Reading the Chunksters discussion

Thoughts on this section?

Also there was a request for a faster schedule for this book. How many are interested in this? If it's a majority I'm happy to look at editing the schedule for next week.

So, there's another baby on the way... This time in the US.

Laugh out loud! I can't take this book seriously. Just as there was talk of a 12-hour job for Ethel at a sweatshop and I began to feel guilty not giving Week 7 an impartial, unwearied read, things go burlesque again. What person would buy that Ethel would blurt out Fitz's secret in the way it has been written. I don't see anything special in Ethel. She thinks a librarian is beneath her?

Portraying her as either intelligent OR kind would have helped me to accept her lapse. To err is after all, human. But this Ethel character is a mishmash of unlikely connotations. I think it's highly unlikely that someone BOTH intelligent and good natured would have such a brain fart. I can be found out here, called out, and challenged. I just want to say she struck me as totally lacking in substance.

Moving on quickly, I think Follett wanted us to warm up to Lev. So he makes Lev feel loyal towards his brother. His trajectory is just starting, and I think any person fleeing Russia can benefit from many opportunities for a book. Let's reserve our verdict on that. But I did find it comical how that Vyalov(sp?) magnate offers Lev a promotion of sorts after thrashing the latter. Is he running a Pavlovian experiment or what?

I forgot totally about Gus's aborted romance with Caroline. The poor guy is about to be disappointed and also get the lesser, less interesting arcs of this book, just like Billy is getting shortchanged. Ken Follett has no ink for good guys, unless he makes them stupid, like Ethel.

In all I rate Week 7 3/5 and await the next time Follett will put his foot in his mouth.

I also thought the Ethel/Billy scene was absurd. Not only does Ethel blurt out her secret after lying for months... what the hell was up with Billy? He helps her in the very last stages of birth and then he's not at all embarrassed when she starts breast feeding? He says he would have been before he helped. It was just bizarre. The whole scene was completely surreal.

I do think Ethel thinks a librarian is beneath her. She seems to have a very high opinion of herself. On one hand she's practical. She finds a way to support herself (via "extortion" according to Fitz), she's not afraid to work hard, she joins the Labour Party... all kinds of practical stuff but then there's this hubris.

As for Lev, I had no idea he could actually be MORE stupid than what he had already done. I'm sure he'll make a very loyal husband.

The card cheating was like deja vu. In A Dangerous Fortune Follett describes card cheating in extreme detail. Which is something that is interesting when you compare these books; Fall of Giants is much thinner on the detail. I'm wondering if he was a bit too ambitious with trying to cover so many characters. In order to make it a manageable size, there's really no way to give us enough detail in any one situation.

I also had forgotten about Gus and Caroline. I had to use my Kindle's search function to figure out what he was talking about.

Some highlights for me:

Lev could read, but he did not really understand people who thought of it as a pleasure.

This pretty much says everything about Lev, all in one sentence.

At the end of August the Germans promised not to attack passenger ships without warning.

How much warning is required? This is an absurd sentence.

I do have one curiosity... How did Rosa Hellman know what was going on with Olga? Enough that she reacted the way that she did. Also, in her reaction, I wonder if she has some feelings for Gus?

Some of the pieces in this are just so strange. I'm having a very hard time connecting with the book. Unless, like Luffy, I'm laughing at it.

How did Rosa Hellman know what was going on with Olga? Enough that she reacted the way that she did.

My reading of this was that she knows the family's criminal reputation and that's why she reacted like that. From what I could pick up, Gus thinks her father is just a rich businessman and doesn't know he's a crook.

Ah. That makes sense. Gus is a bit naive.

Sarah wrote: "I also thought the Ethel/Billy scene was absurd. Not only does Ethel blurt out her secret after lying for months... what the hell was up with Billy? He helps her in the very last stages of birth and then he's not at all embarrassed when she starts breast feeding? He says he would have been before he helped. It was just bizarre. The whole scene was completely surreal."

Coming from a male's perspective, I can understand how he could eventually "shrug off" the feeling of embarrassment and shame in regards to witnessing his sister breast feeding.

Although I agree that the scene was surreal, I'm sure that during the described time period, it may not have been as unheard of as one may expect. Of course he'll help out his sister as best he can in what he presumed was an emergency; and for the most part, it was.

Why would Ethel 'blurt out' the secret? Perhaps she had completely trust in her brother, and even as a child, they shared secrets with each other that they wanted neither their parents, nor anyone else for that matter, to know.

What was weird was that it all happened in a matter of minutes. He runs in, flips up her skirt, grabs the baby, and somewhere in what must have been two minutes he's not embarrassed. Even though he actually says that he would have been beforehand. I just don't think there could have been a change on this level so quickly. If he had been there a couple of hours then it would make sense. It all just happened much too quickly for me to find it believable.

I found the whole scene with Lev and the daughter (I can't even remember her name, that's how unimportant she felt to me!) completely ludicrous. She's a twenty-something year-old virgin daughter of a very powerful, dangerous man, then in one moment her emotions get the better of her and she just goes for it? No thought for consequence? I guess the argument could be made that no one had ever really given her that level of attention before and she just gets swept up in it, but still. I just didn't buy it. Oh, and of COURSE she's pregnant! Gee, didn't see THAT one coming! Although I was glad that Maude did not end up pregnant, as that was entirely TOO obvious.

Anyhoo, despite the completely ridiculous situations, I am still very much enjoying this. Maybe I like to see the completely worthless people like Lev get a bit of comeuppance? And yes, I can't believe how stupid he was. But, again, he'd been able to get out of every circumstance before now, so maybe he really was just that brazen. But poor Gus!

I didn't find the scene with Billy losing his embarrassment that unbelievable, actually. I can see Ethel, in her exhaustion and hormonal craziness after just giving birth, just saying exactly what she thinks and letting the secret out. And I can see him, after dealing with the immediate emergency and partial horror of birth, being fine with breastfeeding right afterwards. It's not impossible. Certainly no more impossible than everything else so far :)

Alana wrote: "I found the whole scene with Lev and the daughter (I can't even remember her name, that's how unimportant she felt to me!) completely ludicrous."

You weren't the only one.

I wonder whether this is where Downtown Abbey got that plot idea. Or vice versa. Somehow two works getting the same basic idea of an upper crust young lady getting in bed with the chauffeur and then marrying him seems unlikely. But who borrowed from who?

The marrying him is the only part I don't believe. Hormones do crazy and stupid things.

Everyman wrote: "Alana wrote: "I found the whole scene with Lev and the daughter (I can't even remember her name, that's how unimportant she felt to me!) completely ludicrous."

You weren't the only one.

I wonde..."

Indeed, the scene was ludicrous, and almost destructive to the story, as far as I can see. Granted, it's used as a small plot device to further the story, I believe it could have been written far better, and utilized the character in a much stronger fashion.

I've read about 200 pages worth of this novel today and I'm really getting sucked into the characters and the situations they are finding themselves in. Yes, some of the scenes are ludicrous when analysed on their own, but in the context of the bigger picture I'm finding the whole thing very absorbing.

Lev is a perfect example of rooting for the bad guy. I know that what he does is despicable; the card con, not keeping his promise to Grigori, seducing the boss' daughter etc, but I can't help but wince every time someone else comes along and beats him up, and hope he is able to get out of the situation. And hey, if he marries Olga hopefully he'll be able to afford a ticket for Grigori to come to America. If Grigori survives the war.

Glad that Maud didn't get pregnant, but I assume this means that Walter is going to survive, seeing as I don't see Follett covering a hundred year time period without giving them some descendants.

Nice to see Billy again! I enjoyed the scene where he was present at Ethel's birth, and I didn't find it unbelievable that he wasn't as embarrassed as he thought he would be. I know I've been in certain situations where I've reacted differently to how I thought I would, and it seems to me like being the sole person present at the birth of your nephew is probably one of those times.

Oh Gus, nothing has gone your way so far. :-( I'm sure he'll come out of the whole thing well eventually though. And we haven't heard from Fitz in a little while, but I am kind of hoping he has a nasty time of it coming up.

Sarah wrote: 'I do have one curiosity... How did Rosa Hellman know what was going on with Olga? Enough that she reacted the way that she did. Also, in her reaction, I wonder if she has some feelings for Gus?'

I didn't read it as Rosa knowing the Olga/Lev situation, but more a comment on the reputation of Voyalov's violent nature. Maybe she was warning him about the kind of family he'd be marrying into. But yes, I agree that she could possibly have feelings for Gus herself.

Also, I'd be interested in speeding up. I'm managing each section in a single sitting of about 45 minutes and I'm definitely hooked enough now to set more time aside each week for this.

I was out of town for a couple days, but speeding up is fine with me as well.

I am still enjoying the story, but wow ---- there are a lot of pregnancies. Obviously, it's a multi-generational story, so you do expect some children, but only one of the pregnancies is to a married couple.

My prediction that the there will be some comparison between Lev's children, one raised in America and the other raised in Russia by Grigori.

I was out of town for a couple days, but speeding up is fine with me as well.

I am still enjoying the story, but wow ---- there are a lot of pregnancies. Obviously, it's a multi-generational story, so you do expect some children, but only one of the pregnancies is to a married couple.

My prediction that the there will be some comparison between Lev's children, one raised in America and the other raised in Russia by Grigori.

JoLene wrote: "I am still enjoying the story, but wow ---- there are a lot of pregnancies..."

No kidding!

Agreed, I think it would be more realistic, given the time frame, for more of these pregnancies to be between a married couple. But I may be mistaken in the historical accuracy of that. It would be nice to see at least ONE of these children in a relatively stable home life (war aside, of course). But we'll see how all of that progresses.