Books - The fall of giants - Ken Follett

I did not know Ken Follet at all, but it's apparently a very famous author for historical novels, particularly known for his best seller "The pillars of the earth".

With "The fall of giants", Ken Follet focuses on a few families torn apart by the first world war. Weaving his characters, including a rich lord, a family of mine workers, German and American diplomats and 2 Russian brothers, with historical events of the time, the author dives into the social and political tensions of that time.

The 1000 pages of the book go surprisingly fast: I was indeed in holidays, but a short week was enough for me to finish it. Everyone will find something to his liking: action, love, spying, geopolitics, families torn apart, in a world that changes as fast as men fall on the front line. Social and familial tyranny, incompetent military heads, short-sighted rulers, we suffer as much as the characters, and rejoice with them for their few personal victories. The end of the novel sketches out the rise of Nazism, and prepares the reader to jump on the second volume, expected in 2012, which will trace the life of the children (many births in the book, one has to prepare for the future!) during the second world war.

The speed at which I finished the book is witness to the quality of the narration, even though I'm not a picky reader. It will certainly be way too light for historians, but for the rest of us who have only followed this time through history classes, the reminder is fascinating.

Nevertheless, my main criticism for the novel is linked to the construction a bit too artificial: the narrative technique is sometimes too obvious. Each character is very stereotyped: the union leader, the upper class feminist, the rising Russian Mafia boss, and all these characters meet and meet again all over the world, against all plausibility, losing their character status and becoming symbols of their social class. One sometimes feels that the author has mechanically crafted a list of characters in which everyone would find someone to identify to, has covered with a few lewd moments to titillate the housewives, has added all the main events around the first world war (battle of the Somme, Marne taxis, Chemin des Dames, storm of the Winter Palace in Petrograd, America war declaration...) and has mixed it all following the best-seller rulebook.

It's very readable, and I very much intend to eat through volume 2, as much as for the history lesson than to join again all these characters. Masterpiece? Certainly not. But it's already quite sufficient.