Reviewing the 100 Best Novels of the 20th
Century
by
Annette Ferran
All the King’s Men
All
the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren (#36 on the Modern
Library’s list) is a story of political corruption and of the trickling-down
effect of a political machine, the lust for power that drives it and the
infection it spreads. Narrated by Jack Burden, a young man enamored of and caught
up in the machinations, the novel is complex in characters and plotting and
vibrant in its prose.
The
opening scene sets the tone and establishes the metaphor of the story. It says, with journalistic immediacy
and in zinging, popping style like that of the Beats (though written a decade
before them), this: You could go careening off the road, mesmerized as you are
by speed, the power of your car, and the gleaming black road – brand-new – laid
out before you. You could drop a
wheel off the edge, lose control, and go hurtling to an untimely death
witnessed by people who don’t seem to matter much to society, who have seen it
before, who remark on it briefly and sardonically before returning to their
labors. Or you might catch yourself in time and avert your own tragic demise.
The
central figure of this story, Willie Stark, quickly became the iconic
politician, one who seeks power and more power, manipulating people and ruining
lives just because he can. He is
the image of the corrupting influence of power, and of the denigration of the
notions of a Democracy, which at the time the story is set (late 1930s) was a
hot topic the world over.
Just
as compelling are the stories dependent on Willie’s, the stories of Jack
Burden, his childhood friend, Adam Stanton, the woman he’s in love with, Ann
Stanton (Adam’s sister), and his mentor, Judge Irwin. Jack is happy to be taken
up by Willie Stark, to be an important person to this important man, to swagger
around town with Willie’s gang, who have nicknames instead of real names, like
gangsters. He is happy to maintain
what he believes is his impartiality as a newspaper reporter. He is happy to
reel into this world these other people from his earlier life. He believes he
can see through Willie, and keep him in proper perspective. He casts his descriptive
judgment on Willie: the man with the Christmas tie and the schoolteacher wife.
He sees himself as in-the-know, smart and connected, cool, immune to
influence. He’s just as immune to
Willie’s growing perfidy as he is to Adam’s high moralism. He knows himself and knows what’s what.
In
Jack’s self-delusion is the power of this story. How strong a personality do
you have to be to withstand the personality of someone like Willie Stark? How
many tiny little compromises to the relentlessness of that personality does it
take to break down your own? You take these tiny little steps in the name of
picking your battles, in the name of furthering your own career, in the name of
avoiding conflict, or even maybe out of moral laziness. And then one day you find
you’ve gone a step too far. You find you have put aside your own ethical values
and are yourself a corrupt individual, without claim to scruples.
This
story takes place on the grand scale of American political office, where the
power of corruption is supposed to matter the most. It was supposedly (though
the author reportedly disclaimed this) based on a real politician who was big at the time. Over the decades, the story has played out
again and again, to the point that it almost goes without saying that
government is a machine operated by a small ambitious and unscrupulous group,
excluding all of us weary laboring menials. But this story also hits at the
level of individual lives, in the workplace, for instance: it is no coincidence
that Willie Stark is called “Boss.”
In All the King’s Men, Jack’s
myriad compliances and appeasements lead to abject tragedy. In life, the outcomes can be subtler. It
is a cautionary tale, told with brilliance.
Annette
Ferran lives in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and
works in Philadelphia as an editor for a medical publisher. She is also the Associate Editor
for 10,000 Tons of Black Ink, a
Literary Writers Network publication. She has a degree of dubious practical
use, in German, and is a lifelong avid reader of fiction and lover of lists.
She has had a few short stories published, most recently in RE:AL.
