Fall of Giants - Ken Follett

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fall of Giants is a door stopper, one of those books that makes me glad I have an e-reader for the sake of my wrists. At close to 1000 pages, it's long, and at times it feels like it. The first time I tried to read it, I didn't have the patience, but this time, I settled in for the long haul, determined to give it some time. That patience made all the difference.

This is an astounding historical epic. It takes the events leading up to World War I and the Russian Revolution and fills them with characters on all sides that you can relate to and feel for. I didn't like all of the characters, but I understood them and their motivations, and they were so real. Follett paints them in neat brushstrokes - just a few lines here and there for each character that bring them to life. And then he proceeds to take you through the war and its aftermath through their eyes, through dashed hopes and picking up the pieces of lives.

It is surprisingly not bleak, and surprisingly spends little time on the actual battles of the war. Those are only the focus when they move something forward, when they are pivotal for a character or for the direction of the war. Even then, the focus is more on strategy or what is happening to the character than on the violence. (Not that you don't get a sense of that, too, but it's not a battle slog.)

I really appreciated that it didn't get bogged down in the trenches, dwelling on the horror and slaughter. Instead, it stepped back and looked at the reasons why people did what they did, and how the world got into such a mess and then couldn't get back out. It's been a while since I learned about the Great War in school, so this was a fantastic way to refresh my memory - and to realize with my more adult understanding that there was good and bad on all sides, humans exploiting others and grasping for power, and other humans just trying to find a way to live in peace.

If anyone was bad in this take on history, it was the upper classes, not restricted to any nation - although Russia got the worst of it. It was the elite who dragged the poor working people into the war, who oppressed them and allowed them to starve while they continued living in style. It was the elite men who didn't want working women to have the right to vote, etc. So this addresses social issues such as class and women's rights, and just briefly, race. And it does it in such a readable way. There were only a couple of times that I felt it was slow, and that was when the focus was on characters that I wasn't so interested in.

I'm amazed at how easy it seems for Follett to bring all of these strings of sweeping historical and social change together in real people that you fear for, and make it understandable as well as engrossing. It is magnificent and deeply personal at the same time. Highly recommended to anyone who reads historical fiction and is in the mood for a rewarding epic.

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Initial DNF Review, September 19, 2012:

I gave this a decent try, but just couldn't get into it. I really enjoyed the The Pillars of the Earth - it was one of the first historical fiction novels that I discovered and loved - but I felt more connected to the characters and their challenges, not to mention the epic cathedral project, from the beginning. This one is more 'sweeping' as it has been described. For me, that's not necessarily a good thing.

The difference of time period may also be a factor - I enjoy reading about the Medieval Era, but have never really been able to get into books about the 20th Century wars. Pillars was centered around a priory town with lots of political intrigue and the building of a cathedral (cool architectural stuff!) and how ordinary people were affected by these things. Since that initial experience, I've discovered by trial and error that not all historical fiction is for me (it turns out I'm picky), and I think this is simply another mismatch for me.

Whatever the reason, I put it on hold when I was tired of trying so hard to like it, and never felt compelled to come back to it. I suppose that could still change, but for now I'm happy to leave it where it is.