Winter of the World: Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy Moves into the Second World War
After the huge worldwide success of Fall of Giants, Ken Follett returned with the second volume of his Century Trilogy. Winter of the World (2012) tells the story of the children of the five families from the first book, from the years before the Second World War to the beginning of the Cold War.
Author: Ken Follett (born 1949, Cardiff)
Title: Winter of the World (2012), The Century Trilogy 2
Format: English Kindle edition
Scope: Historical epic, about 1933 to 1949; between Fall of Giants and Edge of Eternity
Amazon: www.amazon.es/dp/B007FEFLTO (ASIN B007FEFLTO)
History Through Five Families
Nazism, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Spanish Civil War and the development of the atomic bomb are some of the events that shape the characters’ lives. Follett moves between Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States, and his fictional families always seem to be in the room when history happens.
The Century Trilogy is the story of my grandparents and of yours, of our parents and of our own lives. In a way, it is the story of all of us.
The Author
Ken Follett is an established writer with readers all over the world. He is one of those authors whose name is a guarantee of quality, and his books quickly become bestsellers. He can be described as a writer of thrillers and of historical novels, and it is the historical novels that have brought him his greatest successes.
Born in Cardiff in 1949, Follett started out writing stories as a hobby, until in 1978 he wrote Eye of the Needle, the novel that made him internationally famous.
The Next Generation
The children of the first book’s families carry the story. In Berlin, Carla von Ulrich watches Nazism take over her country and discovers the regime’s secret programme for killing disabled people. In London, Lloyd Williams, son of the suffragette and Labour politician Ethel, goes to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Daisy Peshkov, a spoilt American heiress, moves to England in search of a titled husband, while her half-brother Volodya rises in Soviet military intelligence. In Washington, the Dewar brothers, Woody and Chuck, follow very different paths that lead one of them to Pearl Harbor.
Follett’s Method
As in Fall of Giants, Follett places his fictional characters close to real events and real people, so that the reader sees each turning point from the inside: a Nazi rally, a Spanish battlefield, a meeting in the Kremlin, the race for the atomic bomb. The research is thorough, and the narrative is driven by love affairs, rivalries and secrets that cross the borders of class and country. Critics have sometimes found the characters’ presence at every major event too convenient; most readers simply enjoy the ride.
Follett’s Career
Ken Follett first became famous with the wartime thriller Eye of the Needle (1978) and then changed direction with The Pillars of the Earth (1989), a vast novel about the building of a medieval cathedral. The Century Trilogy, which closes with Edge of Eternity (2014) and the Cold War, applies the same scale to the twentieth century. His storytelling is the reason his books top bestseller lists in Spain as well as in Britain.
The Reviewer’s View
The original review called Follett a guarantee of quality, and for this kind of book that is fair: few writers make so much history so easy to follow.
How to Read It
Winter of the World can be read on its own, but it is much more rewarding after Fall of Giants. It is long, fast-moving and full of detail, the kind of book that makes a long holiday disappear.
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