Follett, Ken. Century Trilogy (total pages 2900)

Fall of giants, Penguin books, New York, September 2010. (Paperback, pages 1070)

Winter of the World, Macmillan, London, 2012 (Paperback, pages 820)

Edge of eternity, Pan books, London, 2014 (Paperback, pages 1010)

Rating: 9/10

Ken Follett's Century Trilogy, with nearly 3000 pages and more than a million words, is one of the longest books I have read. (To my mind only Ayn Rand and Tolstoy's War and Peace come close to it.) At its end, I felt what a marathon runner feels when crossing the finish line. Writing a 3000-page historical novel, extremely faithful to the real history, and making it a bestseller in the 21st century is a monumental accomplishment.

In War and Peace, Tolstoy covers a very short period (1805-1812), while Follett in his trilogy covers almost the entire 20th century. Fall of giants, the first part is devoted to the First World War, Winter of the World to the Second World War and the final Edge of Eternity to the cold war. In that sense, the novel may be called "War and War".

Like in Tolstoy's book, the Century Trilogy also covers the lives of five families, though Follett's canvas is truly global. His families come from England (Fitzherbert) , Germany (Von Ulrich/Franck), Russia (Peshkov/ Dvorkin), America (Dewar, Peshkov) and Wales (Leckwith-Williams), and their lives are cleverly intertwined. We read the lives of at least three generations, with the teenagers in the first novel becoming eighty-plus (or dying) by the third novel. The Welsh family is a tribute to the author's origins. Wales doesn't belong to the same league as America, England, Germany and Russia.

If you wish to learn the history of the 20th century without getting bored, this trilogy is ideal. It is an extremely readable novelization of history. The historical references are well-researched and authentic. Just to give a single example, the character of Maria Summers, the black intern working in the White House, seduced by John Kennedy is based on Mimi Alford. Alford published a book in 2012 (Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy and its Aftermath) wherein she gave details of her affair with President Kennedy. Follett uses that book and his interview with Mimi Alford to make Maria Summers and events surrounding her true to history.  Using a novelist's privilege, he makes Maria black, while Mimi was white.

I had the fortune of visiting most of the places in the book (with the exception  of Cuba and Vietnam). I lived in the Soviet Union/ Russia for fifteen years. I visited Berlin and East Germany before and after the fall of the Berlin wall. I can vouch for the authenticity of the descriptions and portrayal of the national psyche of the Russians and East Germans.

By the way, the conflict and confrontation between the white and black races in the USA features throughout the three books. Though technically not classified as a war, we witness the battle between the races. We read about the long fight culminating into the voting rights for Blacks in 1965. Certain readers have questioned the appearance of Barack Obama in the epilogue. I think it is apt. The USA electing a black president was as remarkable as the fall of the Berlin Wall. Both denote an end of a cold war in different senses.

Sex is a major element of the trilogy. I suppose the author considers sex essential to make the reader keep reading. With a similar frequency and regularity with which romantic songs appear in Bollywood films, every few pages you read about oral sex, breasts, pubic parts, undressing, masturbation, erections and passionate kissing. Like Bollywood songs, these passages have little to do with the story, but serve the function of titillating the readers who wish to be titillated. Another similarity with the old Bollywood films is that the female characters in the books regularly shock their male lovers by saying: "I am pregnant." (In the first two books this can be excused, but in the third contraceptives were widely available).

When reading the trilogy, the reader will need to accept the author's biases. Unlike Fredrick Forsyth, whose writing is mostly neutral and journalistic, Follett doesn't hide his strong prejudices. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are absolute villains, while Gorbachev is an angel. White people are racist, while blacks can do little wrong. No Russians can be trusted, whereas Welsh people are amongst the most sympathetic.

None of this, though, diminishes the joy of reading this series. It is vivid, lively and no doubt will be converted into an epic serial on television. Storytelling is more important to the author than language or style. I felt the language improved considerably in the third book, which has many metaphors, and at times even quotable sentences. But this book will never win a Booker prize. The century trilogy will, instead, continue to be on the bestsellers' list and will please readers rather than literary critics.

Verdict: Keep aside a month, to read the three books in their chronological order to learn the history of the 20th century in a highly readable form.

*****