All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert Penn WarrenEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-05
ISBN: 0156031043
Number of pages: 672
Publisher: Harvest Books
Product features:
- Paperback with scene of main charactor and red lettering
Book Reviews of All the King's Men
Book Review: Too deep for a movie
Summary: 5 Stars
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. Similarily, 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. Jack, by contrast, 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 acheive good results. But this moral conundrum is eternal, and Robert Penn Warren has found a wonderfully intimate and subtle means of adressing it.
Summary of All the King's Men
Set in the 1930s, this Pulitzer Prize–winning novel traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey “Kingfish? Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success. Generally considered the finest novel ever written on American politics, All the King?s Men is a literary classic.
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING
SEAN PENN
JUDE LAW
KATE WINSLET
JAMES GANDOLFINI
MARK RUFFALO
PATRICIA CLARKSON
and
ANTHONY HOPKINS
SEAN PENN
JUDE LAW
KATE WINSLET
JAMES GANDOLFINI
MARK RUFFALO
PATRICIA CLARKSON
and
ANTHONY HOPKINS
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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