'All the King's Men' is not a political novel; rather it is a detective novel written in a style similar to Raymond Chandler's.
Furthermore, I don't think that Willie Stark's story is a study of personal corruption. On the contrary - Willie remained almost saintly in his convictions and behavior until his end. The novel indicts the Southern nobility and the world of politics in general, rather than Willie in particular.

A couple of chapters (the civil war chapter, and the trip to Long Beach/ teenage romance chapter) could've been cut right out with no detriment to the book. In fact, the book would have been better if it focused on Willie and not on Jack Burden. ( )

Accidentally picking this up at the library in the audio book section, I gave the first CD a listen and was hooked throughout all 18 CD's in this large, vast and powerful read.

All The King's Men was originally pulped in 1946 by Robert Penn Warren, and it is a tale about the corruption of a powerful man

I have to get really geeky here and talk about some pop TV for a second. The character Benjamin Linus on ABC's Lost is played by Michael Emerson is one of my favorite TV characters of all time.

I was pleased to find out that All The King's Men, the audio book version is read by none other than the Michael Emerson. And since the story is told in first person, Emerson becomes the central charaacter of the story, Jack Burden. There was a movie made recently based on this book, and Burden was played by Jude Law, I believe, and the movie tanked.

I'll tell you why it tanked, because Emerson didn't play Jack Burden. His voice and inflection are perfect and it would be hard to imagine no other as the character because Emerson embodies Burden so well, simply by audio. Imagine what he could do on the big screen.

That being said, let me tell you how awesome this book was. Coming at it from a point where I knew nothing of the story, it was a great trip into mind of Burden. Burden is a news reporter who, as a young man, gets hooked up with Willie Stark, a politician on the rise who begins his career as a straight shooter, someone even Lincoln would be proud of.

But as the story goes on, flashing back and forth from the past to the present, making the book feel timeless and move quickly despite its length, we find Stark turning into the thing we feared he would become most, a politician. Stark's rise and downfall are chronicled by Burden, who tells how his past and present life mix in and blend together with Starks, touching at all points.

Burden's thoughts and comments about life and the goings on in the story are often pessimistic and hopeless, and that's perhaps what this book does so well, in that it eventually saves Jack Burden but allows Stark to fall off the deep end, and not a page too late for either.

Warren can write southern dialect with the best of them: McCarthy, Faulkner, and the conversations in the book feel real and genuine. Nothing reads so good as some southern fried dialog.

This book is deep and touches on many aspects of life: parenthood, death, pride, love, loss of love, philosophy, history, and politics. The characters are singular, and I don't think we'll see another Jack Burden in literature for a long time--someone so callused on the outside but vulnerable as well, with quick wit, a lack of regard for any authority, and one who eventually admits he was wrong about everything.

I loved this book, and will read it again in the future. If you are a fan of audio books, you must do this one in your ears. I never experienced a better experience with a narrator than I did with Emerson's Burden. Pick it up, and enjoy. ( )

Thanks to the modern miracle of free online audiobooks that can be checked out through various libraries, I was able to listen to All the King's Men while working. Warren's book, not to be confused with Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward's 1974 investigation into Watergate - All the President's Men, is the story of the political rise and fall of the fictional governor Willie Stark, loosely based on Huey Long, former governor and U.S. Senator from Louisiana.

Warren creates an interesting story that definitely brought to mind images of the rampant political corruption in Louisiana in the first half of the 1900s (and arguably even later) that I learned about in history class. He also show, I believe, his incredible literary skills by simply keeping his story straight. Warren makes extensive use of the "flashback" literary tool to the point that the reader tends to lose all sense of past and present. While I'm sure this is effective when reading the actual book, it caused me some problems as I listened. I often had trouble remembering where we were in time, especially after pausing to go home for the night.

For this reason I definitely recommend reading the actual printed book. Something else that helped me to follow along generally was the fact that I had watched the Academy award-winning movie adaptation recently. While the movie leaves out multiple story lines and deviates from the plot of the book, seeing the movie helped me to envision what was going on in the book and anticipate the time-jumping. Warren did claim that he did not intend for this book to be a political story, but I feel that it and the movie are both important commentaries on how power can corrupt. If you have a chance, read the book and/or watch the movie. ( )

I read this book four years ago, the summer before my senior year of high school, and I still think back on it from time to time, especially when driving long distances at night--the time when, as Warren's narrator claims, one is most alone, most truly unique (between the "You"s that you take on around other people). I don't remember the exact quote anymore, obviously, but it was quite powerful, and the meaning sticks with me all the same.

I'd say this holds true for the book as a whole, too. I took issue with some of the details--the prose dragged occasionally, some of the characters were flat, etc--but portions did affect me, and the themes were well presented.

I'd give this book 3/5 stars; it's not Warren's strongest, but you'll find yourself meditating on it for years to come. ( )

This is a classic of Southern American literature that can hold its head up proudly next to other works in the genre, Faulkner among them.

This 1947 Pulitzer Prize winner tells the tragic parallel tales of Wille Stark, a boy from the farm who rises to great political power, and Jack Burden, an aristocratic journalist who becomes his right-hand man. It is a moving and complex tale of love, corruption, loss and redemption caught up in family, history and the quest for power. Although it's a commitment to read a book this long and dense, it pays off with a great story, a brilliant subtext on humanity, a powerful peek into the excesses of political life, and a clear sense of what Southern literature can offer. Books like this are why I read: to understand just a little of what makes human beings tick. Marvelous. ( )