Generations have their popular writers, but centuries' literary legends are few. Hugo and Tolstoy qualified, Hemingway and Grisham, Goethe and Dickens. Not to mention Shakespeare and Cervantes.
In this day and age, we have Britain's Ken Follett. Critics approach Follett's books -- 30 to date -- with awe, with worldwide sales at 160 million and counting. He doesn't stick to any one period. The combination of extensive research and style make him the master of the historical novel, their settings millennia apart.
Historical novels are the exception to my dictum that novels over 350 pages are overwritten. More than a few of Follett's stories are more than double that. Don't let this hold you back from obtaining them. This reviewer kids you not, you may well want to peruse them more than once.
A Column Of Fire takes place in familiar territory: the England of the Tudors. Just about every contemporary historian focuses on it. Anne Boleyn, the second of Henry VIII's six queens, was instrumental in causing a sea change in the nation's history.
Divorcing his first wife, a no-no of dogma, turned the Pope and Catholic Europe against him. Though he never converted to a Protestant religion himself, he substituted the Church of England for that of Rome. Anne's daughter, Elizabeth, forcefully ensured that there would be no turning back.
Follett follows the determination of the continent to set her straight. Priests forced to flee by her father returned clandestinely. Assassins were recruited to cut her life short. Opposition to her kept growing. Among the strongest was Mary Stuart, the diehard catholic Queen of Scotland. She claimed to be the rightful Queen of England.
Hounded out of Scotland by the Protestants, circumstances had her passing through England, where she became Elizabeth's unwilling guest for 19 years. England's secret service was created to crack Mary's coded correspondence to France. Her execution followed.
The Spanish Armada was overwhelming in terms of ships and men, but not in seamanship. The author gives us a daily account of the weeklong battle. Elizabeth died, of natural causes, in 1603. She was succeed by Mary's son, James, turned Protestant.
Still at it, Catholic Guy Fawkes prepared to blow up the House of Lords. The plot betrayed by his sister, he was arrested at the last moment.
Britain has been fortunate in having good men come to the fore in times of crisis (eg -- Drake, Nelson, Churchill). Alas, not every nation can say the same.
Toujours l'amour
It's said men marry for lust, women for security -- an oversimplification, surely. Not that lust and security aren't important factors, but what of arranged marriages, his doing the right thing when she's pregnant? More particularly, why is love left out of the equation?
Centuries ago, the Bard pointed out the love factor in Romeo And Juliet, the lovers committing suicide because of it. How many murders are attributed to it? Literature, poetry, plays, movies, novels, the arts burgeon with love. Yet, they lived happily ever after isn't synonymous with marriage.
Love may be found outside of marriage -- not with the spouse, but with the mistress, minor wife, concubine, lover. Society has its rules, which are broken when either leaves the house and home to be with the intruder.
Yank authoress Danielle Steel is the master of the contemporary love story. She's penned circa 100 romantic fiction books to date. The most recent, The Mistress, is par for the course. Unusual about it is that the heroine, Natasha, is Russian. Steel emphasises that Russia is a hard country. Life is a constant battle for survival.
Strong, ruthless men fight their way to the too, a number becoming billionaires. Their yachts, too big for marinas, dock in harbours. Pages are devoted to the luxuries they are accustomed to. Everything is for sale. And everyone.
In all the author's works of fiction, the heroines are invariably beautiful. Good looking, very pretty, doesn't cut it. Men become infatuated with them at first sight. What other qualities they may have are secondary. When moneybags middle-aged Vladimir first spots 19-year-old Natasha shivering in a frigid Moscow street, he's smitten with her.
Suffice it to say she becomes his mistress for the next seven years. She thinks her body for the protection and security he offers is a fair exchange, even if he doesn't want marriage or children. They fly or sail from Moscow to Paris to London to the Riviera.
While in the south of France she meets a painter her own age. Needless to say, he falls for her and Natasha for Theo. Her dilemma is can she give up the sweet life for the man she truly loves? In the real world she wouldn't. But a Danielle Steel world is something else again.
Her many readers correctly anticipate her decision.
Love keeps the planet spinning. This reviewer wonders whether Plain Janes stock up on cosmetics and make-up to attain beautiful woman status. Be that as it may, the author gives them hope.
And she writes well.
