Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you were one of those people who eagerly awaited the release of Ken Follett's Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy), you are in for a nasty surprise. This book (which is supposed to be the first in a trilogy) is nothing whatsoever like The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Follett's previous historical novels were highly entertaining. I read both of them in a few short days and enjoyed myself immensely. The annoying aspects of Fall of Giants are many. Follett bases his book on the most tired and silly prejudices about the nations he discusses. All Germans are "orderly", "well-organized", punctual, and prissy. All Russians are "surly", "primitive", "barbaric", "corrupt", violent, alcoholic criminals. All Russian women are, of course, drunken whores. The only marginally acceptable Russian is the character who is obsessed with moving to the US. All Austrians are effete, perverted, weak, hysterically aggressive, unreasonable idiots. The French are weepy and useless fools. The French women are also all whores, but at least they whore around while sober. And, of course, all Jews know and help each other, forming a sort of an international Jewish mafia. All British people are insanely promiscuous (don't ask.) The culmination of the British promiscuity is reflected in a scene where the sister of an English earl (sic!) gives a hand-job to a German attache in the opera-house behind the backs (literally) of her brother the earl, Lloyd George, and foreign dignitaries. To top it all, there are the saintly Americans who, after torturing themselves over it for hours, decide to send invading troops to Mexico in order to bring peace and democracy to the wayward Mexicans. To the Americans' huge surprise, Mexicans are not overjoyed about the invasion and fail to be grateful to their caring neighbors to the North. The way Follett panders to his American readers (whom he then proceeds to insult with the RIDICULOUS Kindle price) is so obsequious that it borders on disgusting. Unlike those nasty Europeans and tyrannical Mexicans, America (meaning, of course, the US) is "rich, busy, exciting, and free." There is no anti-semitism (once again, this is taking place in 1914), workers have amazing working conditions, are rich, and enjoy running water and electricity at home. Of course, each worker has at least two rooms all to himself. (I guess, Upton Sinclair is not to be trusted in his accounts of the horrible living conditions of immigrant workers in the US at the turn of the century.) American women are not subjected. They are all independent, "free", and have exciting careers. I wonder what happened since 1914 to change all that. Possibly, an explanation will be forthcoming in the next two books in the trilogy. The only problems that exist in the godly America are caused by the surly, criminal, promiscuous immigrants who keep trying to take advantage of the saintly Americans. For some strange reason, Follett hates Russia to the extent where he stoops to egregious falsifications of Russian history. He makes blanket accusation of mass pedophilia amongst the priests of the ROC, which is not sustained by any kind of historic evidence. The priests of the Russian Orthodox Church are not only allowed to marry, they are required to do so. This suggestion that the ROC priests molest their parishioners' children en masse is simply wrong. Follett also states that the ROC priests massively collaborated with the secret police during the tsarist regime. Such collaboration with the secret police did, in fact, take place. However, it happened during a completely different time period and under completely different circumstances. I'd never even heard of any suggestion that the priests of the Russian Empire collectively betrayed secrets told to them in confession to the tsar's secret police. This is a figment of Follett's unhealthy imagination. This tendency to collapse historic periods in Russia into one huge mess is evident in many other aspects of Follett's novel. He doesn't seem to realize that serfdom (the Russian equivalent of slavery) was abolished in 1861. The nobles who owned peasants before serfdom was abolished did, indeed, torture, maim and kill their serfs almost indiscriminately and sometimes with no punishment. That, however, became impossible after 1861. At the turn of the XX century, the relationship between the nobles and the peasants, while still problematic, was in no way similar to the way it was in the pre-1861 era. Follett's annoying tendency to present all Russians as heartless, vile jerks really gets too much at times. There is a scene (that takes place in 1914) when a police officer assaults and tries to rape a young woman in the streets of St. Petersburg. The narrator makes a very weird statement about how "no Russian would address a peasant . . . courteously." This is, of course, ridiculously wrong. There always were many people in Russia who would address anybody in a courteous way. Suggesting otherwise, is simply offensive. While the first half of the book is at least well-plotted, the second half of the novel is a choppy, disjointed mess of loosely connected and excruciatingly boring scenes. So if you boycotted the Kindle version of the book because of the crazy price, you have to know that you made the right decision in several respects. This book is a complete and total failure.