Reading the Chunksters discussion

Thoughts on this section?

The book feels like Ken Follett knows what he's doing and is far, far from running out of ideas. Let's see if that is true by the middle of the story. Week 3 is good enough in my book. Maybe it will be different for some.

What this book has done is kept me at an emotional distance, so that I'm like many readers now, i.e I like the book but I don't take it too much to heart. The book has a soap operaish tinge to it.

It seems that everyone has a better half or soul mate except for poor Grigori Peshkov. He would have been denied his goal of going to America, and he is still in a precarious spot.

I like the way things are shaping up with Maud and Walter. They have no realistic hope of being together. It seems that way for now. I like this melodrama they are in.

Fitz's enrollment as a spy is another way of achieving silly drama. He's a low level spy but things might suddenly depend on his abilities.

Gus Dewar's episode with his job and the appearance of Woodrow Wilson was another high point. The miners' strike was expected but the way Lev Peshkov ties to this impasse bodes well. All things considered I'd give Week 3 3.5/5 stars.

I'd second the 'soap operaish tinge' comment -- its very easy to get engaged with this book and turn the page, but I think that's primarily because of my interest in the period, in this episode of history, and less because of the fictional aspects of the story. I say that because if this was entirely made up, a conflict that never happened, I'm sure I'd keep going, but I don't think I'd like it as much.

I agree; totally 'As the World Turns' happening. It is a bit over the top at times, especially with how quickly Follett has his characters go from one emotional extreme to the other.

Also, I am still having trouble believing some of these characters are representative of this time period; Ethel & Walter, for example. They both seem to have very progressive & liberal views of women & their roles in this early 1900s class-entrenched European society. It is just difficult to believe that a woman of Ethel's social class would so easily & naively ignore the rules of society.

Despite these things, I am still enjoying this read & looking forward to finding out how these characters develop as war begins. Reading about this time period is making me want to read up on the real history in more detail. Hopefully, Follett has inspired others to do likewise.

I enjoyed this section as well, but am also intrigued with time period as I know less about it than the lead up to WW2. I think that Follett does a great job of explaining the different viewpoints and some the historical background.

I am definitely starting to have some favorite characters (poor grigori) and some that I don't care for (Lev). I agree that is a bit soap opera-ish.....including the gratuitous scenes between Maud and Walter. Even though Maud is very forward, those scenes seemed a bit unnecessary.

Luffy wrote: "What this book has done is kept me at an emotional distance, so that I'm like many readers now, i.e I like the book but I don't take it too much to heart. The book has a soap operaish tinge to it."

That's a good observation. It doesn't seem as though he is intending to write a serious book. It's a step above a Harlequin romance, but not by much.

Here we go again. Follette rewriting history.

The shipment of arms to Huerta on the Ypiranga and Wilson's ordering the invasion of Veracruz to prevent the arms from being landed are historical facts. So far so good.

BUT, and I think it's a huge but, the arms were NOT provided by Germany. Here's an account, which is supported by other sources but this is the clearest statement of it, of the true facts:

"The arms had originally been ordered by American financier John Wesley De Kay, a supporter of Huerta. De Kay ordered the arms through Russian arms dealer Leon Rasst (and Russian Vice-Consul) who was living in Puebla, Mexico at the time. Ordered from the Remington Arms Company in the US the weapons were shipped first to Odessa Russia, then to Hamburg Germany and from there to Havana Cuba and finally on the way to Mexico – all in an effort to avoid the US arms embargo."
http://www.beerforvictory.com/wwi-21-...

So Follette completely falsified the origin of the weapons. Again. It appears that anyone who reads Follette and relies in any way on him for accurate historical facts is going to flunk any exam they take on the history of WWI. When the Amazon.com "Best of the Month" review lauds Follette for "historical accuracy," they are just plain wrong.

At what point should a writer of historical fiction be expected to report historical facts accurately? I don't object to creating characters, nor to letting them participate on historical events even though they were, of course, never there, and I don't object at all to his creating a dinner table conversation that accurately reflects the views of the associated nations, but when he creates a conversation and a "fact" that is directly at odds with what really happened, I have to cry foul.

Everyman wrote: "Here we go again. Follette rewriting history.

The shipment of arms to Huerta on the Ypiranga and Wilson's ordering the invasion of Veracruz to prevent the arms from being landed are historical..."

I'm going to go back to what I just wrote on the section 2 board about this. I had no idea that there was an incident with arms shipped to Huerta and Wilson ordering an invasion. Yes, the facts are not 100% accurate, but at least I have that now. And it was written in a way that I will at least vaguely remember it. I wasn't going to remember the details anyways.

And as per this section, as much as I hate Lev, this section really worked out the best for everyone I think. Lev, the guy that Grigori is always bending over backwards for is, at least for now, out of his hair! Yes, he took all of Grigori's money, but Grigori will make more. I do think its looking up for Grigori's love life, too. Lev left behind a pregnant woman that Grigori happens to be in love with? Sounds almost too good to be true for him.

I am also glad to see Follet found a way to put a character into the other end of the mining strike (Lev), and we can see things from his perspective. The scene where he is escorted into the mines was pretty reminiscent of Grapes of Wrath for me, and I'm curious to see where this goes!

Everyman wrote: "Here we go again. Follette rewriting history.

That's disappointing. The arms coming from Germany makes that seem relevant to the lead up to WWI and just the general antagonistic relations b/w nations -- if that's invented, and this is about the lead up to WWI, I wonder why include it in the novel at alL?

B.p. wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Here we go again. Follette rewriting history.

That's disappointing. The arms coming from Germany makes that seem relevant to the lead up to WWI and just the general antagonistic ..."

I was wondering about that too. It seems silly to change the historic facts if it doesn't really have much relevance to this story. We already know that WWI will happen. Maybe Follett will tie it in later on in the story???

B.p. wrote: " if that's invented, and this is about the lead up to WWI, I wonder why include it in the novel at alL?"

I wondered why, too. I think maybe to enhance the character of Otto. Or to introduce the issue of Mexican oil (though did Mexico really have that much oil to make it strategically important?) Or maybe to introduce Gus in an exciting way? (though in that case, why would it matter who ordered the arms?)

I agree, it doesn't really seem necessary.

I know I'm sounding like a broken record, and probably starting to get annoying, but if we can't trust Follette to get the facts right in things like this, do we have to question everything he says that we don't know from our previous knowledge to be true? Can we trust that he represented the major players' positions accurately in that dinner conversation which I found so interesting?

I really want to read the book believing that the historical facts are accurate, realizing of course that he has to make up characters, pretend conversations, and the like, but at least trusting that the background of historical facts, when included, are right. But....

Everyman wrote: "B.p. wrote: " if that's invented, and this is about the lead up to WWI, I wonder why include it in the novel at alL?"

I wondered why, too. I think maybe to enhance the character of Otto. Or to i..."

I completely agree w/ you! I think w/ historical fiction there has to be a level of trust between the reader & the writer so the reader can rely upon the basic historical facts/circumstances being correct. Escpecially if it turns out the writer (Follett, in this case) changed historical facts just because he could & those changes do not further his character development or his story. For this book, we will just have to wait to find out whether or not Follett had a purpose for making these changes.

I am disappointed to hear about origins of the gun shipment going to Heurta was not factual. I didn't really have a problem with the strike in the earlier chapters because mining strikes happened and I think the purpose was to highlight the upper crusts against the miners.

However, by attributing the sales to Germany, it is really playing with the implications and mindsets of country leaders which lead up to a worldwide conflict. So... did Follett do faulty research and only knew that the guns went from Hamburg to Cuba so then he took the liberty of placing the Otto in the middle of brokering the deal for narrative purposes. Or was this the commonly held belief at the time that the guns had come from Germany? If it only came to light much later that De Kay was responsible, I could see why you would want to make it seem like Germany was brokering the deal --- however by having the conversation between Otto and the Mexican consulate (sorry -- don't have a copy handy) it makes it seem like fact.

Nevertheless....thank you Everyman for pointing out these discrepancies.

Fiction should have fiction in it, but how much fiction is another question.

As for the questions of the weapons, now we know that they were supplied by John Wesley De Kay and Leon Rasst, BUT at the time when the events happened the newspapers reported that the German government was responsible for this chain of supply.

I am more inclined to believe that it is not Follett who is willingly twisting and turning the facts, neither is it the result of his poor research, but it might be his intention TO SHOW WHAT THE WORLD AND PEOPLE BELIEVED WAS TRUE.

This historical oversight is such a rookie mistake that I refuse to believe that no one ever pointed it to him. He might explain later in the novel that this was what everyone believed was true, but not the actual truth.

I also agree with many that he is painting his characters with very a broad brush, and I would prefer them to be more nuanced. As for the sexual scenes, some of them are interesting as they show the spirit of liberation after the prim and proper Victorian period, but the other ones are slightly gratuitous. At the same time, there are so many characters whose lives are meandering and crisscrossing each other that I never felt bored. It is surprisingly very engaging.

I also find the fact that now Lev has to take care of himself without anyone to rely on is an example of poetic justice.

Another thing that has already been mentioned in your comments, even if some facts are slightly different from the historical truth as we know it now (and as I wrote earlier, Follett might be trying to convey the convictions and opinions that people believed were true at that time), he manages to tell us the story that is engaging and it also piques my interest, so I regularly look up many things online.

Zulfiya wrote: "Fiction should have fiction in it, but how much fiction is another question."


And quite an interesting question.

Maybe the historical inaccuracies should bother me, but they don’t. I always saw this as more “inspired by true events” than actual facts, and I wouldn’t come to Follett for accuracies. He is entertaining and he keeps my interest, and after a year of relatively heavy reading for me I like me some easy, fast-paced fun. That said, I do think this is an interesting discussion. How much has to be true in historical fiction in order to fulfil the “historical” bit? If events are correctly described and take place at the right dates, are you then allowed to change historical characters’ motivations and personalities? Or do they have to be true as well?

I look forward to seeing what is going to happen to Lev. I think there is more to him than an irresponsible gambler. It has happened before that an irresponsible youngster who has someone he can always rely on to get him out of scrapes, pull himself together when that someone is gone. I think he could turn out to be quite an interesting character.

Zulfiya wrote: "As for the sexual scenes, some of them are interesting as they show the spirit of liberation after the prim and proper Victorian period,... "

Interesting thought, though the Victorian era was, I think it's generally now accepted, prim and proper mostly on the surface (think John Brown, and "French novels" were pretty widely circulated, even if only in brown covers.)

I'm a bit frustrated about the complaints about historical inaccuracies. Historical fiction is always just based in historic facts. It's absolutely not going to be 100% factual, that's what non-fiction history books are for.

To me, this is like thinking that crime shows should be accurate. We wouldn't really want to sit through a show that took six months to get a DNA sample back, right?

I personally hate reading historical fiction that has real people in it. If these people lived, had their own hopes and dreams, and acted in a certain way, those things should not be changed. The other things I don't really mind because I know they're not going to be factual.

Has anyone seen the mini-series Attila? That thing is so historically inaccurate they should have been required to change the names of the four characters who really lived.

I think I'm going to bow out for a few weeks until (hopefully) everyone is done debating fact vs fiction. Or Zulfiya, would it be possible to open a thread that's specifically to discuss what really happened vs what happens in the book? Then we could discuss just the book in one place and "truth" in another.

I really just want to kick back and enjoy this one. If I'm the only one who's getting frustrated by this, let me know and I can just read it on my own. I really wouldn't mind.

Sarah, I will PM Kristie because she is officially in charge of this discussion.
I believe she has not been feeling well recently. Hopefully she is on the mend, and if she is O'K with this thread, I will open a thread where one can discuss fiction vs truth in historical fiction.

I see how it can be frustrating, but I can also see how frustrating it can be to see the truth being manipulated in fiction. Once I read To Try Men's Souls - it was for f2f book club because I would have personally never chosen this big BS, and I was cringing all the time I was reading because the author's vision of the truth is quite different from what actually happened. Besides, the political ideas behind it were quite reprehensible (well here is my liberal persona raising its head :-)).

So I see the two sides of the issue - someone wants to read this novel as fiction, and someone wants to read it as a book based on certain facts, and I can side with both groups.

If there are comments that are conflicting with mine, I either try to elaborate my view again to get the message across or simply ignore those comments and post later. I mean I am usually quite belligerent about my viewpoint, but once in a while I give myself a slack :-)

I can definitely see that it would be frustrating to see facts being messed with. I just read a book that was set in Elizabethan England and it drove me crazy because I knew too much about the people and the time period. I just feel like we know that this isn't historically accurate and continuing to talk about it is like beating a dead horse. To separate this thread into two would be ideal. Thanks for passing it on.

I'm also not trying to be rude to anyone. This has been personally frustrating for me and it's decreasing my enjoyment of the book. I thought I would say something. If everyone feels it's an important part of the conversation, I'm perfectly fine with reading it alone.

Sarah wrote: "I'm a bit frustrated about the complaints about historical inaccuracies. Historical fiction is always just based in historic facts. It's absolutely not going to be 100% factual, that's what non-f..."

I certainly don't want to drive you away from the discussion, and have tried to tone down the historical issues in favor of enjoying the fiction. But I do have to note that Follett claims to be pursuing historical accuracy assiduously, so he's intending to do something more than just fiction loosely based on a historical period.

This from an interview with him published in BookPage (cite at end of quotation):

“The research and effort at authenticity is more difficult when you’re writing about history that is within living memory,” Follett says. “One of the features of writing about the Middle Ages is that from time to time you ask yourself or you ask your advisors a question and nobody knows the answer. So then of course, as an author, you’re entitled to make it up. But with the 20th century, if you want to put, say, Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary at the outbreak of World War I, at a social event on a particular day in July 1914, you really have to find out where he was on that day. You can’t make it up. Because somebody somewhere knows where he was every day.”

For a book with the international reach of Fall of Giants, Follett, who takes pride in the accuracy of his historical fiction, hired eight historians to read the first draft. These included experts on America, Russia and Germany.

http://bookpage.com/interviews/8622-k...

Zulfiya wrote: "Sarah, I will PM Kristie because she is officially in charge of this discussion.
I believe she has not been feeling well recently. Hopefully she is on the mend, and if she is O'K with this thread,..."

Thanks for the PM Zulfiya! Sorry I've been away lately, not sick, just buried in work. 50 hour weeks for my day job and then another 15 hrs for my business...when it rains it pours...lol. I am listening to the book while I work, so I'll try to snatch a bit of time to get It here and comment.

I've made the new thread, so anyone wanting to discuss the historical inaccuracies can feel free to skip on over to that thread and discuss it there. Let's keep the weekly threads for discussing the book. Sound good to everyone?

Again, sorry for being a bit absent, I am reading the chats, just haven't gotten the free time to comment.

Thank you Kristi. The two separate threads will be wonderful. That way we know what we're going to find when we open a thread to participate.

Thanks for the info Everyman. 8 historians is insane.

Wow, this is really interesting, Everyman. Thank you for sharing.

Everyman wrote: "At what point should a writer of historical fiction be expected to report historical facts accurately? I don't object to creating characters, nor to letting them participate on historical events even though they were, of course, never there, and I don't object at all to his creating a dinner table conversation that accurately reflects the views of the associated nations, but when he creates a conversation and a "fact" that is directly at odds with what really happened, I have to cry foul.
"

I don't want to re-open what seems to be a bit of a divisive topic, I just wanted to point out that this was well-stated. I, too, do not mind some changes in situations, some slightly unbelievable characters (after all, some of my favorite books have been non-fiction about truly amazing people who, if they had been fictional characters, I would have hated, because there's no way I would have believed their lives could actually happen!) but inventing something that directly influenced the beginning of the war, which is the theme of the book we're reading about, seems to be pushing things a bit far. Everyman, I'm glad you pointed out the inaccuracies, as well as your enjoyment of the story. I, too, am annoyed by that much deviation, HOWEVER, I am finding myself very much pulled into the story and very much enjoying it. If anything, it's making me want to do more research into the time period, which I suppose should be the greatest compliment to the author?

That said, I'm glad we have a thread specifically to discussion the deviations in historical accuracy; however, I feel that to eliminate that from the discussion of the rest of the book entirely would be to leave out a key element of the discussion of one's enjoyment of the book. My memory of the time period as well as how the "facts" are presented is certainly going to affect how I feel about the story. No debate needed, I just think it has an important role to play in my overall experience with the story. We've had a lengthy discussion about reader participation in our current reads and being involved, and feeling like I shouldn't post my feelings about a section or something that affects how I feel about the book as a whole would certainly hinder my ability and even desire to be participating in the group discussions. Just a thought.

Aside from all that, I am really enjoying the Walter/Maud situation. It actually feels plausible to me, including the position Maud is in, having to let her feelings aside for the good of many others. That's an old human story, and still often plays itself out, including in the realm of international politics. I'm curious where Follett will take that story.

I'm running a tiny bit behind, but I finally finished this section this morning.

First of all, the feminism and modernity of Ethel and Maud really hasn't been bothering me. I figured this is well past the "women shouldn't have to wear 40 pounds of undergarments" declaration of independence, and into the point where women are trying to get the right to vote. I think there would have been some people at the more extreme end so it honestly didn't seem odd. Until that ridiculous opera scene! That was so absurd that I was actually laughing at the whole thing.

I think it was Everyman that commented at one point about how the characters are either 100% good or 100% bad. I would definitely agree that these characters seem to fit this description. I feel like after this particular section all of the characters are fully in their designated good/bad slots, except Katarina, and I think things are really going to start happening to our characters rather than just engaging in the setup. I'm very much looking forward to this.

For me, the most extreme reaction I had was to Lev. I loathed this guy and even felt a vindictive glee that he landed in Cardiff rather than making it to America. The jerk deserves to spend some time in some very difficult situations. Here are some of my favorite highlights on this guy:

"Grigori stood still, taking it in. Lev's baby, of course. And Lev knew. Yet he had gone to America."

"He told himself not to worry about leaving Katerina to raise the child alone. She would find someone else to look after her. She was a survivor."

He's such an appalling character! He gets himself in trouble through his own stupidity, pressures Grigori, who has worked his butt off to fulfill a dream, into yielding up his ticket and then he just really doesn't care about what he's done to everyone. And he has this lackadaisical idea that he's just going to gamble his way into paying for Grigori to come out? Does anyone really believe that if he had the money he would give it to Grigori? I certainly don't.

Some of the other things that I enjoyed in this book:

Walter: "Walter felt his father's generation was arrogant." Somehow I think his father's generation thinks the same of Walter's generation.

Gus: "How had things gone so wrong? Was it really so difficult to do good in international affairs?"

Otto/Maud: "Otto looked annoyed. He evidently expected her to sit and listen to his pomposity in silence." Oh, the word "pomposity"! That was so fabulous!

Walter has actually ended up being a character that I feel what could mostly be described as affectionate pity. He's so idealistic that it borders on the painful. I'm also not really buying into the Maud/Walter situation. Emotionally, I mean. I'm not really attached to either character so I'm not feeling the passion or the pain.

Otto and Walter are an interesting pair because they're so opposite that they've become almost a dichotomy. Polarity. It's an excellent way of showing the old guard vs new guard within Germany. Also, Otto represents a lot of the views and impressions of Prussia in particular. At least, I think so. Someone else may have more information on this in particular.

I'm very interested in where Gus's character is going. He seems like another very idealistic character. Are Gus and Walter supposed to be showing that there was idealism on both sides of the war?

Overall, I'm enjoying this story. I am surprised that we are 180 pages into it (on my edition) and not a lot has really happened. I know there are a number of characters and there's a need for developing both the stories and the characters, but still - it's 180 pages!

I'm looking forward to reading next week's section as well. I will especially be interested in seeing what happens with Grigori.

Zulfiya wrote: "As for the questions of the weapons, now we know that they were supplied by John Wesley De Kay and Leon Rasst, BUT at the time when the events happened the newspapers reported that the German government was responsible for this chain of supply.

I am more inclined to believe that it is not Follett who is willingly twisting and turning the facts, neither is it the result of his poor research, but it might be his intention TO SHOW WHAT THE WORLD AND PEOPLE BELIEVED WAS TRUE."

Response posted in the new truth v. fiction thread.

Finished this section some time back but didn't get a chance to post till now.

I quite enjoyed reading this section. I read it as a fiction as opposed to going into whether it is true fact or not. Apologies for doing that but after last week's post by Everyman, where he talked about certain facts not being true historically, I wasn't sure about the historical truth behind any of the events that took place in this section. And I guess after reading the above comments as well as the new Truth V. Fiction thread, I was right in looking at it from a fictional point of view. This is sad because I was hoping to learn more about the actual historical events that led up to WWI from the book. However, am not really disappointed as the discussions here are definitely educating.

Well onto my feelings for this part.

I hated Lev. He is extremely selfish and does not deserve a brother like Grigori. Of course it could be that the author is portraying all his characters in pure shades of black or white at present, which is causing these emotions. My first reaction, when he finds himself in a place other than America was like "Yeah you deserve it!!" However, the twist provided by Follett, where he brings these emigrants to work in the mines was simply awesome. It felt like the first connection in the story line and I found that thrilling.

Grigori - Do men like that really exist? I know I should think that they do but somehow I am finding it extremely difficult to believe that someone is all good and has no bad at all. However, he is indeed a very interesting character and I would like to see how his story moves forward.

Maud-Walter - Oh this was the funniest part in the book, which read more like a cheesy romance story than a historical fiction. I would love to believe the picture as painted by the author with regard to these two but somehow I am finding it extremely difficult. Agreed that they knew each other for years but to suddenly move from being two people who knew each other to a romantic couple. Okay I know I should be more acceptable, considering I have read quite a few romances but still this seemed really strained rather than normal. It felt as though the author wanted a romance and therefore put these two together to provide the readers with one.

Water - Otto : Now this was a relationship and exchange that I could relate to and felt as being portrayed in a perfect manner. The old vs new guard was handled beautifully. I also appreciated Walter's idealistic views, which made him a character that I really liked reading about, despite his awkward romance.

Gus Dewar - Now this was according to me the best part of this section. I loved the way he was introduced and his thoughts while handling the whole situation. When reading this section, I was pretty amazed at the extent of research done by the author and found it perfectly plausible, given that it allowed Germany to become the villain in the war later. I was totally crushed after reading the above comments to see that all this was factually incorrect. Still it made a good read.

I am really looking forward to reading ahead and am wondering how things will shape up. Given that this is the first historical fiction that I am reading by the author, I have to say that the ride has been enjoyable till now. Would have loved it more if I didn't have to face the fact that some of the historical facts as quoted are not completely true.

Also I would prefer if the author managed to get some shades of grey into his portrayal of the characters. Some of them still seem unbelievable to me.

Srividya wrote: "Maud-Walter - Oh this was the funniest part in the book, which read more like a cheesy romance story than a historical fiction. I would love to believe the picture as painted by the author with regard to these two but somehow I am finding it extremely difficult."

I agree with you. This relationship is part of why I think this book is closer to soap opera (or maybe Harlequin romance) than to literary historical fiction. And wait until we get to the next set of chapters! (I've read ahead, but no spoilers!)

I, too, have read a few romance novels and quite a few romantic suspense. I have a favorite romantic suspense author and I read everything she publishes these days. I've even read a few Harlequin stories when I was a teenager although I was horrified to discover that a book I purchased by that author I love was originally published by Harlequin. I usually avoid those like the plague. However, I have never seen anything that was as awkward as this! When you start laughing, that's when you know there's a problem.

I'm wondering if it may have more to do with not having enough character development prior to these scenes? You're just kind of tossed right in there when you've been briefly told the characters are madly in love but you're not quite emotionally with them. Or I wasn't anyway.

This actually does make me worry a bit. This trilogy is supposed to cover a hundred years, but this is the only one in this time period. Are we going to see better character development along the way, or are there just too many characters for a 900 page book?

Thanks for the warning Everyman. I'll make sure I don't read it in public because if I'm reading it and start laughing and someone asks me what I'm laughing at, I'm pretty sure hysterical laughter with tears would follow.

Eh hem...Sarah...that author are you talking about?? Always looking for good books to read ;)

Ha! It's Linda Howard. She does a really fabulous job of making all of her characters and stories very unique. Enjoy. :)

Loved the book!!

Sarah wrote: "I'm running a tiny bit behind, but I finally finished this section this morning.

First of all, the feminism and modernity of Ethel and Maud really hasn't been bothering me. I figured this is well..."

Good summary, I felt pretty much the same about each quote you mentioned, especially about the "arrogant" bit. I'm sure that is true of every generation in ever group/nation that has ever existed: the old and young each think the others' generation is arrogant.