Fall of Giants, Ken Follet REVIEW

Posted by lasesana on September 2, 2012 in Reviews | Leave a comment

*** ½

Title:  Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy, Book One)

Author: Ken Follet 

First Edition: 2010 Ken Follet

This edition: New American Library (Penguin) Kindle Edition

Original language:  English

From Amazon.com: “Ken Follett’s World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh—as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage.”

 

Quotes:

“Little things please little minds” (Kindle location 1064)

“This was the library of a collector rather than a reader.  All the books were in fine bindings, most looked as if they had never been opened.” (loc. 3380)

On negotiating: “Never speak unless you have to” (loc. 3728)

“His talent was to express his readers’ most stupid and ignorant prejudices as if they made sense, so that the shameful seemed respectable.” (loc. 14030)

“The ability to listen to smart people who disagree with you is a rare talent.” (loc. 14108)

“If you owe one hundred dollars, the bank has you in its power; but if you owe a million dollars, you have the bank in your power.” (loc. 14129)

 

Opinion:

Good but very LONG.  I didn’t like it as much as The Pillars of Earth or World Without End, but the story was really well told, and history came alive on the page.  It was a good refresher on WWI history.  I loved Maude; Gus, the American.  Loved to hate Fitz, his wife, and Lev.

 

Notes:

I read the book shortly after I watched the first two seasons on Masterpiece’s “Downton Abbey.”  Both take place during the same time, and parts of Fall of Giants takes place in England.  It seems like Fitz’s family is much like the Crawleys.  In the first season of the show, Mary goes hunting and it is said that she is a good hunter.  In the show, it seems that even though not all women hunted, it was not something that unusual.  In the novel, location 9168 it says that women did not hunt, “of course.”  So which one is right?

I did a little research. According to Jane Austen’s World, women did in fact participate and have an active role in fox hunting.

This surprised me because Ken Follet is known for his thorough historical research…