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samferree 's review for:
All the King's Men
by Robert Penn Warren
For a year, I lived in New Orleans and there I learned about Huey Long, the Depression-era Governor of Louisiana, nicknamed The King Fish. A friend of mine, a native Louisianan, once told me about Long, "I don't know anything about him. All I know is that if he were on the ballot today, he would still be elected."
That said, I thought this was going to be a very different book. Willie Stark is every bit the demagogue populist Huey Long was, but the novel is told from the point of view of a character who is under no illusion, Jack Burden. Stark is barely in the book at all, in fact. About a third of the book is taken up by Burden's reminiscences about young love and the antebellum South, for which I nearly didn't finish the book.
But I did, and that's why I have to say this book is fantastic. I don't think it's one of my favorites, but I can't help but admire it. The prose is rich and its meditative, philosophical style takes you away to this world where no one really knows what they're doing or why they're doing it. That must be what it's like to be reigned over.
That said, I thought this was going to be a very different book. Willie Stark is every bit the demagogue populist Huey Long was, but the novel is told from the point of view of a character who is under no illusion, Jack Burden. Stark is barely in the book at all, in fact. About a third of the book is taken up by Burden's reminiscences about young love and the antebellum South, for which I nearly didn't finish the book.
But I did, and that's why I have to say this book is fantastic. I don't think it's one of my favorites, but I can't help but admire it. The prose is rich and its meditative, philosophical style takes you away to this world where no one really knows what they're doing or why they're doing it. That must be what it's like to be reigned over.