From my previous review of “Fall of Giants,” some of you know that I am reading the Century trilogy by Ken Follet.
A few minutes ago, I finished the second book in the series, called “Winter of the World.”
What the Book is About
The first book followed the lives of the first generation of characters as they navigated life through WWI. The second book continues the journey into WWII and tells it through the second generation of characters.
It might be a personal inclination, but I usually find it hard to fall in love with the second generation of characters. And yet, there were a few characters that I deeply felt for in this book, Lloyd Williams being one of them.
What I Liked
The lives of most characters in this book present a stark contrast to the lavish lives of English earls and Russian Royalty. The characters in this book are witnessing the rise of Adolf Hitler and suffering the consequences. The story of a socialist family whose son joins the Hitler Youth is painful. The motivations of characters for becoming spies, turning against their own countries, betraying everything they once held dear, and not being able to tell any of this to the people they love the most is agonizing. The socialist, communist, and Jewish scientists working on making the first nuclear bomb for the united states face the same dilemma, and the book captures this emotion very well.
Lessons Learnt
(Spoiler Alert)
You find the courage to do the things you never imagined you could do in times of moral crisis. It is evident from the character of Carla. She can’t just stand by and witness when her Jewish maid Ada’s child has been mysteriously transferred to an unknown facility by the government. She finds the stomach to see bodies being incinerated in a pile, she musters up the courage to murder a soldier, and with all the rage in her heart, she manages to have the courage to spare the life of a Nazi soldier who may have been responsible for the death of someone she loved.
The character I’ll remember:
Perhaps no one in particular, maybe Daisy for her journey from being naive to sensible, perhaps Lloyd, or possibly Maud again for a life of love and loyalty to her husband and her new country, to the commitment to her morals, to the courage to stand up for her beliefs. This book doesn’t have any ONE obvious hero or villain for me, so may be I’ll remember everyone, maybe I’ll forget them all.
Quote from the Book
There are two actually that I liked.
“Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?”
and the other is,
“The Führer’s judgement will be proved right - again.’
‘Of course it will, Erik.’
‘He has never yet been wrong!’
‘A man thought he could fly, so he jumped off the top of a ten-storey building, and as he fell past the fifth floor, flapping his arms uselessly in the air, he was heard to say: So far, so good!”
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