584
PARTISAN REVIEW
that Jack Burden, as a character, embodies this greater depth of inten–
tion. (Is it coincidence that instead of "the big sleep" and more recently
"the big clock" Jack Burden sees life in terms of "the big twitch"?) To
condemn Jack Burden and Warren for not taking a moralistic position
toward Willie Stark and, by implication, Huey Long is pointless; one
condemns the narrator instead for his lack of significance, narrow sym–
bolic reference, and for irrelevance.
It is impossible to analyze
All the King's Men
as a political or philo–
sophical novel about modern dictatorship, because the dramatic situation
is not that of contemporary political life. Essentially it is again the con–
flict common to Southern fiction between the honorable, educated, and
responsible inheritors of the Old South tradition (here represented by
the Stanton family) and the traditionless, irresponsible New South of
Willie Stark and the odious politicians who surround him. Willie Stark
is not related to the economic or social forms of American life, nor to
America's position in the world, nor to the political dynamic of the
twentieth century. For the purposes of this novel, which is a character
study of a shrewd and energetic man who cannot distinguish between
ends and means, it is not necessary, since Warren sees his character in
terms of a private, domestic drama, for Stark to have been in politics
at all. And if it is fruitless to analyze
All the King's Men
in political or
philosophical terms because of its lack of ingenuity in either direction,
it is disastrous to approach it as a character novel since it is in the
creation of character that the book is culpably unconvincing.
But to return to the happier side of the mystery: Warren's exuberant
feeling for locale, the passages of lyric beauty, the relaxed and humorous
dialogue. Perhaps it is just the abundance of good things and the unful–
filled promise they indicate that make
All the King's Men
a baffling
disappointment.
Charles Jackson's new novel,
The Fall of Valor,
has very little liter–
ary interest, but it has a kind of sociological value in that it may very
well be a model for those writers who want to make a taboo theme ac–
ceptable to a wide reading public. (Best sellers deal more and more with
"courageous" themes, such as miscegenation, intolerance, perversion, etc.,
and these themes give them a self-righteous amateurishness that is far
more irritating than the frank professionalism of the Fannie Hursts,
et al.
Increasingly one has the feeling that popular books are written
with a desperate disregard for market values and even with a sacrificial
determination to tell the truth in spite of all opposition. It seems pos–
sible to assume that the old formula writers knew in just what way they
were toeing the popular
line,
but the new moneymaker evidently conforms
in a state of complete innocence. Just when he most approaches the
crudest demands of the reading public, one has the feeling he is most
despondent and most certain of his daring. Our idea of the popular fie-
