Back to the Classics #3

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018.

All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren

This great American novel from the 1950s provides support for poet Ezra Pound’s assertion “Literature is news that stays news.” That is, this novel is worth reading as a reflection of our daily news if the news since January 2016 hasn’t totally driven us off news: a demagogue makes political hay appealing to the easily fleeced by telling them what they want to hear.

Ho-hum.

Why read a novel about our tedious reality? In fact, the story is not only the stuff of a great political novel like The Last Hurrah or The Gay Place. All the King's Men tells about how people surrender their freedom to things beyond their control.

Willie Stark, governor of the state, starts his political career with stellar intentions to do good but has been corrupted by the political power the chumps have invested him with, a power that persuades him shortcuts – bribery, coercion, intimidation, blackmail, extortion – are justifiable means if the ends are laudable.

Lucy Stark, long-suffering wife of Willie Stark, loses her freedom by staking her happiness on other people, such as a cheating husband and a spoiled and willful son. She says Heaven has resigned her to her losses but in the end she has staked her tranquility on a baby that is as mortal, and thus subject to being taken away at any time, as her husband and son.

Tom Stark, the governor's son, is a star college football player. The adulation he receives from his adoring father, rabid fans, silly girls, and the gullible press goes right to his head, making him a snot, bully, and carouser.

Jack Burden, the narrator of the novel, is Willie Stark’s operative. Because he doesn’t trust himself to do the right thing, he doesn’t trust the world to do so either. He thinks the world is more cruel and wicked than it really is. This assumption narrows Jack’s freedom and sends him into depressions that put him to sleep for hours on end.

Sugar-Boy O'Sheean is Willie Stark's bodyguard and driver. His devotion to Willie Stark makes him a flunky.  Sugar Boy is a stand-in for the patriots that figure they would - because anybody would -  abuse a powerful position, if they only had a chance to exploit a position that gives them the right to filch anything that people can’t stop them from filching.

Sadie Burke is Willie Stark's consiglieri and long-time mistress. Her hankering for power comes out of her brutal childhood and adolescence – one can only imagine the oppression and violence experienced by poor rural women in the early part of the 20^th century. Bitter and angry, she’s determined to control, not be controlled, and Willie is her partner in her desperate efforts.

Tiny Duffy, a political hack, is treated like the lickspittle that he is by Willie Stark. Duffy trades his dignity to wield authority and enrich himself. As for the creepy character of Gummy Larson, he wants a fat government contract by any means necessary but cold as ice, he doesn’t seem to enjoy the normal pleasures of beer and party girls, thus implying he must be a pawn of disturbing pleasures.

Adam Stanton, a star doctor, is Jack Burden’s childhood friend. As protection against close relationships, he has wrapped himself in a cocoon of work.  He accepts a position as director of a planned medical facility which Willie Stark wants to build. Too idealistic, he flips out when his ideas of what should be are smashed and he feels the butt of nasty talk. Adam does not know how little the world cares or remembers after a nine-days’ wonder has passed.

For the sake of security and stability, Jack Burden's Mother has been married four times, but never to the man whom she really loves. I dislike spoilers so I can't describe the safety and security issues that dog Judge Montague Irwin and Anne Stanton, the sister of Adam Stanton.

There’s also a brilliant flashback set in the pre-Civil War era featuring a brotherly rivalry between Cass and Gilbert Mastern, plus an unhappy love triangle among Cass, Annabelle Trice and her husband Duncan Trice. Desire does it usual number to undermine constancy and happiness.

Warren was a poet so the language is so rich and varied and evocative it gives the impression that the book is overwritten in places. It will take about fifty pages to get accustomed to this elaborate, redolent language. But this is the kind of novel that a reader blinks and looks up and marvels that mere words can suggest so much meaning and feeling and reality. It works on every level of a great story – dramatic unfolding of events, intense conversations and scenes, social comment, forceful pace, penetrating introspection, and as American as a sawed-off shotgun.