A review by maddelleine
Winter of the World by Ken Follett
3.0
3.5 stars.
The story still continues to be fascinating in the 2nd volume of the Century Trilogy, but the action kind of lags. As in Fall fo Giants, there are many characters' storylines going on in parallel, intertwining (maybe in somewhat predictable ways), but it seems more a recollection of events rather than a novel. Probably because the author prefers narration instead of dialogue, sometimes just recapitulating what had happened during a specific period rather than telling the story as it happens, which gives the impression of someone getting you up to speed with something you've missed - but "sumarising" in a novel-length rather than summary length (around 36 hours/ 1000 pages).
As in the first volume, name-dropping occurs and famous historical characters are part of our protagonists' lives, either in-person or just as contemporaries influencing history. It is, of course, to be expected, considering that Winter of the World happens mostly during WW2 and for a short time afterwards.
One would expect that in a thousand pages the story goes to the most profound depths, but the feeling left by the end of the book is that, with all the running around from one part of the world to the other following the different families, one keeps missing out on the stories that go on unfolding backstage, as the focus is on just one of them. We get a short account of their status by the end of the book, but that seems insufficient as well.
Maybe a shorter timespan or more closely-knit relationships would help with the cohesiveness of the saga.
The story still continues to be fascinating in the 2nd volume of the Century Trilogy, but the action kind of lags. As in Fall fo Giants, there are many characters' storylines going on in parallel, intertwining (maybe in somewhat predictable ways), but it seems more a recollection of events rather than a novel. Probably because the author prefers narration instead of dialogue, sometimes just recapitulating what had happened during a specific period rather than telling the story as it happens, which gives the impression of someone getting you up to speed with something you've missed - but "sumarising" in a novel-length rather than summary length (around 36 hours/ 1000 pages).
As in the first volume, name-dropping occurs and famous historical characters are part of our protagonists' lives, either in-person or just as contemporaries influencing history. It is, of course, to be expected, considering that Winter of the World happens mostly during WW2 and for a short time afterwards.
One would expect that in a thousand pages the story goes to the most profound depths, but the feeling left by the end of the book is that, with all the running around from one part of the world to the other following the different families, one keeps missing out on the stories that go on unfolding backstage, as the focus is on just one of them. We get a short account of their status by the end of the book, but that seems insufficient as well.
Maybe a shorter timespan or more closely-knit relationships would help with the cohesiveness of the saga.