Dead Fly in the Pudding: Classic Book Club Savors the Taste of All the King’s Men

By Murray Ellison – with Commentary from Author, James Evans

“Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the diddie to the stink of the shroud.”  Robert Penn Warren

By reading All the King’s Men,  Robert Penn Warren’s most acclaimed novel, I witnessed how the corruption of one human soul can affect all of those around him. This type of infection is not unlike the ways we are experiencing Coronavirus in 2020. Paraphrasing Warren, this book is like tasting the dead fly in the middle of sweet pudding. It’s also like a Shakespearean Tragedy set inside of a book of Shakespearean Sonnets.

Warren originally published All the Kings Men in 1946, and it has been restored, revised, and renewed several times in the intervening years. A most notable change is that in the original version, the protagonist is named Willie Talos, and in the Restored version, he becomes Willie Stark. Critics have speculated that the original name was dropped because of its overly negative association of Talos in Edmund Spenser’s epic sixteenth-century poem, “The Fairie Queen.” The name-drop of Talos in All the King’s Men was likely influenced by the extreme adverse reaction of many of the critics and admirers of Huey Long, who the book is supposed to be about. Apparently, the modifications made sufficiently satisfied the critics enough for the book to receive a Pulitzer Prize in 1947 and for the Modern Language Association to list it as the 36^th greatest fictional work. Joseph Lane and several other critics in his 2001 article on All the King’s Men, in the American Political Science Review, called it “the greatest American political novel.”

The book is at least informed by the life of Huey Long (1893 – 1935), the corrupted governor and senator from Louisiana. Warren later stated that his novel is not about the life of Long. However, many of the occurrences happened in the same way as they did in the notorious politician’s life: his rises to power out of the backdrop of a post-dust bowl agrarian society; the source of his power; the deals and promises he made with his allies and foes to build and hold on to power; his marriage and divorce; and ultimately, his assassination as a consequence of his corrupt actions. Perhaps Warren’s denial that the story is about the late Louisiana politician shows that Warren did not wish to face continued severe negative reactions from Long’s supporters. It is a conventional literary device for an author to design a character based on an actual historical person and then say any resemblances are coincidental. Lane considers the general theme of the book as “the corrupting nature of power.” Thus, it is a highly relevant read for our times, as we reflect on how politicians use and often destroy those around them as they rise and hold onto power. The novel shows how Long rose and fell to power, and brought all of the others directly inside and tangentially connected to his network tumbling down in the end. The tale is told through the narrator, Jack Burden, an operative of Stark.  Warren’s most direct literary influence for his book was the Mother Goose rhyme, “Humpty Dumpty.”

         Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,

         Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

         All the King’s Horses and All the Kings Men

         Could not put Humpty Dumpty Together again.

Our Classic book club had its first Zoom meeting to discuss this book on June 5^th, with about 12 of our most regular members present. We rotate the hosts each month,  and carry Braja was the researcher and moderator for this book. Larry had previously sent some discussion topics. He asked us to consider the roles of power, influence, and politics, and the role of the three most important women in the novel. Our members generally concluded that Anne Stanton represents the prototypical Southern belle, without a moral compass, who latch onto powerful men to prop them up. She once loved  Jack Burden, but eventually has an illicit affair with Governor Stark- which indirectly topples him. Sadie Burke is the ultimate political hack; she arranges many of the behind-the-scenes dirty deeds for Stark and might have been considered a great success had she been a man. She is bitter and cynical; we find out that she was just another scorned lover of Stark. We concluded that the woman who had the most complete understanding of what was truly going on behind the scenes of this political drama is Lucy Stark – the wife of the Governor. But, she is portrayed as a character who is unwilling to speak about the corruption around her.

Larry asked us to consider the Shakespearean themes of the book. Jack finds out who his biological father was after he realizes that his actions were indirectly responsible for his death. We then considered whether Willie Stark was a great man. In the end, only his wife, Lucy, considers that he was great. The question of greatness also came up at the end of The Great Gatsby. The narrator, Nick Caraway, and Gatsby’s father were the only two characters who considered him Great. One of our members said that he thought that Gatsby had ideals, but that Willie Stark had none. Others conceded that Willie might have started out with great ideals. But, he got seriously corrupted along the way, and had a great fall, like Humpty Dumpty, taking all the other King’s Men (and women) down with him.

We discussed the lyricism of this book. As Warren was also a poet, the underlying power of his masterpiece comes from the vivid lyrical descriptions in his novel. For example, when Willie asks the narrator, Jack, to find some compromising information on Judge Irwin. The judge is a decent man, but he is standing in the way of Stark’s dirty deeds.  Jack reflects on his assignment: “Then it was another day and I set out to dig up the dead cat, to excavate the maggot from the cheeses, to locate the canker in the rose, and to find the deceased fly among the raisins in the rice pudding.” It is striking that a book that deals with such sordid deeds is also ripe with sweet images. We love good cheese, but the image of a maggot in it revolts us, as does a deceased fly (not just a dead one) in a bowl of sweet raisins. I wish to savor the rich poetic imagery of Warren’s book, but I am cautious that my next bite might be of a dead fly. Lines like these, rich in contrasting multi-sensory images, are dispersed throughout almost every section of the novel. Thus, we would need to read this novel several times before we can appreciate its power: once for the cleverly drawn plot, and at least once more time for its striking lyricism.

One of our members, James Evans, who is an author of several novels, (see his books discussed in a recent Litchatte.com blog), submitted the following commentary about his impressions of All the Kings Men:

“Jack Burden, who is the narrator of this story, told in the past tense, is portrayed as a character who is drifting and indecisive. These qualities in him so aggravate Ann and dismay her (and us!). Willie Stark uses Jack ruthlessly as he uses so many others. And Jack goes through the book being bamboozled by others (not the least of whom is his mother). And yet I kept having the feeling that Warren identified with Jack; throughout the book, Jack turns aside from whatever is driving him (quite literally in the first page and subsequently in numerous others) to tell us in elegant poetic prose about what Jack see, hears, feels; what may seem like a meandering aside from the plot actually forming an integral and important part of Warren’s message (in my view); pay attention to the mysterious poetry of life; it’s all around you, and you miss out if you confine yourself to a narrow, focused vision as you drive through the Southern landscape, headlights on the narrow white strip of highway in front of you. The supporting characters of this book: Willy, Tiny Duffy, Sugar Boy, Judge Irwin, Sadie Burke, The Scholarly Attorney, and even Adam Stanton, are all the doers.

But throughout the book Jack, who wanders about in his career and his view of himself, can be counted on to find the truth; maybe I should call it The Truth. While his flesh is weak and in many ways Jack may seem ill-equipped to the task, he is not to be turned away from this mission. In that sense, we might even consider him heroic, he has been charged, not just by Willie, but by some inner force within himself to find out The Truth, that is his Holy Grail, and he inevitably does, in every case, regardless of the consequences. The Truth doesn’t take sides, takes no prisoners, and it can’t be hidden away forever on dusty shelves, county records, trunks, shorefront mansions, or tawdry apartments. During this, Jack, despite the threats and temptations to alter his course, does not deviate from his search. There are references in the book to man’s being born into sin and the inevitability of being a sinner, but, (paradoxically from the comment above about the Holy Grail) it is Jack who takes a bite of The Apple.

So, Warren, the writer portrays Jack as a writer, and Jack is the vehicle for Warren’s expressions of himself as a writer. Jack, in turn, is a newspaper reporter, an investigative reporter, and a student and writer of history, and throughout the book a poet ——  but always a writer  —— as we see the world through Jack’s eyes.”

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We will switch to a multi-cultural book, The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri for our next book club discussion. Our moderator will be Anne Barash. If you wish to participate in this online discussion on Friday, July 10 from 10 am to noon, please write ellisonms2@vcu.edu and ask me to send you a Zoom invitation.

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