Winter of the World

Ken Follett - Winter of the World

Ken Follett is one of my very favorite authors.  I haven’t read anything by him in quite a while because, well, I’ve already read everything he’s written.  This is Book 2 of the “Century Trilogy”.  The book has actually been out for a couple of years, but I have been refusing to buy it because of the ridiculous expense (even the Kindle version seems abnormally high).  I finally snagged the e-version on sale for about six bucks.  I had read Book 1 about three years ago and was very impressed with it.  The downside for me is that three years is a long time, and I had essentially forgotten everything that happened in volume 1 except for 1) the majority of the story took place during World War I -and- 2) The book had four main plot lines, each one taking place in a different country of the major players of the First World War.

Well, fortunately, a photographic memory really isn’t necessary for this, the second installation.  Essentially, most of the major players in Book 1 have been relegated to supporting roles, and the many offspring of those characters have now assumed center stage.  And there are a lot of characters.  Fortunately, Follett includes a “Cast of Character” section at the beginning of the book since it’s very easy to get a bit lost within the +800 pages.  The author also does an admirable job of throwing in little snippets within the story to remind you of who the character is, what their background is, who they’re romantically smitten with, etc. etc.

We have four main stories, or “sets” of characters.  One in Russia, Germany, England, and the United States respectively.  All of them are affected by the Second World War in different ways, and even though we have four different locations, all of these characters are somehow “connected” to each other in some bizarre way, so the plots do nicely fit in with each other.

Like the first book, Follett is also attempting to give his readers a bit of a history lesson as well.  Our characters find themselves right in the thick of many of the major events leading up to, and during and after, World War II.  We find many of our main characters literally in the same rooms with Adolph Hitler, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt.  So, yes, at times the book seems a bit “Forrest Gump-ish”, but I never found it too much of a distraction most of the time.  Still, though, in an instance where we read about a couple going to Hawaii for a vacation in late 1941, well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s about to happen to the poor couple.

This book covers the years 1933-1949, and even though it’s over 800 pages, it seemed a bit as though Follett was rushing through too much (which is a sign of great book, if you think about it).  I almost wish he would have fleshed this series out into more books and tell the story a bit slower.  I’m reminded of John Jakes “The Kent Chronicles” that warranted eight books.  Maybe Ken Follett simply didn’t have it in him to write that much, but I would have enjoyed reading more about these characters and their stories.  I almost felt like I was reading an abridged version of the different stories.  Ironically, the years after the war (1946-1949) he zooms by entirely too fast, and he mainly uses these years for all of the couples to miraculous give birth to several babies so we can have some protagonists for the third (and final) volume.  Even more ironic is that when I went back and read my review that I wrote for Book 1, I made the exact same observations in that volume for the Post World War I years.

The only complaint I have with this book, is that Ken Follett doesn’t know when to “shut up” during the sex scenes.  With all of these young lovers running around courting one another, there’s an awful lot of romance, yet Mr. Follett feels obliged to tell us what is going on inside the bedroom in nauseating, pornographic detail.  Some of the scenes within these pages would make Hugh Hefner gag.  I mean, he can get really, really disgusting.  Then, we have a scene where we see two (clandestine) homosexual lovers (there is a lot of homosexuality in this book) that are fighting for their country in the U.S. Navy, and they’re on a ship getting ready to do battle.  For some reason, the author feels obliged to say something stupid like “In addition to fighting for their country, they also loved the fact that they could watch other naked sailors taking showers”.  Or something like that.  Mr. Follett, is this really necessary??

So get past the pornography, and you really do have an excellent book here.  It’s not really even necessary to read Book 1, but I would recommend it.  Like this one, the first volume is outstanding as well.