Winter of the World is the second part of Ken Follett's Century trilogy, the first part being Fall of Giants which spanned the years 1911-1924. In Fall of Giants, Follett detailed historical events such as women's suffrage, the first world war, the Russian revolution and the growing tension between the working class and the aristocracy. This second book spans the years 1933-1949, so there are a new set of historical events in the background, such as World War II, the Spanish Civil War and Russia under Stalin's regime. This is a world where human beings continue to live despite the threat of violence, so there's love as well as war going on at the same time.
One of the main characters is Daisy Peshkov, the daughter of a rich man whose story was told in the previous book. She travels to England where she has two suitors—half-brothers who are unaware of the other's existence. One of them is "Boy" Fitzherbert who is also the Viscount Aberowen and the other is Lloyd Williams, the son of Earl Fitzherbert and a maid in the household, who eventually went on to become a Member of Parliament. Daisy eventually chooses Boy over Lloyd and is the sexual aggressor in the relationship, once again showing how much things have changed since the beginning of the trilogy because in the first book, such a thing was not possible.
Follett does a good job mixing love with aggression which, according to Freud, are the two main characteristics of the human race, existing side by side even though they are opposed to each other. The horrors of Nazi Germany, the startlingly brutal attack on Pearl Harbor and other historical events are given their due. At the same time, there are more personal attacks such as when thugs use dogs to attack a gay man and the disabled start disappearing into a hospital never to return.
This is an ambitious book but, like other books that tell the life of a particular character during a historical period, such as Gone With the Wind, it really gets into the minds of the characters and shows you what it was like to live through such times.
Ken Follett is a Welsh writer whose childhood was divided between Cardiff and London. As a child, he wasn't allowed to watch TV, so he gravitated towards books. He went to University College London and worked as a journalist in Cardiff and London. However, he didn't find the work challenging enough and eventually turned to publishing and writing. Although his initial motives were purely pecuniary, his books are amazingly well-researched and many have made it on to the New York Times bestseller list while some have been made into movies. He has strong political views and his wife, Barbara Broer was, at one point, a Labour Official.
"Welcome back to the Century Trilogy! I wanted to love this book like I loved Fall of Giants, but I couldn't. The plot is just as rich, the characters (all of our old friends from Fall of Giants plus their children) are just as vibrant and human, the writing is just as pitch-perfect. The only reason I couldn't fall in love with this book is really no fault of its own: the violence can be truly horrific. Rape, murder, war, genocide, torture - all of these live within these pages. And sometimes it was so hard to read that I had to walk away and come back later. He didn't overly-dramatize, he didn't fabricate torture scenes just for fun. Everything Follett writes in this book is accurately indicative of what occurred during WWII. It's just...it's just so heartbreaking that it is sometimes hard to read."
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Autumn (4 out of 5 stars)