All the King's Men (Penguin Modern Classics)

Product Information

For example, the events in Chapter One take place in 1936 and show Willie Stark to be a man who gets along with the common people, but they also show that he is a man who can be ruthless in dealing with his enemies. Though Stark enters public service in the Depression-era Deep South with ambitions of holding crooked politicians and unethical businessmen in Louisiana accountable, he finds over time that mixing with the corrupt ultimately corrupts him. A g The painfully awkward silence, and Jack’s mother’s subsequent response that she did not know he ‘…felt that – that way!

Many of the novel's passages recounting Jack's life story revolve around memories of his relationship with Anne. He is best known for his novel "All the King's Men," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1947. When I said that Warren depicts politics as we hope it might be, it is this wrenching moral paradox that I had in mind. It is on this trip that Willie tells Jack to dig up dirt on Judge Irwin, a man who stands between Stark and his desire to become Senator for the state.At its release, the New York Times hailed it as "magnificently vital reading, a book so charged with dramatic tension it almost crackles. Must be written by an American author or an author who has lived long enough in the US to assimilate the culture.

Superb to the point where at some points it left me breathless, full of power and imagery, and deep insight into the motivations and humanity of the minor as well as the major characters. Warren shows the cancerous effects of political polarisation and culture wars, how even familial bonds can be shattered by partisanship. Hmm, the question of power corrupting is age-old, but the noir approach to the story, with no heroes to put in opposition to Stark’s growing villainy, makes it feel fresh and original. Had Warren ever questioned this primitive political scheme, he might have confronted Burden with a less melodramatic moral dilemma. Set in the 1930s, this book traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey 'Kingfish' Long of Louisiana.While at the time Trump’s election seemed like an unprecedented phenomenon, Stark’s story shows the lasting appeal of the strong-man leader in times of economic turmoil. In Primary Colors, by “Anonymous” (1996), homage is paid to its influence in the character of Governor Stanton. Adrian Hall adapted and directed a stage version of the novel at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island in April 1987.

Les hommes dominent dans le roman, mais deux personnages féminins intéressants paraissent en bonne place.I’m not so keen on books that are actually pushing a political agenda, even if it’s one I agree with. On the left is the second issue jacket where the Sinclair Lewis review was moved to the back flap and replaced by six new reviews - by Joseph Henry Jackson, Diana Trilling, Harry Hansen, Orville Prescott, Paul Engle, and W. Cass's story, as revealed through his journals and letters, is essentially about a single betrayal of a friend that seems to ripple endlessly outward with negative consequences for many people.