Violent tendencies

Current book: All the King's Men
Pages read: 173 - 268

I honestly don't know how to relate to this book. It seems to be a series of confused recollections of various instances of corruption, but I don't feel like I'm really getting anything out of it or that it's moving the plot along.

I mean, for example, in this bit we see Willie Stark get his attorney general out of an impeachment scandal, and it's clearly underhanded, and then there's a bunch of reflection about it on Burden's part. At this point, I get that there are lots and lots of scandals, so listing each one isn't really doing a whole lot for me. His wife threatens to leave him. I guess that's new. Then we get the story of Jack Burden's doctoral dissertation, randomly, which is about the diaries of a guy named Cass Mastern, an ancestor of his, and his marital infidelities. He was a good guy, basically, who went to college and ended up sleeping with a friend's wife and then, eventually, killing the friend.

That's really all there was. I just...I don't know. I'm bothered by how often we're switching time periods and by how unimportant the information we're getting is. Everything just seems like a foregone conclusion, and it's obnoxious. If Warren hadn't started out with the utter corruption of Stark right at the beginning, it would be a lot better. The characters are all just so horrible. I want to punch everyone in the face.