Jude the obscure audiobook free download

It will be up to you; if you decide to "liberate" the book, tucking it under your shirt, and sneaking it out with the paper bag of home made oatmeal cookies she always sends you home with. If you are not a natural felon you might just say "hey auntie couldn't you tuck this in a safety deposit box and put my name on it". We sat in a little cafe across from where they were setting up a shoot hoping for a glimpse of one of the marquee actors involved in the production.

No luck, just film crew people bustling around trying to build a street scene. We were anxious to explore the little bookshops and artist galleries in the French Quarter, so we left before seeing anything truly interesting. I have not seen the or film versions. From the reviews I skimmed, both movies seem to struggle to capture the true essence of the book.

I'm not surprised, even if they put the book through a small holed strainer, they would still have way more material than what a standard length movie can handle. A man hand picked to split the vote in the primary and insure the nomination of the customary corrupt, crony, politician that Louisiana is famous for. Stark is the only person who is unaware that the fix is on.

He is stumping and receiving discouraging indifference from his crowds as he tries to tell them the truth. As he finds himself on the ropes more than he is in the ring, he starts to understand that to be successful he will have to give the crowds what they want. He replaces substance with hyperbole, and Burden observes the emergence of a candidate and the corruption of an honest man.

Warren based Stark on the dynamic personage of Louisiana governor Huey P. Huey P. Long Burden soon finds himself unemployed, but Stark always liked him and gave him a prominent position on his staff.

Stark, though soundly defeated, uses the time between elections to become a polished orator and electable candidate. Burden studied for a history degree in college and believes from his studies that truth will always win out. As he becomes more ensnared in the shady activities of Governor Stark's administration he starts to stumble over his own high ideas of the worthiness of truth.

He tries to convince himself that he just does what the boss wants him to do. What the boss does with the information he brings him has nothing to do with him, but the longer he is involved, and the more people he knows who become victims of Stark's ambition the less distance he can claim. I didn't think--" And all the while that cold, unloving part of the mind--that maiden aunt, that washroom mirror the drunk stares into, that still small voice, that maggot in the chess of your self-esteem, that commentator on the ether nightmare, that death's-head of lipless rationality at your every feast--all that while that part of the mind was saying: You're making it worse, your lying is just making it worse, can't you shut up, you blabbermouth!

Briefly they are an item and then they drift apart. Burden marries Lois, the woman who has the "peach bloom of cheeks, the pearly ripe but vigorous bosom, the supple midriff, the brooding, black, velvety-liquid eyes, the bee-stung lips, the luxurious thighs.

He becomes close friends with Anne again. He can't help but make allusions to the fact that his marriage proposal is still on the table. Even though she is 35 and never been married she continues to dance around the issue. Burden can't ever see her as just a friend. He came to the conclusion that it was better to destroy them than to bribe them. If he bribes them he still has to keep those untrustworthy associates in his organization. If he destroys them they can no longer thwart his ambitious aims.

He is on a self-imposed mission to use the corrupt system, but use it for good. Yeah, just plain, simple goodness. Well you can't inherit that from anybody. You got to make it. If you want it. And you got to make it out of badness. And you know why?

Because there isn't anything else to make it out of. I never saw it coming and I had to stagger away from the book for a while. Jack took 8 days and ran away to California. I took thirty minutes to go stand out on my deck and let some fresh air sort my scattered thoughts. I almost need a separate review to handle the intricate betrayals explored by Warren in that section. I notice that the departure from the main story line bothered other reviewers.

I just thought I'd been handed another thick seam of gold to be mined. I like history and I especially like family history, so I didn't mind the story in the story at all. Political cynicism wrapped in lyrical prose makes this one of the more fascinating books I've read in many, many years. It is an honest book, exposing all the worst elements of human behavior. We are so good at fooling ourselves into thinking that when we do wrong for the greater good we are still on the side of the angels.

Highly recommended!! If anyone has any political novels that they love, and feel I should read, please send me your recommendations. View all 59 comments. Feb 20, Matt rated it it was amazing Shelves: politics , classic-novels. Where every boy is Barney Oldfield, and the girls wear organdy and batiste and eyelet embroidery and no panties on account of the climate and have smooth little faces to break your heart and when the wind of the car's speed lifts up their hair at the temples you see the sweet little beads of perspiration nestling there, and they sit low in the seat with their little spines crooked and their bent knees high toward the dashboard and not too close together for the cool, if you call it that, from the hood ventilator.

Where the smell of gasoline and burning brake bands and redeye is sweeter than myrrh. It is, in fact, one of my favorite books. Funnily enough, that makes it hard to talk about.

Poorly-drawn characters, lazy plotting, and clueless pacing are simple to highlight. I had just passed the bar exam, I was engaged to be married, and I was weeks away from my first real job. Over time, and with a plot contrivance or two, Willie climbs the ladder to real power, able to do good things like building roads and schools and hospitals. A real man of the people.

Stark, like Ahab, is the center of gravity, but not necessarily the focus. The story flows through them but is not necessarily about them. It is Jack with whom we spend most of our time. And not for money. But I know It is an arrangement founded on the nature of things. Unlike Ishmael, Jack is actually interesting most of the time. For all the side-paths and narrative excursions, which see Jack putting together the mysteries of his youth, I was never less than fully engaged.

One element that jumps out are his long, detail-packed sentences, filled with rhythm and repetition, sentences that start one way, seem to veer off, then loop back to their origin. It can be exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Every bit of good in Willie is balanced by a bit of bad. The constant horse trading, in which ideals have less currency that expediencies, holds true today.

For all its uncertainty about politicians, it is more sure about humans in general. There is, for example, a beautiful passage where Jack is ruminating about falling in love: [F]or when you get in love you are made all over again. The person who loves you has picked you out of the great mass of uncreated clay which is humanity to make something out of, and the poor lumpish clay which is you wants to find out what it has been made into.

But at the same time, you, in the act of loving somebody, become real, cease to be part of the continuum of the uncreated clay and get the breath of life in you and rise up.

So you create yourself by creating another person, who, however, has also created you, picked up the you-chunk of clay out of the mass. So there are two you's, the one you yourself create by loving and the one the beloved creates by loving you. The farther these two you's are apart the more the world grinds and grudges on its axis. But if you loved and were loved perfectly then there wouldn't be any difference between the two you's or any distance between them.

They would coincide perfectly, there would be perfect focus, as when a stereoscope gets the twin images on the card into perfect alignment. It is a surprising bit of writing to find in a book that has been sold — since the time it was first published — as a bracingly cleareyed look at the dark side of democracy. It is a novel filled with ornate prose and memorable passages and excellent dialogue, and which is populated by characters that are hard to forget.

Though it is sometimes as slow as a summer afternoon in the deep south, it creates a world that you are in no real hurry to leave. View all 11 comments. Feb 29, Heather rated it really liked it Shelves: literary-novels. Compelling, overstuffed, overplotted, sexist, labyrinthine, poetic, atmospheric.

To me this book's status as The Great American Political Novel seems like a terrific bitter joke, because the author's vision of "politics" is comprised entirely of blackmail, physical intimidation, pork-barreling, rabble-rousing, nepotism, bribery, rigged elections, and hilariously contrived "family values" photo shoots.

I love the scene where a photographer and two aides attempt to wrestle a comatose, foul-smelli Compelling, overstuffed, overplotted, sexist, labyrinthine, poetic, atmospheric. I love the scene where a photographer and two aides attempt to wrestle a comatose, foul-smelling dog into position for a shot of the dog leaping up to greet its beloved master, the Governor! There are lengthy meditations on the Human Condition, the nature of History, the problem of Free Will, the Original Sin of slavery as a hereditary taint corrupting the southern upper class, etc What an array!

There are a number of rather heavy-handed themes, of which I thought the most interesting was the contrast between Jack the self-identified "student of history" and product of History, and Willie the man without a history There seems to be a trade-off between History and Act. Jack is Burdened by the past at every level -- his parents' broken marriage, his half-mad father, his unfinished dissertation, the end of the plantation class's reign in Southern politics, the guilt of slavery.

He lives in a fog of depression, cynicism, sophistication, and rationalization. He is fascinated by Willie at their first meeting because Willie is his opposite: an earnest rube who seems unaware of his own dorkiness and believes the political game could and should be played fair. But Willie isn't just a naif. He's also a kind of monster. Even at that early stage there's a monstrous ego and ambition germinating inside him Where does his ambition come from?

What sets Willie apart from any other impoverished child of dirt farmers in any other wretched little town like Mason City? And which side is the true Willie Stark -- the idealist who fights on behalf of poor farmers and families, the builder of new roads and schools and hospitals, or the bully who fights for the sadistic joy of humiliating and dominating others? These mysteries haunt the novel, and Penn Warren never offers a solution.

Willie remains an enigma from start to finish. I don't think the Jack Burden plot has aged particularly well. It has the kind of heavy-handed Freudianism you see in s movies View all 25 comments. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. It was adapted for a film in and ; the version won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is rated as the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library, and it was chosen as one of Time magazine's best novels.

All the King's Men portrays the dramatic and theatrical political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, a cynical, liberal populist in the American South during the s.

The novel is narrated by Jack Burden, a political reporter who comes to work as Governor Stark's right-hand man. The trajectory of Stark's career is interwoven with Jack Burden's life story and philosophical reflections: "the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in one sense, one story. This was a wonderful book. I listened to it on Audible, but it was so well-written that I have ordered hard-copy as well. The story of Willie Stark and Jack Burden which are the same story as the narrator says is both poignant and realistic.

Seen through the cynical and poetic eyes of Burden, the Southern cronyism of Huey Long is parodied here and honestly reminds me of recent and current American political history. The writing is absolutely spectacular - Penn Warren is the only person ever This was a wonderful book. The writing is absolutely spectacular - Penn Warren is the only person ever to win Pulitzers for both Fiction and Poetry and even his prose here is chock-full of vivid images and analogies. The one negative is the use of the n-word, but I suppose that Jack would have spoken this way and that back in '46 when it was written, attitudes were definitely different.

That being said, Jack does seem to take some offense at how blacks are treated he is less obliging about women in my view , despite his nihilism towards everyone and everything else. The side story of Cass was excellent as well.

There is almost nothing to fault in this book and it deserves a place up with the greatest American 20th century fiction. Five stars hands-down. View all 5 comments.

Recommended to Lawyer by: Freshman serendipity at a college bookstore. Shelves: populism , , marriage , corruption , books-into-movies , favorites , first-person-narrative , politics , death , the-great-depression. There is always something. The film changed the identity of Judge Irwin to Judge Stanton. A slight problem with the object of Jack's romance. Harry William's masterful biography of Huey Long this isn't it.

But Williams does have something to say that pointedly echoes the themes Robert Penn Warren wove into a masterpiece of American politics. They appear in response to conditions, but they may alter the conditions, may give a new direction to history.

In the process they may do great good or evil or both, but whatever the case they leave a different kind of world behind them. Knopf, I was fortunate to find the Thirty-Fifth Edition of the novel, published in It contained a new, and very informative introduction by Warren. Warren did not originally envision this work as a novel, but as a tragic drama entitled "Proud Flesh. He realized that he had focused on a man of power rather than those few people who are always surrounding that man of power, and in writing All the King's Men , Warren focused on the "Greek" chorus to whom he had not given proper voice in his originally conceived work.

So, there we have the title, "All the King's Men," the chorus that relates the rise and fall of Willie Stark. For all great men have an inner circle, some of whom are as vague as phantoms, performing the will of the King and they will perform that will whether it be good or evil. Warren proposes the question of whether those minions are mere pawns or whether they recognize the consequences of their actions and accept responsibility for them, and if so, can they find redemption for the evil they do, even when it is couched in terms of doing good.

Willie Stark, the Boss, is a practical man. So, politics is a dirty business. He tells us, "Dirt's a funny thing, come to think of it, there ain't a thing but dirt on this green God's globe except what's under water, and that's dirt too. It's dirt makes the grass grow. A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot.

And God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you do with the dirt. And it is Jack Burden who provides the moral center of the novel.

In one long narrative voice, Jack, a child of privilege, intrigues us relating the present and the past, not only Willie's but his own. Willie's rise is rather straight forward. As Williams tells us in Long's biography, Willie appears on the Louisiana scene in response to conditions of the Great Depression, which seemingly provided the fuel for Populism common to that era.

Jack comes from a level of society that comprised the previous leaders of Louisiana, a class who would forever be opposed to a man of Willie Stark's origin and philosophy. He is the friend of Adam and Anne Stanton, the children of the governor preceding Stark.

His mentor is Judge Irwin who advised and influenced Jack from his youth. His father, Ellis Burden, the "scholarly lawyer" is a good friend of the Judge. His mother is beautiful, poised, and confident. So, why would Ellis Burden walk out of his law office one day to become a street evangelist?

But Jack's mother has no problem keeping a stream of husbands in her bed. It's enough to make a fellow a little cynical. Rebellious, too. Rebellious enough to go to State University and study history. Jack has a future. He's working on his doctorate, studying the papers of an ancestor named Cass Mastern. The papers of Mastern serve as a mirror of Jack's life. But Mastern, who betrayed a friend by having a love affair with his friend's wife, lives the rest of his life with the knowledge of that betrayal.

It is Cass who writes in his journal, The world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but springs out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things.

This is a premise that Jack would rather reject. Rather, Jack grasps on to the theory of the "Great Twitch," a world in which the actions of people are no more controllable than the muscles of a frog's leg twitching in response to an electrical impulse. However it is Cass Mastern who was correct. In rejecting his ancestor's journal, Jack becomes the cynical, wisecracking news reporter assigned to cover Willie Stark's first gubernatorial election.

It is Jack Burden, along with savvy political advisor Sadie Burke who tell Stark he's been duped into running to split the vote of the opposing candidate to bring about the win by yet another politician. Jack Burden and Sadie Burke telling Willie he's been had.

It is that campaign that transforms not only Willie Stark into a Kingfish lookalike, but transforms Jack into Stark's most trusted fix it man. And so it is that a chain of consequences begins to be unveiled, each the result of a deliberate, undeniable action.

Even the death of Willie Stark is a consequence of one of the Boss's improvident decisions. As Warren wrote, "The end of man is knowledge but there's one thing he can't know. He can't know whether knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it would save him. Can Willie Stark find redemption?

Willie's death comes about, not from an assassin who believes him to be a dictator, but for a very personal reason. Nor will I even resort to a spoiler alert. I'm simply not going to tell you, because I want you to read this book. And what of Jack? I will share the final sentence, and I remind you that Jack is the narrator.

To say this is a masterpiece about American politics is true. But it goes much further than that. It is a reminder that the past is the father of the future. They are inevitably inseparable. View all 19 comments. Jul 18, Lyn rated it it was amazing. Robert Penn Warren's, All the Kings Men won the Pulitzer prize, and could also have won that prize in the next three years. Is this pages of poetic prose or a great epic prosaic poem?

This work would make a great primer for college English lit majors, I think Warren used every literary device and may have made up some more. And like so many master performances of art or sport, he makes it look effortless, he makes it look easy. This was like watching Joe DiMaggio glide across the outf Robert Penn Warren's, All the Kings Men won the Pulitzer prize, and could also have won that prize in the next three years.

This was like watching Joe DiMaggio glide across the outfield or Ted Williams at the plate, or Led Zeppelin on stage, this was swaggering virtuosity. Telling the fictionalized account of Huey Long, Warren goes on to create the great American novel. Though the setting is politics, the book is not really about politics, the political stage is just a vehicle by which Warren explores a multi-layered, complicated series of thematic, interwoven observations on Western Civilization, and particularly our American chapter in that saga.

This is periodically correct and yet timeless. Beautifully written and absolutely brilliant. Jan 25, Kemper rated it really liked it Shelves: , politics , , famous-books. At first glance, Willie Stark seems like he would have been the perfect Tea Party candidate. But on the other hand, Willie actually knows something about government and uses his tactics to improve the lives of poor people by taxing the wealthy and using that money to do things At first glance, Willie Stark seems like he would have been the perfect Tea Party candidate.

This classic novel tells the story of Willie Stark through the eyes of Jack Burden. Jack came from a privileged background but eventually turned his back on that life and became a cynical political newspaper reporter in an unnamed corrupt southern state.

Stark is a smart, hardworking and principled county commissioner, but he gets in over his head when he tries to award a government contract to the actual best bid and the corrupt politicians trash him for it. Then Stark is tricked into running for governor by the state political machine to split the rural vote and make sure that the party favorite wins. Using his new populist tactics of playing up his upbringing as a poor farm boy who taught himself law at nights and promises to kick the collective ass of the political good-ole-boy network, Stark eventually does win the governorship, and Jack joins him as his political hatchet man.

Stark no longer cares about doing things the right way. He becomes a political force in the state through a combination of bullying, cajoling or bribing anyone who gets in his way. Jack has no problems with the way that Willie runs thing until the governor gets angry at the incorruptible Judge Irwin for backing a rival in an election.

However, Jack has known and admired the Judge since childhood so he has reservations about the assignment. I absolutely loved the way that Stark is portrayed in this book.

It was inspired by Huey P. Long in Louisiana, a politician who accomplished a lot for the poor of his state but did so with highly questionable methods. Once he saw the ugliness of reality behind the scenes, Willie seemingly adopts the same tactics without a second thought. He brings an entire region alive with a cast that includes everyone from the high society to the poorest farmers. His descriptions are so good that you can almost feel the humidity and hear the insects at times.

I would have liked more of Willie laying on the charm or ruthlessly taking down an opponent. They say that watching government work is like watching sausage get made. This story gives weight to this idea. Even if the goal is accomplished, is the whole thing tainted because of how it came about? And how can a person with even the best of intentions work in a system like this without becoming corrupted?

View all 3 comments. Jun 25, Barbara rated it really liked it. Meaning to do good, Willie Stark rises from self-educated lawyer to political bigwig and eventually governor. Along the way he loses his moral compass and develops a taste for power, resorting to bullying, bribery, blackmail - whatever it takes - to get what he wants.

Willie does manage to help some of his constituents, taxing the wealthy to provide schools and hospitals for the poor. But he also betrays his wife; raises a selfish, self-absorbed son; corrupts good people; and eventually reaps the Meaning to do good, Willie Stark rises from self-educated lawyer to political bigwig and eventually governor. But he also betrays his wife; raises a selfish, self-absorbed son; corrupts good people; and eventually reaps the consequences of his actions.

Willie's story is told by Jack Burden, a journalist who signs on to be Willie's right hand man. Thinking of himself as essentially a good guy Jack believes he's 'only doing his job' when he betrays some of his closest friends at Willie's behest. I gave the book 4 stars rather than 5 because the philosophical rantings of some characters was tedious and incomprehensible to me. Overall, this is a superbly written book with fascinating characters and the trajectory of a Greek tragedy.

Though published in the s the book seems just as relevant today in it's depiction of political machinations. Highly recommended. View all 12 comments. King of Pain Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South.

They're inexpensive and easy to procure. Long La. The story King of Pain Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South.

The story follows the political rise and fall of the fictional Willie Stark, who came from modest roots as a small town lawyer and made it into office as a populist before the Depression, to be elected twice as governor of a Southern state. Warren left references to location intentionally vague, even throwing in red herrings about coming in from the "beach" at a close-by vacation home Louisiana has lakes, but no beaches; it's oceanfront: the wetlands leading into the Gulf of Mexico.

Jack Burden, the novel's narrator, was a former newspaper columnist and history student before becoming Governor Stark's right hand man. He is exceedingly dispassionate as a bystander and participant in the ongoing tragedy, and remains so despite watching the tragedy unfold and suffering two epic betrayals. Maybe Penn Warren was going for the shock or sense of bewilderment a reader may feel about the narrator seemingly not being affected by occurrences that would likely devastate any normal person.

This is not simply a political novel as I thought; I was surprised to learn that Warren said he didn't intend it to be one. The book is much more about: all actions having consequences, intended or not; accepting responsibility for one's actions; issues of identity, such as how a boy can be affected even as a man in his 30s upon learning the true identity of his father; and, maybe most substantially, the variety and grades of betrayal and the impact of each on the betrayed and the betrayer.

I don't like lectures. All in all, I enjoyed the book immensely for its political nature, its place and time and its exploration of these various themes. And what a book it was. Years ago on one of my first trips to New Orleans, I was enthralled with the culture, the history and the mystique that just screamed from the the banks of the Mississippi River. And one of my most memorable moments was riding over the Huey P Long Bridge spanning Lake Ponchetrain while the bus driver regaled us all with his many stories about Huey P Long.

Because you see, Huey P Long was a populist and the flamboyant governor of the state of Louisiana in the late s. And this sprawling historical fiction novel is based on his life and career in Louisiana government in the fictional character of Governor Willie Stark. But it is really the story of Jack Burden, his aide and as a former newspaper correspondent, deep into historical research. Now I have to admit, that I loved the character of Jack Burden on so many levels as he attempts to come to terms with where he is in this world.

He can't know whether the knowledge will save him or kill him. He will be killed, all right, but he can't know whether he is killed because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he has got or because of the knowledge which he hasn't got and which if he had it, would save him. There's the cold in your stomach, but you open the envelope, you have to open the envelope, for the end of man is to know.

And a memorable quote: And you can go back in good spirits, for you will have learned two very great truths. First, that you cannot lose what you have never had. Second, that you are never guilty of a crime which you did not commit. So there is innocence and a new start in the West, after all. If you believe the dream, you dream when you go there. View all 10 comments. In short, this is the transformative journey of politician Willie Stark and his assistant Jack Burden.

View all 17 comments. The image I got in my head that day was the image of her face lying in the water, very smooth, with the eyes closed, under the dark greenish-purple sky, with the white gull passing over.

This is probably the first fairly good review I ever wrote on Goodreads or anywhere, of course. Seems hardly anyone has ever seen it. Ran across it tonight in an old Word doc and thought I'd repost it.

The book is a classic. I first read it about 40 years ago. Having just finished my second reading I think only The image I got in my head that day was the image of her face lying in the water, very smooth, with the eyes closed, under the dark greenish-purple sky, with the white gull passing over. Having just finished my second reading I think only two , I think the book is a better novel than I remembered it as, though I've always felt it was a "five-star" book.

Of the two stories in the book the story of Willie Stark, based loosely or perhaps not so loosely on the life of Huey Long, and the story of the narrator Jack Burden, based presumably on the imagination but perhaps also on some of the artistic and philosophical beliefs of the author , the former is more entertaining, and is easier to understand.

However, having just a few days ago watched the Ken Burns PBS documentary on Huey Long, I am struck now that Warren's Willie Stark has nowhere near the extremes of "good" and "evil" that Long was perceived to have by his supporters and enemies.

The question that arises from Huey Long's career is, Can a good man woman effect great and good changes, and still be true to his good nature? Or does the real world in which the changes need be made ineluctably force them to be made by resorting to force, the illegal or extra-legal , and ultimately violence? These questions are not answered in All the King's Men , and I'm not sure that they are even posed. Willie Stark, it seems to me, is brought down not by an excessive desire to change the power structures of his state though that plays a part , but much more by a confluence of unlikely and unlucky events.

The latter story I feel to be not quite as entertaining, but perhaps that's because it's a more difficult story to dig down through and unravel. I think it's also because much of this story, which one could think the author might have meant to illustrate some "truths" about life that the first story didn't touch on, requires that the reader ferret out what those truths are, whether he or she agrees that they are truths, and whether he or she finally judges that even if they are true, they are significant truths.

Or perhaps it's best and maybe more true to what Warren meant to do in the novel to simply read Jack's story, and the conclusions he draws about life, as simply the tale of a fictional character and his search for personal truth, in which case we can judge this story by whether the character and his tale are both interesting and believable.

On these criteria I would give the Jack Burden story an "A". Even though, by the way, I wouldn't argue that Jack is a very likeable character. He has an awful lot of faults actually, but these are believable human faults. On a personal note, I found it interesting how much of the book I didn't remember from the first time. Essentially, other than the broad sweep of the story, I remembered very little.

In particular, I remembered little of the last chapter, I remembered nothing of chapter 7 Jack Burden's flight to California, and the story of his falling in love with Anne , and I had no recollection that I had ever felt the writing in chapter 4 to be so evocative I think now of Faulkner.

Of course when this book was published in , Robert Penn Warren surely had read most, if not all, of Faulkner's fiction, being as he Warren was among a group of Southern writers and poets who had been making waves for several years by then. This quote to me is extremely poignant, and expresses a psychological truth which I feel very strongly; it also reminded me of Proust. The three of them swam in the Bay together often, and one time they were swimming in very calm waters under a darkening sky.

What happened was this: I got an image in my head that never got out. We see a great many things and can remember a great many things, but that is different. We get very few of the true images in our heads of the kind I am talking about, the kind which become more and more vivid for us as if the passage of the years did not obscure their reality but, year by year, drew off another veil to expose a meaning which we had only dimly surmised at first.

Very probably the last veil will not be removed, for there are not enough years, but the brightness of the image increases and our conviction increases that the brightness is meaning, or the legend of meaning, and without the image our lives would be nothing except an old piece of film rolled on a spool and thrown into a desk drawer among the unanswered letters.

Obviously others have been struck by it. View all 9 comments. This Pulitzer Prize winner was not a disappointment. It is a beautifully written master class in plot, description and character development.

Set in the late s, this is the story of the rise and fall of the southern politician Willy Stark as told by Jack Burden, the former reporter who now works for Stark.

Both Stark and Burden are rich, complex characters and the arcs of their lives are as compelling as Greek tragedy. Apr 22, Camie rated it it was amazing. First off, I would nominate this book as one highly in need of a much improved cover design. That being said, it perfectly fits the old adage about judging a book by it's mundane cover. I love it when a book surprises me and the dread of reading it club choice turns into excitement.

The back-page blurb praises it as a Pulitzer Prize winner following the political career of Willie Stark, a fictional character loosely based on that of Huey "Kingfish" Long a post Depression Era Louisiana gove First off, I would nominate this book as one highly in need of a much improved cover design. The back-page blurb praises it as a Pulitzer Prize winner following the political career of Willie Stark, a fictional character loosely based on that of Huey "Kingfish" Long a post Depression Era Louisiana governor.

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