All the King's Men

Rating:
Summary: A Work of Political Genius
Review: Robert Penn Warren does an incredible job making a novel of this magnitude flow. He jumps around in time and still keeps the reader enjoying his novel. It is truly one of the best political masterpieces of all time. Many people hate political books, but this one is interesting enough to hold anyone's attention and at the same time teach you something.
Warren based this novel on the life of Governor/Senator Huey Long from Louisiana. Many of the occurrences in Willies life coincided with the occurrences in Huey Long's life. This is impressive on Warren's part because it shows just how much thought and research he had to put into this novel to come up with the facts and ideas.
All The King's Men is narrated by a young and naïve Jack Burden, the protagonist. He is from a well-known family in Burden's Landing (named after his ancestors) and who believe that no one can be held accountable for what occurs because of your actions. Throughout the novel Warren shows how Jack slowly matures while dealing with the tough lessons of life and making decisions for yourself. An awakening occurs when his boss, Willie Talos, the governor, tells Jack to dig up dirt on Judge Irwin. The things that he finds cause him to look back and reevaluate his own life and change his beliefs.
Willie Talos's story takes place simultaneously to Jack's. He starts off as a poor farm boy who just wants to do good for others, but is corrupted by the spotlight of fame when he becomes governor. As he continues on his political journey the one thing that he despised most, the corruptness of politicians begins to become him. He used his power to command others around and blackmail them into doing what he wanted. He gains support by being projected as a common man.
These two stories are simultaneously occurring and because of this you see many similar characteristics between Jack and Willie. They are both trying to flee their past. Willie does not want to be the man that others took advantage of, but a strong and powerful man that no one can tell what to do. Jack no longer wants to be the naïve boy that grew up in Burden's Landing, but a man that can claim that he did something important on his own. While Jack matures through his experience, Willie has hardly any spiritual growth that occurs until it is too late. While Willie sheds his idealism for the power politicians gain and corruptness that soon follows, Jack keeps it and continues to sees the world through completely different eyes. Their personalities clash more than once although they work well together and keep the novel interesting.
I would highly recommend this novel to anyone. Do not let the size (it is a long one) stop you from reading it. It is not hard to follow and keeps your attention. Every time you start to put it down Warren brings up a new point and you get involved again. This is one of those books that you just cannot put down. I really enjoyed All The King's Men and will probably read it again to catch the things I missed the first time.


Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Book About the Nature of Politics
Review: "All the King's Men" moves along breathlessly right through to its nail-biting climax. I wasn't prepared for such a suspenseful read, but the intrigues, shady dealings and political backstabbing make for quite a thriller.

It's loosely based on the career of Huey "Kingfisher" Long, one-time governor of Louisiana. I didn't know anything about Long before reading this book, but it doesn't matter. Robert Penn Warren's novel is not about Louisiana politics, but rather about American politics in general and the ease with which political figures can become god like in the eyes of their voters and just as easily fall from their lofty perches.

Warren uses stylized, thick prose to conjure images of the dense, sultry Southern landscape that serves as this novel's backdrop. The swampy, tangled undergrowth mirrors the tangled machinations going on among the politicians and aides that make up the novel's motley cast of characters. Willie Talos (Stark, depending on the edition you read), takes center stage as the larger-than-life governor, but the story really belongs to Jack Burden, right-hand man to Talos and the novel's moral center. And Warren creates a bona-fide scene-stealing character in that of Sadie Burke, aide to Talos, who understands what it takes to make it in an environment so dominated by power-hungry men and who more than adequately holds her own.

This is a compulsive read. I didn't have the luxury of being able to sit down and read the whole thing in one sitting, which is probably the best way to approach it, as there are very few ideal stopping points along the way. But whether you read it all at once or over several days, I hope that you will indeed read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Mythic and Classical
Review: Completely American- this book has stood the test of time. A gregarious, larger than life and country boy politician and his loyal assistant set about conquering Louisianna politics and do so, but not without costs. As the politician, based on Louisianna's legendary Huey Long, Governor Talos outsizes himself so that his original principles no longer fit. They sink, with his marriage his temperance and his honesty. Incremental excesses, adulteries and ruthlessness devour him and his assistant, our narrator whose interests became the same as the governors whom he followed unquestionably. Each generation of readers can find similarities in this very American story with its matching story of their age. Many of the people who reviewed the novel before me wrote during the Clinton sex scandal and, in their outrage and sense of being manipulated could draw similarities with Warren's book. I read the book during the year anniversary of 9/11 and found the mythic themes and Eastern philosophical overtones outstanding. Southern writers who incorporate the heat and the light into their passages inevitably recall the landscapes of the ancients. Myths caution us that when humans live fully as products of the light, they will ultimately suffer. That was certainly the case in this group of characters. The themes of young idealism, success, excess and loss of soul are never out of touch with modern life. We find the most revered 'gentlemen' in this case the white male protestant old guard (Judge Irwin and Dr. Stanton) felled by their attachment to their position and protection of their class. Their respective descent into murder and adultery were the consequences of their inability to integrate the dark impulses into their addiction to the perfect glow of the light. Similarly the characters who were gifted with great beauty and physical superiority, a hero- athlete and an Olympian beauty did each fail to do the work of mortals and were equally doomed. One, the Governor's son, to a drunken and debauched death scene and the other, the narrator's mother, to solitude and lost youth. The indignities and normal sufferings that their bodies protected were merely delayed and undisciplined, they ultimately had nothing to do but fall.
Politics is naturally a metaphor for so much of the conflict between good and evil in mankind. Jack, our narrator, was a traveller, also a lost child, one who attached himself to families in the absence of his own. He was not, as some have noted, a voice of honor or reason, he had an ambivalent moral code, but a developing one. He pursued his tasks with an indifference to cruelty, but not as a person who received pleasure in inflicting pain. He did retain loyalties, however, even toward his physically and emotionally repulsive father and the ancestors that propelled him to seek his legacy and ultimately his livelihood. Jack was a pilgrim and Governor Talos a sort of master, and in the end, the student outdistanced the teacher. All, at least in my own life space, quite mystical and mythic. It was also emotionally moving, not in a sentimental way, but in the way that we recognize so much of our own struggles and the fact that we are neither perfect nor complete, and unlikely to ever feel that sublime contentment.
But most significantly, this is a good story that 'sounds' Southern and conveys in the smell of stale beer and smoke, isolation and back road honkey tonks-a photographic and gritty realism that works. That it offers even more for those who care to reflect- is a bonus- but you don't have to care a bit about that stuff to enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: All The King's Men
Review: I've never left a review for a book before but this is one of the greatest books I've ever read. This is a must read, as is "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.

Rating:
Summary: Song of South
Review: I've read this book many times. It is bittersweet meditation on human weakness, loss, and learning the way of the world. The depth of this book is such that different themes resonate at different points of your life, like a dark gem. Penn Warren's evocation of the changeful, aching, moments of life is nothing short of masterful.

Rating:
Summary: An Absolutely Wonderful Book!
Review: It is extremely hard to sit down and write a review for any piece of classic literature for there is very little a reviewer can say that is new. Of course, for a book to be considered a classic most of its reviewers have to have had a favorable opinion of the work and all a new reviewer can do is concur or disagree. In this case, I couldn't possibly agree more with previous reviewers who have written rave reviews of this book.

This is not so much the story of Willie Stark, who was Willie Talos in the original manuscript, as it the story of Jack Burden, the man telling the story. It really seems to be the story of a young man and his road to maturity. That young man is Jack Burden and Stark seems to be just a convenient focal point around which Warren weaves his story. The plot is very well laid out and flows very well from beginning to end, which is quite an accomplishment when one considers all of the subplots to be found in this book. As Burden tells his story he often wanders down memory lane, recalling events which his story has recalled. Each subplot builds to it's own climax while also building toward the climax of the main story and the reader is swept along like a barrel on the Niagara River. Just as the reader feels as if he can put the book aside for a while, another subplot begins to ascend through the story and the reader is again swept along unable to pause. I got so caught up in one of the subplots that I was late for a very important appointment. I just couldn't stop until I found out what happened.

Stark is obviously supposed to resemble Louisiana Governor Huey Long and he very much does so. If one also reads T. Harry Williams biography of Long they will see just how strong the resemblance is. There are several morals and messages to be drawn from this story including thoughts on good and evil and past and future. In addition to the messages though, one has to admire the incredible amount of research Warren had to have done to write this book. Warren of course was alive and well during Huey Long's reign and that had to help him but in all events described his historical accuracy is uncanny. For example, one of the subplots involves Jefferson Davis in a minor way and even in delving in things well beyond his own memories Warren laces the story with many accurate details. In one passage, Warren relates that Davis missed the steamboat that was to carry him on the first leg of his trip to Montgomery to assume the Presidency of the new Confederacy. Warren points out that the boat left Davis Landing and then was halted out in the river while a smaller boat brought the new President out to get on board. A historical fact that would not be common knowledge but that is entirely accurate.

Many people avoid books that are considered to be top-flight works of literature. These people often assume that such books must be dull and so philosophical that they are beyond the average reader. In some instances this may be the case but not with this book. Warren has turned out a masterpiece that is not only fun to read but is so enjoyable that the reader will hate to come to the end. There are messages to be found here, both obvious and subtle but do not worry about the messages. They will come through on their own as you sit back and enjoy the ride over the falls.

Rating:
Summary: Above mere books as olympians are above mere athletes
Review: One feels after reading this book like one has lived an entire extra lifetime and now must get back to one's own life, though wiser and a little more world weary. Somehow it feels out of place to list this among other "books", like it's been misclassified or misslabled. This isn't a book, it's rare genius hitting on all cylinders -- a spark from the shattered vessel of the deeper truths of life.

Rating:
Summary: All the King's Men
Review: Robert Penn Warren was one of the most outstanding writers of the twentieth century. He was the Poet Laureate of the United States and won two Pulitzer Prizes. After a brief stay in Italy Warren wrote a drama called Proud Flesh where he deals with many issues of political power and moral corruption for that power, also in this drama Warren tried to use the ideas of Louisiana politician Huey long. After not being satisfied with this piece of work he elaborate his drama into a novel called All the King's Men. All the King's Men is a book about the lives of southern governor Willie Stark and his right hand man Jack Burden as the live through the depression (1930's) in an unnamed southern state.

The book starts with Willie becoming a noticeable politician after he warns many people that a school building was going to collapse. No one listens until one day the building dose collapse killing three children. He then is chosen to run for governor but unknowns to him he is only a dummy candidate to break up the vote. After he learns this he tells the rural people that the government only thinks of them as "dummies" and he drops out. He eventually runs for governor and wins a few years later and wins. Jack becomes very interested in Willie after covering Willie when Jack was a reporter and eventually Jack becomes Willies right hand man. Along with being Willies right hand man Jack also uses his skills in research to dig up info on all of Willies enemies. Along with this the book also focuses on Willie becoming more corrupt when he has more power. We also see Jack's role as the moral compass in the story. Even as Willie becomes more and more corrupted jack keeps a steady path of working toward good for the poor. In addition we see how Jack works toward marrying his childhood sweetheart Anne. In the end Willie is murdered after all the political corruption gets the better of him and the doctor of a under funded hospital assassinates him. In a side note Huey Long was also assassinated but only after he went to the senate.

After reading both this book and many sites that offered commentaries. I have found that this was one of the most enjoyable books that I have ever read. Although as a critical reader I would not recommend this book to the average person. Personally I am very interested in the inner workings of politics, the West Wing is one of my favorite shows on television. But for people that are not as interested in politics this book may also be interesting because is dose deal a lot with personal relationship that everyone can relate to. For example everyone has someone in their life that they view as a moral compass.

In conclusion this was a great book that I would strongly recommend to people that like the workings of politics, but I would still recommend this book to everyone. It was a great read and interested me greatly.

Rating:
Summary: All the King's Men
Review: Robert Penn Warren was one of the most outstanding writers of the twentieth century. He was the Poet Laureate of the United States and won two Pulitzer Prizes. After a brief stay in Italy Warren wrote a drama called Proud Flesh where he deals with many issues of political power and moral corruption for that power, also in this drama Warren tried to use the ideas of Louisiana politician Huey long. After not being satisfied with this piece of work he elaborate his drama into a novel called All the King's Men. All the King's Men is a book about the lives of southern governor Willie Stark and his right hand man Jack Burden as the live through the depression (1930's) in an unnamed southern state.

The book starts with Willie becoming a noticeable politician after he warns many people that a school building was going to collapse. No one listens until one day the building dose collapse killing three children. He then is chosen to run for governor but unknowns to him he is only a dummy candidate to break up the vote. After he learns this he tells the rural people that the government only thinks of them as "dummies" and he drops out. He eventually runs for governor and wins a few years later and wins. Jack becomes very interested in Willie after covering Willie when Jack was a reporter and eventually Jack becomes Willies right hand man. Along with being Willies right hand man Jack also uses his skills in research to dig up info on all of Willies enemies. Along with this the book also focuses on Willie becoming more corrupt when he has more power. We also see Jack's role as the moral compass in the story. Even as Willie becomes more and more corrupted jack keeps a steady path of working toward good for the poor. In addition we see how Jack works toward marrying his childhood sweetheart Anne. In the end Willie is murdered after all the political corruption gets the better of him and the doctor of a under funded hospital assassinates him. In a side note Huey Long was also assassinated but only after he went to the senate.

After reading both this book and many sites that offered commentaries. I have found that this was one of the most enjoyable books that I have ever read. Although as a critical reader I would not recommend this book to the average person. Personally I am very interested in the inner workings of politics, the West Wing is one of my favorite shows on television. But for people that are not as interested in politics this book may also be interesting because is dose deal a lot with personal relationship that everyone can relate to. For example everyone has someone in their life that they view as a moral compass.

In conclusion this was a great book that I would strongly recommend to people that like the workings of politics, but I would still recommend this book to everyone. It was a great read and interested me greatly.

Rating:
Summary: a focus on the edition
Review: there are two newish paperbacks out in print right now. one is this edition featuring the classic novel we've loved for fifty years, the other is the restored edition- notably returning willie's last name to talos from stark and other changes. one interesting change is an addition of an opening chapter an editor, wisely in my opinion, convinced warren to axe. THIS edition is the one i would advise purchasing for those who are new to the novel and unfamiliar with 1930s history and politics. warren's biographer joseph blotner writes a fantastic introduction to this classic american work, putting history and politics skillfully in context and setting the reader up for a broader understanding. the introduction is short, only four pages, but is worth the read.

check out other review for summaries and articulations of why this book is completely wonderful.