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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As someone who doesn't usually read long, difficult, old books, I enjoyed this enough to read it twice--the first time when a teacher recommended it to me, and the second time when I decided to go out and buy it myself. I will say that I found the book better and easier to follow on the second reading, but this could be because my first reading was as a high schooler.
It is certainly not the easiest book to read (in terms of "reading level", for lack of a better term), and it tends to be incredibly wordy. I distinctly remember a single sentence that covered nearly an entire page. So if those are real turnoffs, maybe don't read this. However, I thought the writing style did a good job of characterizing the narrator, Jack Burden, as a thoughtful and philosophical person.
Speaking of Jack, it is largely his story. He is the right hand man to Willie Stark, the big bad politician in the blurb of the book. Willie is certainly at the heart of the story and a driving factor behind much, if not all, of what happens, but we see everything through Jack's eyes, and it is his thoughts and reactions to everything that we mainly get by reading.
I didn't find any of the characters likable, except perhaps Jack because I found him really interesting. But nobody is really supposed to be likable in this book. I mean, it's about politics.
And speaking about politics, I would usually think that they are a big turn-off for me since I like to escape into books. However, I did not mind the political content in this book, probably because I think it focused more on people, morals, and power rather than political ideologies.
Admittedly the book is a bit difficult to get into due to the fact that the timeline can be confusing, especially in the beginning. But the book gets better the further you get due to the heightening amount of drama and new revelations that occur.If you know anything about the real politician that inspired this book, you'll likely know how everything will end, but getting there is still quite a ride.
It is certainly not the easiest book to read (in terms of "reading level", for lack of a better term), and it tends to be incredibly wordy. I distinctly remember a single sentence that covered nearly an entire page. So if those are real turnoffs, maybe don't read this. However, I thought the writing style did a good job of characterizing the narrator, Jack Burden, as a thoughtful and philosophical person.
Speaking of Jack, it is largely his story. He is the right hand man to Willie Stark, the big bad politician in the blurb of the book. Willie is certainly at the heart of the story and a driving factor behind much, if not all, of what happens, but we see everything through Jack's eyes, and it is his thoughts and reactions to everything that we mainly get by reading.
I didn't find any of the characters likable, except perhaps Jack because I found him really interesting. But nobody is really supposed to be likable in this book. I mean, it's about politics.
And speaking about politics, I would usually think that they are a big turn-off for me since I like to escape into books. However, I did not mind the political content in this book, probably because I think it focused more on people, morals, and power rather than political ideologies.
Admittedly the book is a bit difficult to get into due to the fact that the timeline can be confusing, especially in the beginning. But the book gets better the further you get due to the heightening amount of drama and new revelations that occur.
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs
Rereading after twenty years. I'd forgotten just how good this is. The Narrator, Jack Burden, is at least as complicated a character as Willie Stark. And if you want a picture of what local politics is like in most of the South, from the end of Reconstruction right up to the present, just read the account of the Mason County schoolhouse deal and Willie's fight with the good old boys early on in the book. I live in Arkansas and can tell you Dolph Pillsbury is a perfect stand-in for most of the people in our state legislature. And the more they pound the Bible and shout "JAY-sus!" the more like Pillsbury they are. It's like a cross between Gilead and Hazzard County.
Incredible, I do think it overplays the impact a singular career has on the commonwealth. The power that Willie has is skewed by Jack's views of him.
slow-paced
Talk about the only assigned reading that I actually enjoyed in high school. This book left such a strong impression on me that I can recall where I was when I read certain parts of the novel. I don't quite remember when I finished the book, but it was the summer of 2009 and I was probably returning home from Spain. Starting off my junior year of high school with this book made a lot of what we read over the course of the year drag on and on... I think if I could write fiction like anyone, I'd like to write like Warren does in this novel. A gorgeous read.
Alas for me. If I weren't such a simpleton, I could write a review worthy of the book. I'll just have to stumble through and do my mediocre best to do it justice.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I think I wanted this to be another book, which is a shame because not only did I not get what I wanted, I'm also going to have a tough time evaluating it on its own merits, since it's hardly the author's fault that I was expecting something else. I think part of it is a marketing problem -- I saw this framed as the story of a politician gradually going corrupt, but it isn't, really. You see him at the beginning, already corrupt, then you flash back to a very brief period of apparent idealism and interest in selling himself through statistics, but the perspective isn't very close and it doesn't last very long, and then getting drunk magically turns him into a compelling public speaker and that's the end of the well-meaning version of The Boss. I can recognize that the prose is very good, but the longer I go through this reading project, the more I think that prose is a comparatively small part of my enjoyment of a story. If prose is bad, it's very disruptive, but if prose merely does the job, it's fine. Good prose, excellent prose, is a perk certainly but can't save my enjoyment of a messy, meandering novel that's light on character development. Character development is even more sparse for the female characters, who are largely either background dressing or love interests. I just didn't care about most of it. Left me cold.
This book was like all politics: it would be better if it wasn't so full of junk. There was a great plot here, but it was obscured by excessive language. I might have liked it much better if it were more concise.