“But if anything is certain it is that no story is ever over, for the story which we think is over is only a chapter in a story which will not be over, and it isn’t the game that is over, it is just an inning, and that game has a lot more than nine innings. When the game stops it will be called on account of darkness. But it is a long day.”
Dates read: November 27- December 6, 2015
Rating: 10/10
Awards/Lists: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Time’s All-Time 100 Novels, Newsweek’s Top 100 Books, The Observer’s 100 Best Novels
Like I mentioned a little while back, apart from my bookworm tendencies, I’m also a big fan of movies. I remember watching the Sean Penn movie version of this novel and (like many critics for what was supposed to be an awards-bait picture) walking away deeply unimpressed. I didn’t even really remember the plot of the story, except that the main character was supposedly based on former Governor of Louisiana Huey Long and that it was “about” political corruption.
As it turns out, the actual novel is only partially about political corruption. Politics is mostly a framing device for the real story. The meat of the book is about how actions have consequences, and that there’s no getting around that. Reporter-turned-political-staffer-type Jack Burden (it’s hard to describe what it actually is he does for Willie Stark, the Huey Long analogue referenced above, and don’t think for a second that surname isn’t symbolic) burned out of his Ph.D. program when he uncovered a story that made the consequences of heedless actions too real, and tries to hide behind inaction to save him from having to deal with that kind of responsibility. His work for Stark means that he mostly doesn’t have to make decisions, until it intersects with his personal life in a way that starts forcing him to do just that and refusing to let him slip quietly away from the results.
That central conceit, though, isn’t really clear until you get about halfway through with the story. The first part of the story feels very much like a standard issue dramatic story about yes, politics and corruption. We learn the story of Willie Stark, how he made it from a bumpkin, to a young political appointee fighting a shady, kickback-laden county contract, to a stooge goaded into running for Governor by people using him for their own purposes, to a morally questionable Governor himself. That part of the novel is interesting and easily digestible enough, but the real power of it comes from the later, more philosophical part that shifts Stark’s story into the background and brings Jack’s story up front.
The storyline wrangling and plot development is masterful, but where the real beauty of this book is are the words. Robert Penn Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel, but he also won one for poetry, and you can tell. Picking out a highlight quote was torture…I read this on the Kindle and digitally underlined about half the book because I was so in love with the language. It’s a page turner, but not in a suspenseful kind of way. You just want to keep reading it to keep basking in the glory of the writing. I was sad to put it down when it was over.
Tell me, blog friends: what politically-themed books or movies float your boat?