54/100
5 out of 5 Stars
Though it may be considered the greatest novel in American literature concerning politics, politics are only a vessel for which this remarkable story unfolds. We are introduced to Willie Stark, a caricature of a real-life Louisiana Governor, and his rise to political fame and success, both of which come at the expense of morality, the expense of truth, and the expense of the soul. Most synopses focus on Willie Stark, indeed the back cover of my copy is testament, but the real focus, our hero, our child of history, is Jack Burden, a journalist who comes to work for Willie Stark. But maybe that isn’t even a proper assessment. It might be correct to categorize them as both the focal point of the story, dual protagonists- interchangeable. “And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost,” says Warren. Burden and Stark are the good and bad churned together throughout the story, ever fluctuating; Burden righteous at the outset is drawn to vice under Stark’s command, and Stark morally corrupted yet he sees that the bad he creates in essence breathes life into the good, in fact argues is the only thing that can. But this dichotomy does not begin and end with Burden and Stark, but is present throughout, juxtaposed between many characters, overlapping pairs: Burden and Adam Stanton; Stark and Stanton; Anne Stanton and Sadie Burke; Burden and Tiny Duffy- and the list goes on- in a stylistic chronology of past interwoven seamlessly into the narrative. The “student of history,” at times unconsciously delves into long remembrances of the past to bring needed weight to the present, to show us bad birthing good, and good creating bad. “[T]hat we can keep the past only by having the future, for they are forever tied together,” Burden muses over Anne Stanton, years ago, when they were still so young. And then later, when it’s nearly all said and done, “I tried to tell her how if you could not accept the past and its burden there was no future, for without one there cannot be the other…” Certainly, all this could be linked to politics, but for all the boasting of political insight, Warren captures a wide, wonderful, roaming portrait of the human condition, and the failures and triumphs of man. Many have come to this novel for the corruption and disenfranchisement of our politics, but I, and I hope others, walk away with a greater sense of who we are.
