Three Chapters From the End- A Column of Fire by Ken Follett

I’ve always enjoyed a Ken Follett book. They’re engaging, epic and give a fun look at a different period of time. I especially like the audiobook versions read by John Lee. I’ve actually listened to more of his books rather than read them.

Sadly, I think he has just as much trouble with endings as I do. Especially with trilogies. The Kingsbridge series and his Century trilogy have truly amazing opening books. “Pillars of the Earth” and “Fall of Giants” grip you from the very beginning. They pull you into their worlds and simultaneously make you interested in the world of that period in time and care about the characters.

As a history lover, these are perfect stories for me. I love viewing periods of history from a person level perspective, being reminded of historical events I learned about years ago. I always end up going back to history books to review actual history. It’s a fictional story but all of his books jive very well with real events that you can believe these things actually happened.

The second book in these two trilogies were also both engaging but lost some of the magic. The main draw for “Winter of the World” was how it followed up on the next generation of the characters from the first book. We still go to see them and saw what those events looked like to their kids. “World Without End” took place a long time later so we’re only seeing the families but since it’s centered on Kingsbridge, we still had a character, more or less, linking them.

Unfortunately, both trilogies have rough third acts. “Edge of Eternity” was still quite good, though a little depressing. It ends with the hard-fought progress of the century giving way to the ideologue conservatism of the Reagan years. Which, jives with history but doesn’t make for a satisfactory ending to a story.

“Column of Fire” takes the Kingsbridge series off the rails. It starts off like the others. You have young starcrossed lovers blocked by entrenched power. You see how Kingsbridge cathedral has weathered the years of Henry VIII and the monastery dissolved. And how the entrenched power of the church is fighting tooth and nail to hold onto its power.

The themes are all there. But then we leave Kingsbridge. Now, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the other story arcs as well. Barney’s adventures in Spain and the New World, Sylvie and Pierre’s story in France. All engaging. In fact, more engaging than the Kingsbridge part. I never really cared much for Ned and Margery. But I missed Kingsbridge. It was just a backdrop instead of the central character.

That I think is the biggest flaw in “Column of Fire”, there’s no central character. We spread out across Europe, instead of focused on one town. We move from seeing how world events affect them to just following from one world event to another. There was to much plot, not enough time for it. And that’s saying something for a Ken Follett book which are all 800+ pages.

I’ve gotten near the end and haven’t felt compelled to finish it. The first and second parts worked pretty well. I liked seeing what was going on around Europe as they dealt with the reformation.  But, for the most part, they were their own independent stories. They intersected occasionally but that all felt forced.

And then most of them just ended. Great set up, invested in characters. Waiting to see what happens. But then many characters are just forgotten about. Carlos and Ebrima? They just get forgotten. Barney disappears for most of the book. Pierre gets his comeuppance but it just happens. There’s no build up to it.

And poor Sylvie. I saw what was going to happen coming a mile away. Instead of dread for her fate, I felt resignation and frustration. She didn’t even get to go out smuggling. She gets thrown off the Kingsbridge cathedral. That was the real moment the book “nuked the fridge”.

Any of these stories would have been interesting on their own. But trying to tell all of them made them all fail. I’ve got a few chapters left, and I might be surprised and see some more things get wrapped up, but I’m not interested. Rollo is clearly setting up the Gunpowder Plot. Ned will stop him. We’ve known that from the beginning with Ned’s journals.

There’s no tension.  Things are just happening. Because that’s how history played out. The characters aren’t in the driver’s seat. It became less about a story informed by historical events and is a history lesson dolled up with fake characters. Which, sure, anything to teach history. But that it follows fake characters diminishes that aspect.

So go read the Century trilogy, “Pillars of the Earth” and “World Without End” but you can skip “Column of Fire”