on the narrator, Jack Burden, but it was also more focused on philosophizing about God and good v. evil and the past and the present, etc, etc, etc. It just didn't end. And by the way, I also hated Jack Burden (see next point)

4. The characters sucked (-.3): There was literally no one to root for. Jack Burden reminds me of an angsty 15-year-old. Willie Talos reminds me of a hardheaded lunatic with good intentions. Sugar Boy was just... what? There for laughs? Sadie Burke was annoying, like Joan Callamezzo from Parks and Rec, except less bubbly. The Stantons were bores. I mean... I just didn't like any of them. It's really hard to trudge through that much literary verbiage for people you don't even like. I didn't feel bad at all when anyone died. I felt relieved, actually, because the book was almost over. There were moments when I was curious about the plot, like when I wondered if Jack Burden would end up with Anne Stanton after all, but if I never found out, I would have been perfectly fine with that.

5. All the rest (-.5):
- Constant perspective changes
- Extensive tangents
- Unnecessary details that detract from narrative
- Lack of quotation marks for some dialogue
- Lack of a clear conflict that drives plot of book (Jack's finding himself or wondering about his past wasn't compelling enough of a conflict for me. I wanted to know about the rise of Willie Talos. Instead I was sucker-punched with Jack Burden's numerous trips down memory lane.) This isn't always a deal-breaker for me (I really enjoyed East of Eden, even before Cathy was introduced as an enduring antagonist), but this book just didn't work for me.

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?

All the King’s Men opens sharply, throwing the reader into the midst of things. Jack Burden, a young ex-reporter/ writer, a guy who walked out on his PhD, finds himself in the service of Willie, a raising political force. Willie, whose background doesn’t promise a successful politician, but who is ready to fight against the odds. Jack is there by Willie’s side, not because of the money, not because of the power, not because of anything like that. Why is Jack there? Jack isn’t sure himself. It is a complex question, one that keeps popping through the novel, one that gets answered many times and yet remains open to interpretations. Willie, who is commonly called the boss, says that it is because it is in Jack’s nature? Is it so? But what kind of nature are we talking about?

Jack Burden is, true to his surname, a burdened man. Burdened with both his and his future past, emotionally detached from the society in a way that made me think of Nick from The Great Gatsby. Nick came from the South, didn’t he? Nick sort of tags along with Gatsby, doesn’t he? Jack does the same. Jack puts his life on hold caught up in another’s man charisma, but while Nick just lets things happen without overthinking them in detail, Jack overthinks everything. Jack is a cynic, but a very intelligent cynic and an honest one as well. You could say that all cynics are honest, but you would be wrong for not all bitterness is founded on fact, and even if Jack is bitter as hell, he holds tight on the facts. Nick can be pretty honest in his observations as well, but he doesn’t seem as scientifically attached to facts as Jack is. One can understand why Jack has to be like that, for Jack is on a quest for truth even if he doesn’t know it. Jack is a student of history and there is a lot of examination of history in this novel. You see, there is this whole parallel story line happening in the past. There is this story of adultery, cruelty and slavery, this tragic story Jack walked out on because he couldn’t comprehend it. Or perhaps Jack was afraid of understanding it? Of owing up to it precisely because it would mean owing up to his own shortcomings?


Within this novel, there is an examination of a short piece of American history, an individual story that is possibly also a story about society. There is that PhD story Jack walked out on because he couldn’t understand Cuss (the subject of his research). This story of a young man who committed an adultery with his friend’s wife, an act that lead to tragic consequences. There is Jack, the history student, who couldn’t understand what he was researching or claimed so. Perhaps because Jack’s own life was falling apart before it even began. Jack’s relationship with his mother, who kept changing husbands and whom he regards with a mixture of admiration and coldness. Yes, I can see how this relationship could have kept Freud entrained for a month. Jack who renounces the only true fatherly figure he has known in favour of Willie. Speaking of which, there is a lot of psychological portraying in this one and history plays a big part it all the psychological analysis. Throughout the novel, the history keeps getting mixed up in everything. Jack’s personal history gets mixed up with everyone else’s. There are also political schemes and it politics history can be a tricky thing. Jack is often hired to unravel past mysteries. Jack sets out to find dirt on most honest of men, a man who was like a father to him. Jack does it too, yet only to learn that as he uncovers one mystery, he finds out more. Perhaps he also learns something about himself. Perhaps that is why he does it.


How reliable is Jack as a narrator? He is reliable in a cynic kind of way, in a way intelligent person is reliable. Seeing a part of the picture, Jack tells his story and he catches you in his cold web. Jack gets you worked up, at least that’s the effect that he had on me, an effect mixed with a sense of frustration of his own coldness. His detachment might make him more perceptive but still, it is apparent that much remains hidden from Jack himself. As the novel progresses, past episodes get recounted, we get to know more of Jack’s personal history. Characters’ past experiences are often revealed in fragments, but there is so much strength in the writing that you can’t help but get caught up in their past and present tragedies. Jack’s initial emotional detachment, his sense of being lost in the world, his passivity, his observation of society, all the things that make me think of Nick, make them both and at the same time- both a reliable and unreliable narrator. Nick and Jack do have a lot in common, as different as they are. They both crave for friendship, and not just any kind of friendship. A friendship with a person who is somehow more ‘real’ than others, not necessarily in the sense of being virtuous (for Gatsby and Willie certainly aren’t angels) but in their pursuit of that elusive something. In essence, I think both narrators (Nick and Jack) are perfect for the novels they find themselves in. Nick and Jack’s personality differs, and so does the approach to their portrayal, but there are some behaviour patterns they both share. Both respected a flawed man, a corrupt man, and set him on a pedestal. Perhaps because the dream was worth it? Jack doesn’t exactly love Willie, the politician, at least not in an obvious way. You can’t get that sense of sincere friendship and connection, not at very start. Why does Jack do it? Why do Jack and Nick do it? Why do they feel that one man can hold together all the paradoxes of American dream, why do they feel they have to serve the man and the dream even if they sense doom? Is it because Nick and Jack are attracted to something great that exists in this Gatsby or Willie fellow? Is that why Jack stays by Willie’s side? I don’t know what to think about Willie. I just don’t. He remains elusive to me, elusive in a way Gatsby is elusive. Were they both dreamers?

I've finally read this novel the day before yesterday. I stayed up late reading it, the last part that is. The last 200 pages or so I’ve read in the last couple of days, but I toiled reading the beginning and it honestly took me ages to reach the middle. Yes, it took me quite a long time to read this novel. I started it with a hard to explain sensation of dread. Not because of its reputation, the Pulitzer and the critical acclaim it won and so on, but because of those opening pages. Something about the opening paragraphs made me suffer internally. They sure were heavy. I sensed sadness, bitterness and brilliance that made me think of Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner. The writing was more than good, it was brilliant, I could see that straight away. It was heavy, but it was brilliant.

The descriptions were quite lengthy, not something you would expect in a novel that is if not events filled then with plenty of things going on. No, you don’t except those stubbornly long descriptions in a novel that moves as fast as this one does. The descriptions were like a world of their own. They were like something staring you in your face. Their quality of those descriptions was good, precise, sometimes poetical and sometimes surgical. The contrasted somehow both the plot and the portrayal of characters, as they were not a part of the novel, but sometimes that takes a life of its own. That much I could gather from those first few pages. The writing that flowed, flowed steadily and strongly like a might river, but it wasn’t easy to read, not for me, not then and perhaps it never will be. My brain refused the prose initially, my mind pulled away from the sentences and I laboured over the beginning of the book. From the elaborate descriptions and the N word that was making me feeling slightly nauseated and that felt out of place.


Never have I felt that a writer is trying to prove something right away as with the beginning of this novel. There is something fierce about it, almost like he is showing off, telling you- look, what I can do! Read how I can write! It was like he was trying to make us look into an open wound. Yes, that is how I felt reading this one. He was the surgeon dissecting everything without any sympathy or mercy. He with his writing that was painfully precise, he was showing off every step of the day, the way someone who is really good at his job does and knows is. In that kind of way. Maybe I’m borrowing those surgical descriptions from the novel itself but perhaps these metaphors are perfectly suitable for a book review of All the King’s Man. Oddly, I almost have up on this one, as promising as the writing looked. Should I continue reading or should I give up? I remember feeling pretty down for March was exhausting. March was an endless stream of bad news. Do I need to feel this? Do I need to get work out about characters who don’t exist, and yet perhaps they do, the way all good literary characters really exist and in the way they are (or sure seem) more real than us. I kept reading because I couldn’t do anything else. I kept reading all the while I was feeling this book sitting heavy on my eyebrows, heavy on my chest and heavy on my soul. I kept reading and soaked it all in.

I felt for Sadie, the torn wrench. Sadie who never had a chance. Sadie who was good at one thing and knew it, but it was all wrong, and there was no way it could have been right. And it was a tragedy. And she knew it. When love gets mixed up with the one thing you’re good at, and then there is a betrayal and you lose it all. You who never had a chance. Yes, I feel for you Sadie. I felt for Jack, the storyteller. I hated him but I understood him. I hated his detachment, his depression and his intelligence. I hated his remarks that made perfect sense. I hated him every step of the way. I hated Jack with passion, and perhaps I still do. I hated Jack’s lack of common decency. But that doesn’t change the fact that he is the perfect narrator for this book. Nor does it change the fact that I kind of ended up if not loving him then something of the sort. Perhaps because Jack had kept searching for that truth. Despite everyone and despite himself. I felt for Jack’s mother who had been so unhappy. I felt sorry for her aging face and for her tragedies. For the life she will never have. For the infinite loneliness she condemned herself to. I felt for Anne, crazy Anne who didn’t know what she wanted. Who felt more like a twisted twin of Jack’s, than of her own brother. A brother she had surely loved. I felt for Adam, for the purity of his soul, for not being able to change what he was any less than perhaps any of us can. I felt for them all. Even for Sugar Boy. Even for Sugar Buy.


Half way into this book, I knew it will break my heart. I knew it, but I kept reading. I know that it will break my heart the way every play Tennessee Williams had ever written wrote broke my heart, the way every novel that William Faulkner had ever written left a scar in my soul. The way The Help broke my heart. The way South breaks my heart. South in its complexity, Souths is its elegance and its craziness. South where nobody wants to be rich rich, where a man commits a crime to save his plantation but it is not from greed, it’s from something more complex, it is because the plantation is part of himself, South in which everyone is a part of everyone and everyone’s craziness and passion, vice and virtue, ugliness and beauty are innocence in a way that is hard to explain. Where everything seems interconnected like roots of trees in an ancient forest. That kind of south. South of tragedies. South of sadness. South of honesty. South that can produce such writers and produce them in abundance. It’s the South. This novel is abundant in whatever makes South of USA what it is and yet it is so universal. Universal in a way all great literature is universal.

* You can read the rest of my review on my blog, it is too long to be posted here in its full form.
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Δε μπορώ να καυχηθω ότι κατανόησα πλήρως όλα τα νοήματα του βιβλίου αλλά δε μπορώ και να μη δώσω τα 5 αστέρια που του αξίζουν και με το παραπάνω! Κάθε παράγραφος είναι ένα έργο τέχνης τοσο από λογοτεχνική πλευρά όσο και από πλευρά νοημάτων. Ο Γουιλι Σταρκ είναι ο άξονας με βάση τον οποίο προσδιορίζονται τα υπόλοιπα πρόσωπα του βιβλίου, ανάμεσα τους και οΤζακ Μπερντεν, ο κεντρικός αφηγητής. Δεν είναι και το πιο εύκολο ανάγνωσμα αλλά δε γίνεται να το διαβάσεις και να μην κάνεις την ενδοσκόπηση σου . Για μένα η ουσία του βιβλίου συμπυκνώνεται στην εξής φράση :

«Αν δεν αποδεχτεί κάνεις το παρελθόν του και το φορτίο του,δεν υπάρχει μέλλον,γιατί χωρίς το ένα δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει το άλλο,και αν μπορέσεις να αποδεχτείς το παρελθόν,μπορείς να ελπίζεις για το μέλλον»

Σπουδαίο έργο,σπουδαίος συγγραφέας.

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.