Six years ago, I discovered Ken Follett's writing. The first of his books that i had laid my hands on was "The Hammer of Eden". Before i could read a page, my room mate had finished it, and started ranting and raving about it. Once I finished the book, i found it difficult to share his enthusiasm. The second book however, converted me - a huge 1000-odd-page story about the construction of a cathedral with interwoven plots and characters, took me no time to finish. I immediately classified "The Pillars of the Earth" as one of the best fictional works i had read till date.
"World Without End", published as a sequel to "The Pillars of Earth", caught my attention precisely due to that reason. It had been a few years since I had read a Ken Follett novel. Whatever be the content, one can but fail to admit that his novels are fast-paced. It was a mixture of curiosity and ennui that prompted me to lay my hands on the book. The result is yet to be comprehended by my mind.
"World Without End" starts off generations after the life of Jack Builder. Two centuries have gone by, and Kingsbridge Cathedral has grown into one of England's most important priories. The story weaves us through the lives of the people whose destiny is linked irrevertably to the small town and its fortunes. The characters by themselves, are vivid as painted portraits. We follow the fates of Caris, the tempestuous girl, who is forced to shun the love of her life - Merthin, the Carpenter - and devote herself to a life as a nun and a prioress; the shrewd Gwenda, who struggles through her life to support her lover, Wulfric; Godwyn, the ambitious prior of Kingsbridge, who would stop at nothing to hold on to the power he has over the town; Ralph, younger brother of Merthin and in service of the king, who uses his power and position to advance his cause; and many more.
Typical of all his books, the narrative moves at a brisk pace through the intricacies of the plot. The reader is spellbound at the knotting and unravelling of the various situations that the protagonists find themselves in. Follett evens ventures to bring in real events into the narratives, such as the Battle of Crecy (which is considered widely as a kick-off to the Hundred Years War), and the Black Plague which plays a major role in the story. Whether Ken Follett's knowledge on the middle ages is exemplary is beyond me who cannot profess knowledge on the era. But the book is gripping...until the end, when the author seems to lose the plot.
Perhaps the biggest failing of the book is the last 100-odd pages. For what was a gripping story for 1000 pages, loses its plot completely in the last few pages, turning into a contrived ending as if it were a long drawn out mega serial forced to its end out of sheer boredom. The book starts off in intrigue, when the four children witness a murder in the forest near Kingsbridge, and contrary to expectation, this incident does not become a central cog in the machinery of the narrative. Rather, it is sidelined until the end, when the author contrives to pull it out from the dusted corner to fit it into the plot. The reader is left to wonder as to why so many plot twists were unravelled so easily.
The narrative loses its shine, as it meanders towards its uneasy ending, with the focus of the story shifting from one character to the other. As the focus of the story shifts from the intriguing character of Godwyn - who is conveniently killed off by the author - to the less impressive and weak Ralph Fitzgerald, the story weakens, and starts unravelling by itself as if it was cut through by a sword.
The book comes to a tame ending, as if upholding the old saying, "all's well that ends well". Many of the actions by the various characters do not make sense, but to fill in the narrative in an artificial manner. As I turned the last page, I felt that the book was aptly named: This was a World Without End.
Recommendation: Not one of his best, but worth a read.
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