All the King's Men

Of all the summer reading books, this was the one I most enjoyed. I found it really interesting how everything was all interconnected. The book illustrated how one single person's actions can deeply impact another's. As in Cass Mastern's impact on Jack Burden; though not in the greatest way Cass's story was the one of the biggest parallels of Jack's life. The fact that he couldn't understand the path that Cass's life took parallels how Jack couldn't understand what was really happening in his own life (or what was affecting him the most). But as the book comes to an end Jack does reflect back to Cass and how he now understands why he did what he did.

The imagery in this book embellishes on the time, the setting and Jack's overall view of his life. The fact that there would be pages and pages of this imagery got a little boring at times but it really helped you visualize and construct the characters in your head.

The flashbacks in this story are what made it so conversational. It was as if Jack had met you and decided to tell you his life story as the reason he came to be the way he is. The flashbacks made the story more interesting and gave it a wide range of emotion. The fact that this is Jacks reflection embellishes the emotions he may have felt then and the way he feels in the present time. You can sense Jack's anger at Duffy when he found out that it was Duffy who told Adam about Anne and Willie. Or sadness when he knows that Willie and Anne are having an affair. You can even his complete helplessness during the Great Sleep. Since the flashbacks consist of multiple mini stories inside the bigger story, it's really neat that these mini stories have their own climax which makes you want to keep reading so that you find out how this mini story has impacted Jack. Also the climaxes of the mini stories make the the climax of the bigger story all the more dramatic and result in a larger catharsis.

It's ironic that Jack's last name is Burden, and that he has to live with the burden of guilt of what he has done and what has happened in the past, especially concerning Anne. It's also interesting that the place is name Burden's Landing for two reasons. (1) the fact that nothing else about Burden's Landing is mentioned except for that it was named after Jack's ancestors. (2) everyone who lives there lives with some kind of burden at some point in time. Anne, perhaps the affair with Willie Stark that she keeps a secret from her brother. Jack's mother, the truth that Judge Irwin is her son's real father. And so on and so forth. All this considered, we, through the course of the book find out that Ellis Burden is indeed not Jack's real father. But this means that Jack Burden is really Jack Irwin, and I am unsure as to what to say to elaborate on that. Mainly, does this diminish the irony of the name Burden?

I also never knew that there were two movies made on this book.