"FALL OF GIANTS"

Since 2010, I've wanted to read Fall of Giants, Book I of Ken Follett's trilogy about the twentieth century.  I was always put off because it was a long book that would be followed by two more long books and I would probably never get it read since I do well to read the one book a month required by my Book Club, so I never made the effort.  Gasp!  But a couple of weeks ago, I said "to hell with it" and ordered Fall of Giants and Winter of the World (Book II) because Amazon was running a special.  And I've really had a glorious time ever since.

I've always enjoyed history--really, really liked it.  I didn't major in history because it seemed to require a great deal more critical thinking skills than I'd ever possessed, but I'm still a fan.  My favorite history is a well done story set against an historical backdrop with just a little upper class sex thrown in every now and then.  Luckily, Fall of Giants fits that bill.

This afternoon I reached Chapter 7 and Page 186, so I'm definitely on a roll.  Chapter 1 took place in southern Wales in the fictional coal mining village of Aberowen.  While the miners lead their lives of quiet desperation, English nobility hangs out in the great manor house (Ty Gwyn--200 rooms) built directly (literally and figuratively) on top of the mines.  Life is either very good or unbelievably awful.  There is no middle ground. 

Chapter 3 moves the action to Russia where daily living holds even less hope than in Wales.  In St. Petersburg, we're sharing the lives of factory workers and learning that Czar Nicholas II, the one we sometimes feel sorry for because he and his family were gunned down by revolutionaries, was really a rat.

In Chapter 5 and 6, we get to tag along with the diplomatic corps in London as the tensions which eventually lead to World War I continue to build.  We're privy to conversations between and among German, Russian and English diplomats.  They were as sneaky then as we imagine they are now, and nothing happens but what they haven't planned exactly how it should affect their own goals and objectives.  One sentence I read just a few minutes ago especially struck me:  The time is July 1914.  Archduke Franz Ferdinand has been assassinated at Sarajevo, and the diplomats are guessing which alliances may result from that act.  The gist of the conversation is that Russia will never let Austria control the Balkan region because they (Russia) must protect their Black Sea access.  Most of Russia's exports (wheat and oil) were shipped through those ports.  Does anyone remember that in July 2014, Vladamir Putin said exactly the same thing as he tried to justify taking over Crimea and threatening the Ukraine?  And they say "history repeats itself."  I guess so!

Well, that catches you up and, I do hope you give Fall of Giants a try.  I'd write more, but I've got to get back to the book, so take care and enjoy whatever you might be reading. Remember, it's all good unless it's really lousy and life is too short for that.

Margie