Edge of Eternity: Ken Follett (The Century Trilogy, 3)

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If you have read the first two books, definitely read this one to see how it ends, but I must warn you. And not because I am irrationally offended when someone doesn't praise the all mighty Ronald Reagan. They had been strolling in the People’s Park at Friedrichshain, and they had stopped in front of the old Fairy Tale Fountain to look at the carved stone turtles. He turned to speak to Rebecca, but the elevator doors closed and she pressed the button for the ground floor. How does one pretend to tell the story of this time period without ever mentioning, to name just a few events and important historical persons: the space race and men landing on the moon; the oil and financial crises of the '70'; the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; the attempted assassinations of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher; the Falklands War.

Now, for Reagan, he asserts that he's even worse than Tricky Dick, and that he got away with murdering innocents during the Iran-Contra affair. Dmitri has a sister, Tanya, a journalist struggling to expose problems within the Soviet government. Tackling the largest historical arc, Follett brings his characters to life at a time when the world saw epic change, continuThere, he is tasked with providing covert assistance to the Polish Solidarity Movement, an important bulwark against the country's Soviet-backed Communist leadership. I felt like this was added in to keep people's interest, because the rest of the story was just not up to what I would expect from Ken Follett. You’ll weep as you imagine yourself in the massive crowd listening to Martin Luther King deliver his “I have a dream” speech. The seond book ends with him being a leading Labor MP and him digging up Ty Gwyn's gardens for coal. I can honestly say that I have never felt as sad to have finished a story as I have when I cane to the end, not just of Edge of Eternity, but the end of the Century Trilogy.

And the degree to which some individual events foreshadow their virtually identical repetition in the 21st century with the rise of the Tea Party and the Trump presidency is at once frightening and shameful - the effective collapse of the fight for black civil rights during the latter portion of Johnson’s presidency; Saudi financing for CIA assassination hit squads; and (plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose) the gullibility and the capacity for self-deception that is American Society. The novel's characters become involved in a number of the most significant global events during the period, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the British Invasion, the Kennedy Administration, the Watergate scandal, and the Civil Rights Movement. Aside from the Berlin Wall coming down and the 2008 tagged on speech I was left a little unsatisfied. while I was deciding which book to actually purchase, (I am anal about the binding,the condition of the book jacket,etc.But more importantly, the characters in this book were just not as good as the ones in the previous books.

It is a story populated by caricatures who are stupid, promiscuous, drug addicted or delusional fools. In 1989 The Pillars of the Earth was published, and has since become the author’s most successful novel. and in the United States George Jakes, a bright young lawyer in the Kennedy administration and fierce supporter of the civil rights movement, boards a Greyhound bus in Washington with Verena, an employee of Martin Luther King whom he is in love with, to protest against segregation.I find it disheartening that he refuses to acknowledge the non-alignment movement that was taking shape in India around the 60s. The two mortal enemies employ subterfuge, deceit, lies, and direct military intervention in satellite states to prop up a government that would be subservient either to Moscow or to Washington DC. Overall, despite doing a very good job of it, I see that the stories here are centered around the immediate effects of the Cold War and are mostly Eurocentric and America-centric. Dewar plays an important role in Nixon's illegal surveillance and espionage tactics, culminating in the 1972 burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. More than once Natalya keeps mentioning that she would like to escape to the West and that Vasilii (her author friend) deserves to get the recognition he deserves.

On sent la rapidité à vouloir terminer une trilogie afin de boucler l’ensemble des histoires des différentes familles. It is a substantial and compelling read covering more than fifty years of recent history offering a detailed and authentic account of world events as they could have been seen by those in positions near those in power.Wrapping up a huge sweeping trilogy can be difficult, but Follett does a great job tying up loose ends, giving justice and time to characters without making it feel too long or fake.