Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Fond memories: reading Ken Follett novels when I should have been paying attention in algebra class. I used to hold his paperbacks under the desk and give them all my attention, naively certain that the teacher never noticed. "The Key to Rebecca," "Night over Water," "The Man from St. Petersburg," "Eye of the Needle": even as I was entranced by these books' plots, I marveled at the master who penned them. He wielded a magic wand; he bewitched me into turning those pages until I reached the final page. How did he do it? I wanted to do the same, to hold readers in thrall to a propulsive narrative. No less than sexual seduction, seducing millions of readers is a powerful, Darwinian gift. Now, these many years later, I teach Follett to my writing students. I encourage them to think about what Follett does to get readers to turn those pages so breathlessly. "Pillars of the Earth" changed my mind about Follett, so much so that it made me think, long and hard, about all popular entertainment, and my own consumption of it. A two-dimensional villain tortures another man by lowering that man into a crackling fire. "Pillars" describes the victim's skin blistering, his cries of pain. This torture scene doesn't contribute any twists or pace to the plot. It doesn't plumb the use of torture in the Middle Ages or today. It doesn't teach me or move me. I'm willing to read a difficult scene, to be taught, to be moved, to be changed, to be made a better person with a richer view of life. Rather, this torture scene in "Pillars" is there for ... entertainment -- the entertainment of "seeing" the torture victim's skin blister. I found that reading a torture scene that was meant to be entertaining to be a very disturbing experience. Not long after, there is a rape. The same two-dimensional villain who had tortured the man by roasting him catches a noble virgin alone in a defeated castle. The villain previously murdered her family and friends. He rapes the girl in front of her brother, and then invites his servant to rape the girl, as well. Plot elements conspire to disempower the girl utterly. She can not attempt to resist; she can not attempt to seek justice. A rape scene can be handled in any number of ways. If the author did not want to dwell on the rape, but to make the point that it did occur, he could have mentioned it and moved, quickly, on. If the author wanted to make more of a point of it, he could have dwelled on what the rape did to the victim. Follett chose to describe the rape from the point of view of the rapist, in a pornographic manner, in a way that would entertain someone who would enjoy such a scene by positioning himself as a vicarious violater. Follett dwells on the physical attractions of the girl, her complete powerlessness, how much she is hurt, and how much the rapist enjoys the rape. Again, there is no greater point made about women as collateral damage in competitions waged by men for men's prizes, no greater point made about the status of women in medieval society. After reading that scene, I resigned my figurative "Ken Follet Fan Club" membership card. I ask myself, is it me that has changed? Were Ken Follett books always this way? I don't know. I haven't gone back to reread the ones I so enjoyed in my youth, before I gave these matters the unavoidable, pained thought I do give them in maturity. My guess is that Follett, whom I'm sure is a great guy, had no intention of writing a scene that would do anyone any damage, that he was just using his tried-and-true, mix-and-match, sex-danger-crime-punishment elements to create reader involvement and suspense. I'm saying that for me, given what I, and all too many other women, and too many men, girls, and boys, know about rape, that scene, written the way it was written, struck me as having been handled -- even if only accidentally -- in such a wrong way, that I can never approach a Ken Follett book in the same way.