3,5

Пока на улице еще недостаточно светит солнце, чтобы сбежать туда скорее кататься на лонгборде под Pretty Reckless, я немного позадротствую и поговорю об этом тексте.
"Вся королевская рать" история совсем не о яйце, которое ловко прикинулось человеком и говорит нам о том, что любая власть рассыпается на кусочки, когда приходит ее срок, и не собрать, не склеить, только проехаться по хрустящей скорлупе, возвращаясь в город и пытаясь решить, как теперь с ним быть. Век изменился, нравы изменились, можно гнать под 75 по пустынной дороге, ехать на Запад, возвращаться к корням, бежать от Капитолия, от родителей, любви, теней прошлого, только на самом деле - и это иллюзия. Гигантский и довольно затасканный труд Толстого про то, что человек слаб и все за него решит история, и высшая мудрость - это войти в поток, лечь и ждать, пока он вынесет. Можно бороться, можно плыть против течения, топить окружающих, но потоку до этого дела нет - он стремится в море, что ему до соломинок в его водах.
История, которая начинается как исключительно история про политику, ловко сбрасывает эту маску, и выпрямляется во весь рост, становясь историей про людей, про то, что самое бесчеловечное - это все равно человеческое, что Добро растет из Зла и наоборот, и еще про то, что как бы ни была слаба эта песчинка, именно она созидает, творит и превозмогает хаос уже много-много лет, вытаскивая на свет плохое, черное, страшное, но создавая на нем больницы, дороги, тихие летние вечера, освещенные лампами, молодость, влюбленность, родительство, ошибки и умение во всем этом найти себя - и пойти дальше, вперед, к свету, к Богу ли, к счастью - куда-то вперед, в общем, а не во тьму пещер и дикого звериного оскала. Счастье - это всегда впереди, это всегда дорога и всегда принятие.

"Red" Warren was a friend of my doctoral advisor Leonard Unger, I think from the Vanderbilt connection before they were U Minnesota colleagues in the 50's, along with Saul Bellow and Allen Tate. Of course, Warren was known for the most famous poetry introduction ever written, Brooks and Warren, and Leonard's reading of poems built on it with an added soupçon of Catskill wit. After B&W came Brower's fine Fields of Light, which lay behind my Amherst College lit intro. The Amherst approach contrasted to Warren's finding a poem's "meaning," by emphasizing "an active tentativeness" in the classroom with mutual engagement of lit, the phrase from my mentor Bill Pritchard. (My Amherst Shakespeare prof Baird said, "Here all I've been told is how wrong we were [Brower and Barber and Baird and Craig}, but when Brower went to Harvard, and invented Hum 6, he became much-awarded.") But I digress.

King's Men is a fine novel, probably very relevant in this Year of the Cock [Chinese, but also our political leader]. Perhaps if I reread it, I'd add the last star. I withold it because as a political novel, it may not equal, say, Oliver Twist or even FM Ford's The Good Soldier or A Man Could Stand Up, or Mailer's Catch-22 or Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five or Proulx's Shipping News (though set among Newfies, really about the US) or even the other great Newfoundland novel, Johnston's the Colony of Unrequited Love. Since my specialty has been drama, I have never taught these novels in the same course, so perhaps I err. I cannot now find King's Men on my shelf, though I know what the jacket looks like, and where it was for decades, Modern Library, 1953, seven years after its first appearance.

The frank, offensive racist language, a discouraging reminder to read, may be preferable to the veiled racism we now see behind the victory of the Clown Prince, who may be our first prez with certifiable mental illness, evidently "Malignant Narcisissism" analyzed by Dr. Otto Kernberg (Cornell Med) in 1984. (Seems to me Kim Jung Un may also suffer from it. A dangerous twain to meet.)
Red Warren's first few pages are a tour de force of the American motoring and working experience, and the sawmill's wasting of the pine forest until all the work is gone, and the long cycle, the forty year softwood tree cycle, the economic cyle now interrupted by robots. But Willie Stark will make America great... As Red Warren wrote of the Boss in his first version of Ch 1, "The real son-of-a-bitch is the rarest work of God." That's what the US apparently voted for in Nov 2016, but now they're finding what makes a Sobakievich (the Russian for that rarest work) makes a miserable and cruel leader.

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.

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

n  n
Robert Penn Warren

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

n  n
First edition, First printing of the 1946 edition

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

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

n  n
1949 Movie Poster

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2006 Movie Poster

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

n  n
Huey P. Long

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
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I almost gave up the ghost at 60% because it’s an exhausting read and requires a lot of work. But then I couldn’t completely abandon Warren’s crazy, creative, poetic writing of rambling passages so I set it aside while I read something easy. When I returned it was a don’t-talk-to-me-speeding-train-ride to the end.

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

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

Какви обрати само! Някак бях пропуснала тази класика, а и си мисля, че нямаше да ми хареса като бях по-млада, четенето ѝ изисква по-зряла възраст и житейски опит. Много обичам "лучени" книги - пласт върху пласт от идеи и внушения. За много неща се замислих по време на прочита, а това е смисълът на четенето за мен (освен ескейпизъм). Допаднаха ми героите и как бяха развити, тази спирала нагоре и надолу, минало, настояще и бъдеще в една точка. Отначало не бях убедена, че тази книга е за мен, не си падам особено по политически истории, обаче към края на първа глава авторът ме спечели с една-едничка сцена.

Особеност на книгата са огромните глави (към 50 страници, че и повече), това ми затрудни четенето, както и това, че прескачането във времето изисква концентрация. На места авторът създаваше наистина невероятно колоритни описания. Класика с главно К, бих препрочела за по-добро осмисляне, а напоследък с остаряването (толкова малко време, толкова много книги) избягвам да препрочитам. Пет звезди.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I 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.

Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption.

When I first started this read, I wasn’t sure I was going to mesh with Warren’s prose style as his sentences are lengthy and simile-filled. It took me a good 1/3 of the book to really get a grasp of it and come to appreciate his poetic and lavish descriptions. But once that occurred for me, it was a matter of finding the time to get to the story without the distractions of life getting in the way this month. I was enamored with the story of Willie Stark and Jack Burden, the politician and his assistant. What I assumed was to be the story of the politician’s rise and fall became the self-searching and coming to grips with the past of the assistant. Warren took each man’s stories and interconnected them with intricacies and minute details that left this reader in amazement. So much so that I’ve already placed this book on my “must reread” someday list. In no way do I feel that I can really write a review that could explain it’s merit.

Willie Stark, the “Boss”, championed the common man and considered himself a man of the people. He was an excellent orator and spoke directly to the people in a language they understood. His story is one of poverty to success in politics and one in which his methods of getting things done suddenly turned to manipulation as he learned the tricks of the trade which lead to power- scheming, betraying, seducing, out-dealing, blackmailing. It became instinctual.

In contrast, Jack Burden’s powerful story unfolds as he attempts to find himself in the midst of his complex background from a well-connected family that masks much of its dysfunction. The former history student and newspaper columnist does the digging and dirty work for Stark but finds himself confronted with the knowledge of a secret from the past that hits very close to home for him. He struggles with the deceitfulness of his position and tries to come to grips with the realities of past events and present tragedies.

This has been the story of Willie Stark. But it is my story too.

This is more than a story of politics but it certainly brings to light what can happen to those close to one who’s appetite for ambition and power overtake his idea of right and good. It is also a story of personal responsibility and coming to terms with the past. Through Burden’s narration we witness the transformations and evolutions of these two men as well as several other characters who play important roles in the story. Burden’s childhood friends, Anne and Adam Stanton are brilliantly interconnected with Stark and Burden. The storytelling is intense and the chapters are extra-long and non-chronological. The timeline changes don’t jar the storyline but demonstrate just how deftly Warren is at his craft of weaving the stories and lives together.

If you could not accept the past and its burden there was no future.

A Pulitzer Prize winner for 1947, Warren’s novel stands the test of time and reads like a modern story. The timelessness of the topics are such that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Corruption, ambition, power - we just can’t seem to get away from these themes today.