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Kentucky Voices
The Cave
In his sixth novel, The Cave (1959), Robert Penn Warren tells the story of a young man trapped in a cave in fictional Johntown, Tennessee. His predicament becomes the center of national attention as television cameras, promoters, and newscasters converge on the small town to exploit the rescue attempts and the thousands of spectators gathered at the mouth of the cave.
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
11 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
About the author
Robert Penn Warren
343 books1,014 followersRobert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
March 12, 2012
Robert Penn Warren is of course best known for his 1946 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, All The King's Men, probably his best and a hard one to top. He rather fell out of favor with critics after that, but I have enjoyed all his novels as I've read them. He has that essence that all great Southern novelists have, getting down deep and dirty into the souls of the hill people, and the effects of poverty, loneliness, and stature either lost or never gained.
The Cave takes place in a small Tennessee town during the 1950s, a place where modern life may come in slowly but come in it does. Dominating the town is a hard-living, uproarious man who hunted bear, chased women, played guitar and drank whiskey until he lost his heart to a fine young woman. Jack Harrick then gave up his wild ways, got baptized by his best childhood friend, a preacher, settled down to his business as a blacksmith, and did his best to raise two sons. His best was not good enough.
When the elder son, Jasper, gets lost in the caves, the search for him brings out the worst in everyone living in Johnson, TN. Greed, power, fame, and a desperate need to escape take over its people and Robert Penn Warren lays bare both the individual and collective emotions of his characters.
At first the story felt awkwardly told and I could not begin to guess where he was going with it. Eventually though, the characters, their stories, their entanglements emerged and converged and drew me into the spell of his writing. I resonated and stumbled around with these people in a fever-like state that is so much like real life and so little like much of the current writing that issues forth from MFA grads.
The Cave is like a good, old fashioned country song. It tells us how the various characteristics and quirks of American life combine in a part of the nation which still has its own flavor to this day. Most definitely a worthwhile read.
The Cave takes place in a small Tennessee town during the 1950s, a place where modern life may come in slowly but come in it does. Dominating the town is a hard-living, uproarious man who hunted bear, chased women, played guitar and drank whiskey until he lost his heart to a fine young woman. Jack Harrick then gave up his wild ways, got baptized by his best childhood friend, a preacher, settled down to his business as a blacksmith, and did his best to raise two sons. His best was not good enough.
When the elder son, Jasper, gets lost in the caves, the search for him brings out the worst in everyone living in Johnson, TN. Greed, power, fame, and a desperate need to escape take over its people and Robert Penn Warren lays bare both the individual and collective emotions of his characters.
At first the story felt awkwardly told and I could not begin to guess where he was going with it. Eventually though, the characters, their stories, their entanglements emerged and converged and drew me into the spell of his writing. I resonated and stumbled around with these people in a fever-like state that is so much like real life and so little like much of the current writing that issues forth from MFA grads.
The Cave is like a good, old fashioned country song. It tells us how the various characteristics and quirks of American life combine in a part of the nation which still has its own flavor to this day. Most definitely a worthwhile read.
January 9, 2017
"'Listen,' the voice said. 'I don't care--the whole bleeding world waiting for the sunrise does not care--if half the hillbillies in East Tennessee get stuck in caves. You included. From now on out till the time Republicans love niggers.'"
Robert Penn Warren's writing is for people who love sentences. It's not for people who want a taut thriller about spelunking. If you love his prose, always plentiful and conversational and infused with the poetic sensibility, this book is for you. If you don't--first of all, what's wrong with you--second of all, this book is not for you. Grimmer and darker than All the King's Men, and nowhere near as brilliantly plotted, this is still an excellent novel. It's a tough, hardscrabble story of East Tennessee hillbillies stuck in caves written by a Rhodes Scholar and poet laureate. So that's what you're getting yourself into. And if it wears you out sometimes, the way it tends to meander, it always re-energizes you with a perfectly evocative chapter, or paragraph, or even just a sentence.
Robert Penn Warren's writing is for people who love sentences. It's not for people who want a taut thriller about spelunking. If you love his prose, always plentiful and conversational and infused with the poetic sensibility, this book is for you. If you don't--first of all, what's wrong with you--second of all, this book is not for you. Grimmer and darker than All the King's Men, and nowhere near as brilliantly plotted, this is still an excellent novel. It's a tough, hardscrabble story of East Tennessee hillbillies stuck in caves written by a Rhodes Scholar and poet laureate. So that's what you're getting yourself into. And if it wears you out sometimes, the way it tends to meander, it always re-energizes you with a perfectly evocative chapter, or paragraph, or even just a sentence.
May 23, 2010
When weaving through the "other" works of an author known primarily for a single work of genius, one pokes his toe around with caution, not knowing exactly what he’ll encounter. Does everything else pale in comparison to the great one, and therefore it’s all inevitably disappointing? Or do fine, underrated books abound that seem scrawny only when sized up with the masterpiece’s brawn?
My only venture so far into a Robert Penn Warren novel that is not "All the King's Men" suggests exploring more of his works would be very rewarding.
"The Cave" is flawed and, heavens no, it’s no "All the King's Men" (which makes my all-time top 10), but enough amazing writing jumps out at you to give this more experimental 1959 book a wobbly four stars.
One would be tempted to say that "The Cave" centers around a young man lost in a cave and the hoopla surrounding his attempted rescue. That’s an easy hook, but the subject of all this activity never really appears. Instead, the novel is about eight or so characters going through inner turmoil and crises of self and identity who happen to have an interest, sometimes through a degree or two of separation, in the man in the cave. It’s nearly halfway through the novel before the alarm even goes out that there’s someone trapped. Warren’s approach is like one of those 360-degree animations in which there’s a very slow swirl around an object, from every angle, languid and deliberate, rich in detail, image overload. Warren’s writing is like a combination of William Faulkner’s poetically hick-ified rural storytelling and William Styron’s verbose but beautiful description. Even so, there are times when Warren’s repetitive approach frustrates.
In this rich cast there is a pregnant girl who, with her boyfriend (the lost man’s brother) discovers that the man is likely lost in the cave; the girl’s banker father who hopes to find an abortionist for her; the lost boy’s cantankerous, former hellion (and now dying) father and the man of the cloth he clashed with when they were young; a Greek man struggling with his identity and to get by; the tied-in-knots preacher’s son whose fling blew up his relationship with his Jewish girlfriend and led to his being kicked out of college. (The preacher's son makes some decisions, pulls some deception, that prove key to the story's unravelling. But his motivation, like that of another character or two, seems inadequately explained.) Though there is an attempt to depict a modern media swirl around the cave rescue (or not), these damaged people’s struggle for identity and redemption is the real story.
Warren certainly is verbose and deliberately repetitive, making this tale devoid of real action not for everyone. But there’s no doubt Warren was one of America’s best wordsmiths, and I’ll be investigating more of his "disappointments" in the future.
My only venture so far into a Robert Penn Warren novel that is not "All the King's Men" suggests exploring more of his works would be very rewarding.
"The Cave" is flawed and, heavens no, it’s no "All the King's Men" (which makes my all-time top 10), but enough amazing writing jumps out at you to give this more experimental 1959 book a wobbly four stars.
One would be tempted to say that "The Cave" centers around a young man lost in a cave and the hoopla surrounding his attempted rescue. That’s an easy hook, but the subject of all this activity never really appears. Instead, the novel is about eight or so characters going through inner turmoil and crises of self and identity who happen to have an interest, sometimes through a degree or two of separation, in the man in the cave. It’s nearly halfway through the novel before the alarm even goes out that there’s someone trapped. Warren’s approach is like one of those 360-degree animations in which there’s a very slow swirl around an object, from every angle, languid and deliberate, rich in detail, image overload. Warren’s writing is like a combination of William Faulkner’s poetically hick-ified rural storytelling and William Styron’s verbose but beautiful description. Even so, there are times when Warren’s repetitive approach frustrates.
In this rich cast there is a pregnant girl who, with her boyfriend (the lost man’s brother) discovers that the man is likely lost in the cave; the girl’s banker father who hopes to find an abortionist for her; the lost boy’s cantankerous, former hellion (and now dying) father and the man of the cloth he clashed with when they were young; a Greek man struggling with his identity and to get by; the tied-in-knots preacher’s son whose fling blew up his relationship with his Jewish girlfriend and led to his being kicked out of college. (The preacher's son makes some decisions, pulls some deception, that prove key to the story's unravelling. But his motivation, like that of another character or two, seems inadequately explained.) Though there is an attempt to depict a modern media swirl around the cave rescue (or not), these damaged people’s struggle for identity and redemption is the real story.
Warren certainly is verbose and deliberately repetitive, making this tale devoid of real action not for everyone. But there’s no doubt Warren was one of America’s best wordsmiths, and I’ll be investigating more of his "disappointments" in the future.
November 29, 2022
“Are all men bone-ignorant and bone-proud, like me?”
A soft 4.5 stars. The first 200 pages were trying but the last 200 pages were magnificent. RPW explores the human heart like a cave, even as as he unravels the tangled storylines leading down into the cave. Salvation, self-knowledge/identity, life and death all seem to be central themes for this work. He makes much of the characters and narrative.
A soft 4.5 stars. The first 200 pages were trying but the last 200 pages were magnificent. RPW explores the human heart like a cave, even as as he unravels the tangled storylines leading down into the cave. Salvation, self-knowledge/identity, life and death all seem to be central themes for this work. He makes much of the characters and narrative.
October 17, 2011
This is an interesting book to read aloud. You gain more of an appreciation (or frustration ) for Warrens verbose description. Sometimes it seems warranted and truly poetic, sometimes it seems like a waste of ink.
The beauty of the book lay in the depth of the character development, in no other book of this length have I seen so much attention and detail given to so many characters and their individual stories. Half the book is character development and the other half is the "action". The action of attempting to save Jasper from the cave and how each character affects and is affected by their attempts at saving him.
The more I allow the power of this book to sink in the more I think of it as an unheralded subclassic.
The beauty of the book lay in the depth of the character development, in no other book of this length have I seen so much attention and detail given to so many characters and their individual stories. Half the book is character development and the other half is the "action". The action of attempting to save Jasper from the cave and how each character affects and is affected by their attempts at saving him.
The more I allow the power of this book to sink in the more I think of it as an unheralded subclassic.
Read
March 8, 2025DNF at page 63.
I've now met a dozen random characters that have nothing to do with anything. If I have to read about Dorothy taking a Latin class in high school and the butcher, the banker, and the candlestick maker and everybody else alive on the planet during this book I will die.
I flipped ahead and I'd have to endure over a hundred more pages of character introduction to find out what happens to the guy in the cave. So I'm just gonna call it good and move on.
I've now met a dozen random characters that have nothing to do with anything. If I have to read about Dorothy taking a Latin class in high school and the butcher, the banker, and the candlestick maker and everybody else alive on the planet during this book I will die.
I flipped ahead and I'd have to endure over a hundred more pages of character introduction to find out what happens to the guy in the cave. So I'm just gonna call it good and move on.
November 3, 2021
Robert Penn Warren is a master writer. Set in Tennessee, this expertly written novel dates to 1959 but has all the edge of a new (2021) novel. The inner workings of the characters’ minds, and their nebulous personalities, carry the story of events surrounding a young man’s disappearance inside a newly discovered cave. The characters often puzzle over their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Sexually aggressive males abound, and ugliness dominates goodness, though some goodness does shine through.
October 15, 2018
This was the best character development since All the Kings Men. There was the tragedies you would expect in hard scrabble East Tennessee but there was also the nobleness that most people never see from these very private individualist. find this book if you can. its worth the trouble.
August 19, 2025
Life and loves in a small Tennessee town
Robert Penn Warren was a great poet and he wrote excellent short stories (see “The Circus in the Attic) as well as the two great novels I know—“All the King’s Men” and “Night Rider”. But every writer has an off day and I feel that this novel is not up to his usual standard. It’s very slow to get started and even when we focus on a young man lost in a cave, I couldn’t really tell if this was some sort of allegory or just a book with a plot that meandered quite a bit. Try as I might, I could not find any “hidden meaning”, so I conclude that it’s a sprawling tale of what happened when Jasper (the young guy) disappeared. The author portrays the web of relationships, the behavior and attitudes of 1950s people in a fictional small town in Tennessee, and the way in which an incident like this can be blown up into national news and grounds for a lot of exploitation in several directions.
If you like such wide-ranging stories with many characters and linked events, you’ll like this one. It will hold your interest if not worthy of some literary prize. RPW was no cheap novelist, but provides endless intelligent observations of human behavior and the cultural style of that region. Still, as I said, I think it was not his best work. It does not have the punch of “All the King’s Men” which is an amazing novel.
Robert Penn Warren was a great poet and he wrote excellent short stories (see “The Circus in the Attic) as well as the two great novels I know—“All the King’s Men” and “Night Rider”. But every writer has an off day and I feel that this novel is not up to his usual standard. It’s very slow to get started and even when we focus on a young man lost in a cave, I couldn’t really tell if this was some sort of allegory or just a book with a plot that meandered quite a bit. Try as I might, I could not find any “hidden meaning”, so I conclude that it’s a sprawling tale of what happened when Jasper (the young guy) disappeared. The author portrays the web of relationships, the behavior and attitudes of 1950s people in a fictional small town in Tennessee, and the way in which an incident like this can be blown up into national news and grounds for a lot of exploitation in several directions.
If you like such wide-ranging stories with many characters and linked events, you’ll like this one. It will hold your interest if not worthy of some literary prize. RPW was no cheap novelist, but provides endless intelligent observations of human behavior and the cultural style of that region. Still, as I said, I think it was not his best work. It does not have the punch of “All the King’s Men” which is an amazing novel.
July 26, 2021
I’m really torn on how to rate this book. The first half dragged so awfully that I considered quitting many times. But I’m stubborn and feel like I have to finish once I start even if I hate it. I’m glad I finished because the last half is much more interesting and faster paced than the first. The first half has very little cave for a book called “The Cave” which felt like a bait and switch. I thought the book would be a fictionalized account of Floyd Collins and it sorta is, but you have to slog through a lot of boring backstory and descriptions. I think Warren would have benefitted from a lot of editing, but ultimately it is a good story.
Quotes:
- Things always seemed worse when you were stuck in a house
Quotes:
- Things always seemed worse when you were stuck in a house
March 12, 2022
Picked this up at Faulkner House Books in New Orleans, an interesting read that lives up to the epigraph ("you have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners...")
March 28, 2023
Sentences like this—over and over again.
“Haworth you are tighter than a tick in the navel of the fat lady of the circus. “ Poetry in motion.
“Haworth you are tighter than a tick in the navel of the fat lady of the circus. “ Poetry in motion.
September 30, 2024
The story is really interesting once you get past some of the prose, which is definitely a choice.
June 8, 2021
The Cave by Robert Penn Warren (Random House 1959) (Fiction). I was very excited to begin reading this novel. Robert Penn Warren is, of course, Robert Penn Warren, so I knew that this tale was in the hands of a master. I was even more excited to read this based upon my interest in the subject matter. I have just finished reading Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins by Robert K. Murray and Robert W. Bruckner (University of Kentucky Press 1982), which is the actual true story upon which Robert Penn Warren based his novelization of The Cave. Floyd Collins was a Kentucky hillbilly whose passion was caving. Though largely self-taught, he was known around home as a master spelunker. His family owned some land near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky; Floyd was obsessed with finding a subterranean passage which would link his family's cave with Mammoth Cave, which would exponentially increase the value of Collins' own farm. In 1925, while seeking a connection with the Mammoth Cave system, Floyd was trapped in a cave-in that left his foot completely stuck. As rescuers fought bravely to free him, word of the trapped man's plight spread. Authorities reckon that the story of Floyd Collins became for a time one of the major stories between the two World Wars. A crowd of several thousand people gathered on the Kentucky hilllside where Floyd Collins fought for his life. Tragically, after eighteen days, Floyd Collins finally died; his body was left buried underground, still entrapped by the twenty-six pound rock that led to his death. Isn't that a great but truly tragic story? Robert Penn Warren took that great tale and butchered it! Warren's novelization rendered the story all but unreadable. He took the focus off of the rescue of Floyd Collins and placed it upon the personalities and motivations of the rescuers. That was a mistake. I have no doubt that if a discerning reader picks up The Cave by Robert Penn Warren, he or she will soon agree with me. Do yourself a favor: put down The Cave and pick up Trapped! The Story of Floyd Collins if you want to read a cracking good story about a cave. My rating: (for The Cave) 5/10, finished 9/19/16.
February 25, 2012
I read this book entirely by accident. I happened to pick up a Billy Wilder film called, "Ace in the Hole" last year, and was absolutely entranced by the plot and it's characters. I overplayed the library's Criterion discs and poured over the making of the story.
And then I went into a used book shop in Dallas, Texas in found a book called "The Cave: Death Carnival" and read the jacket. It sounded extremely familiar, so I looked it up and realized the film had borrowed generously (and changed quite a bit) from Warren's text.
All that to say: as it is with most, the book wins. This is my first time reading Warren, and his style is at times exhaustingly descriptive...but as opposed to some authors (for me, Dickens) where you almost get lost in the "fluff" of excessive descriptions and lose the plot, I actually found myself getting lost in the story instead. Warren's characters are complex and real, searching for their identities and showing all their flaws in the meantime. Each is struggling with to come to grips with a darker piece of themselves. It is captivating.
I love how the author uses the weakness of being a human to almost allow me to sympathize with the darkest of characters. The trite, but altogether true statement by Mr. Harrick at the end gets me every time, "I reckon living is just learning how to die. And dying--it's just learning how to live."
I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good character study, can stick with a mystery that has a few dozen pauses, and likes a dose of sardonic themes and good writing to back it up.
And then I went into a used book shop in Dallas, Texas in found a book called "The Cave: Death Carnival" and read the jacket. It sounded extremely familiar, so I looked it up and realized the film had borrowed generously (and changed quite a bit) from Warren's text.
All that to say: as it is with most, the book wins. This is my first time reading Warren, and his style is at times exhaustingly descriptive...but as opposed to some authors (for me, Dickens) where you almost get lost in the "fluff" of excessive descriptions and lose the plot, I actually found myself getting lost in the story instead. Warren's characters are complex and real, searching for their identities and showing all their flaws in the meantime. Each is struggling with to come to grips with a darker piece of themselves. It is captivating.
I love how the author uses the weakness of being a human to almost allow me to sympathize with the darkest of characters. The trite, but altogether true statement by Mr. Harrick at the end gets me every time, "I reckon living is just learning how to die. And dying--it's just learning how to live."
I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good character study, can stick with a mystery that has a few dozen pauses, and likes a dose of sardonic themes and good writing to back it up.
March 24, 2012
The first half of this book is promising. Warren uses an interesting narrative structure, showing the lives of all these characters from a small town in east Tennessee, circling back around to what is supposed to be the heart of the book, the man stuck in the cave. Those characters and their lives are interesting, involving here at the beginning, and the language is good.
The second half of the book completely cratered, for me at least. It could have been a compelling rescue effort/media frenzy/social commentary. For whatever reason Warren slowed everything down and described the crap out of it, and repeated everything a few too many times. The characters didn't evolve or change either, and felt overblown for the the most part.
Love caves, love Robert Penn Warren, but did not love this book.
The second half of the book completely cratered, for me at least. It could have been a compelling rescue effort/media frenzy/social commentary. For whatever reason Warren slowed everything down and described the crap out of it, and repeated everything a few too many times. The characters didn't evolve or change either, and felt overblown for the the most part.
Love caves, love Robert Penn Warren, but did not love this book.
April 17, 2013
As an assignment in college, I had to choose an author and read five of his/her novels. I read Robert Penn Warren. After All the King's Men, the only other book remembered is The Cave. If I am remembering correctly, he wrote the book because the nation did in fact become obsessed with the rescue of a person from a cave. Warren then wrote this fiction story with a similar story line. The story and the writing have stayed with me. Enjoy.
November 12, 2021
The characters and their voices are believable, though rarely likeable. Reminds me of Arrested Development, particularly season 4, where a bunch of the book is characters doing their own thing, with little snippets of overlap, until later on they finally all come together. Very much a character and writing style based book, maybe like Faulkner (also southern) but I feel like the narrative is stronger/easier to follow than his, although not necessarily an easy read either.
February 17, 2011
OMG!! In an era without cell phones, Twitter and 24-hour cable news there somehow was a national media frenzy about a man stuck in a cave?!?! (Sarcasm aside, it was a good story about finding the meaning of one's life, albeit a little slow to develop.)
April 18, 2012
I did not care for this book. Although there were some interesting characterizations started, by the end of the book they never developed any further. I really became tired of all the characters and like a bad movie couldn't wait for the book to end.
July 9, 2009
So far, this is one of those books that is so well written that it pulls you in. The prose is beautiful. It did not disappoint. The words indentity crisis and living right come to mind.
Read
October 22, 2014This is not The Cave that I intended on buying... But what the hell.
Read
April 11, 2010This is one of those rare books that I never wanted to end.
June 10, 2011
Masterful interweaving of characters - their thoughts, feelings, actions and subterfuges. Robert Penn Warren could do no wrong.
December 22, 2012
no story , just list of boring characters
December 30, 2015
Amazing writing; rural Tennessee setting
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews