All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert Penn WarrenEditor: Noel Polk
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11-02
ISBN: 0151006105
Number of pages: 656
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Book Reviews of All the King's Men
Book Review: Mythic and Classical
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Summary of All the King's Men
One of the great classics of American fiction reissued as it was originally written.
Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, All the King's Men is one of the most famous and widely read works in American fiction. Its original publication by Harcourt catapulted author Robert Penn Warren to fame and made the novel a bestseller for many seasons. Set in the 1930s, it traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Talos, a fictional Southern politician who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Talos begins his career as an idealistic man of the people, but he soon becomes corrupted by success, caught between dreams of service and a lust for power. All the King's Men is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.
In a momentous publishing event, Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece has been restored and reintroduced by literary scholar Noel Polk, whose work on the texts of William Faulkner has proved so important to American literature. Polk presents the novel as it was originally written, and without the deletions required by its original editors. The result restores Warren's complexity and subtlety to an already near-perfect work, charging the characters with an energy and a more tangled web of relationships than previously was available. All the King's Men is a landmark in letters. This new edition brings it fully to life.
"The publication of a new, corrected edition of All the King's Men is welcome
news for all who care about American literature. Robert Penn Warren's
prize-winning novel has remained a classic since its publication more than half
a century ago. Editor Noel Polk has studied the manuscript and all other
available versions of Warren's finest novels, eliminating errors and retrieving deleted material. The result has been to enrich the character of narrator
Jack Burden and his protagonist, Willie Talos, in this story of tumultuous Louisiana politics which also has implications for morals and manners in the modern world." -Joseph Blotner, author of Robert Penn Warren: A Biography
Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize, All the King's Men is one of the most famous and widely read works in American fiction. Its original publication by Harcourt catapulted author Robert Penn Warren to fame and made the novel a bestseller for many seasons. Set in the 1930s, it traces the rise and fall of demagogue Willie Talos, a fictional Southern politician who resembles the real-life Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana. Talos begins his career as an idealistic man of the people, but he soon becomes corrupted by success, caught between dreams of service and a lust for power. All the King's Men is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.
In a momentous publishing event, Robert Penn Warren's masterpiece has been restored and reintroduced by literary scholar Noel Polk, whose work on the texts of William Faulkner has proved so important to American literature. Polk presents the novel as it was originally written, and without the deletions required by its original editors. The result restores Warren's complexity and subtlety to an already near-perfect work, charging the characters with an energy and a more tangled web of relationships than previously was available. All the King's Men is a landmark in letters. This new edition brings it fully to life.
"The publication of a new, corrected edition of All the King's Men is welcome
news for all who care about American literature. Robert Penn Warren's
prize-winning novel has remained a classic since its publication more than half
a century ago. Editor Noel Polk has studied the manuscript and all other
available versions of Warren's finest novels, eliminating errors and retrieving deleted material. The result has been to enrich the character of narrator
Jack Burden and his protagonist, Willie Talos, in this story of tumultuous Louisiana politics which also has implications for morals and manners in the modern world." -Joseph Blotner, author of Robert Penn Warren: A Biography
This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the nation's most astounding politicians. All the King's Men tells the story of Willie Stark, a southern-fried politician who builds support by appealing to the common man and playing dirty politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. Though Stark quickly sheds his idealism, his right-hand man, Jack Burden -- who narrates the story -- retains it and proves to be a thorn in the new governor's side. Stark becomes a successful leader, but at a very high price, one that eventually costs him his life. The award-winning book is a play of politics, society and personal affairs, all wrapped in the cloak of history.
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