I have loved Ken Follett ever since I stumbled on ‘Pillars of the Earth’ while wandering through the Montreal central library after two days of a brutal Bar exam. He’s fairly formulaic but I thought this was part of his charm, until I read ‘The Armour of Light’.
It just felt like everything was a gross caricature of his signature style: the main antagonist was cartoonishly villainous for no reason, the romantic relationships just happened without rhyme or reason (or depth!), the social changes were…emotionless? I don’t know how to describe what was lacking. Compared to the Fall of the Giants cycle, where you did get genuinely engaged with the labour struggles of the working class characters, everything just felt trite in this book.
I think I’m just going to pretend that only the two first books of that series exist now.
Anyone else feeling let down by this one?
You must log in or register to comment.
Sounds like you outgrew follet
Sorry to hear it. His approach to historical fiction always carried the possibility of becoming a trite formula -
Recently read The Evening and the Morning - prequel to Pillars. Loved it. Might be the best one of all.
Agreed i enjoyed personally i would rate it 3rd in the series
the main antagonist was cartoonishly villainous for no reason, the romantic relationships just happened without rhyme or reason (or depth!), the social changes were…emotionless?
So, Follett as usual?
Pillars of the Earth were eintertaining enough to forgive things that I grow to hate in historical fiction (good guys having social mores out of XXI century (unless they do want to expose the newborn because reasons) and bad guys being some sort of caricature). But all his books repeat the same tropes wihout novelty.I started off liking Armor but it ended up falling flat to me also. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I missed the authenticity of his previous books
I loved his recent-ish contemporary thriller Never.
Same!! Never was fantastic storytelling and very relevant for today (scarily relevant to today unfortunately). I really liked the characters and their story lines and it all felt unsettlingly plausible. The ending was one of the most emotionally impactful moments in any book I’ve ever read. I’m glad to have read this recently, otherwise I would be worried that he was losing his touch after reading Armor of Light which is by far my least favorite of his books
The ending!!! 🙀🙀🙀🙀
Oh, I don’t know. I thought Never was no more than unlikely. The thing I like about Follett is his meticulous historical detailing that he weaves so brilliantly into the narrative. His pure fiction books lack that. Even Eye of the Needle was historically accurate,
Oh, good to know! I’ve only ever read his historical novels (including A Dangerous Fortune and Jackdaws).
He wrote a few airport-style thrillers that weren’t too shabby but honestly I couldn’t put Never down! Some of the recent historical stuff seems phoned in.
My favorite one of his is A Dangerous Fortune, though I haven’t read it since I was in high school. I don’t particularly want to reread it now, for fear that it won’t hold up. I haven’t read this latest Follett, but if you’re looking for something great set around Waterloo, Vanity Fair is absolutely wonderful.
Oh I got in a classics kick when I was 19-20, and LOVED Vanity Fair!
Thanks for the heads up. I have found that his later historical fiction isn’t quite what his earlier works were, But geez, they’re all huge. It’s like the Simpsons: how long can you keep a trope fresh and new?
The Simpsons should have died a long long time ago. Unfortunately, feeling the same way about kingsbridge after this latest novel.
I don‘t think that there can be a 6th Kingsbrige book anyway. There‘s always around 200 years between the books and unless Ken Follett wants to add another prequel, a 6th book would take place in late 20th century/early 21st century.
That would border heavily on the Century Trilogy. Where the first 2 books were good. The third? Absolute garbage.
I definitely agree, this was my least favorite kingsbridge novel by far. My only disagreement was that Hornbeam was actually my favorite character (not saying much because the rest of the characters were so one dimensional whereas hornbeam at least had some depth/backstory). In fact, I would say he is one of the least cartoonishly evil villains of the kingsbridge series (William Hamleigh anyone?). Other than him, none of the characters felt remotely convincing to me. None of the relationships really had any rhyme or reason. Kit and Rodger basically had one scene where Roger defended kit when he was a 6 year old, then they fast forward to them randomly falling in love? Spade/arabella and Amos/Elsie were weak too. Spade and Amos are just Good Guys TM. Elsie likes children and Amos, and did Arabella have a single character trait other than she liked her rose garden? Jane was just Shallow Woman and Sal was just Strong Woman. None of them had any compelling story lines or motivations, and didn’t have much justification for them all being friends, whereas in previous kingsbridge novels it felt more like the characters were woven together through interesting circumstances. The plot just kind of happened with the first two-thirds being about workers rights and the last part about the war.
I just finished the book tonight and immediately went to see what other people are thinking about the novel, glad I’m not alone in my disappointment.
Currently about 60% through Armour of Light i am finding it enjoyable but not the best in the series unless this last 40% really grabs me it will likely fall into the worst of the series for me. Part of it is the time period i prefer earlier dark ages. I did enjoy the prequel 4th book personally.
I read Night Over Water. It was interesting and I thought a lot different from The Pillars of the Earth.