I just finished the WW II thriller by Ken Follett Winter of the World. Let’s just say it was amazing!

The way he entertwines all of his characters is breathtaking, especially in considering that all of his historical premises are not fiction. They really happened! I may be a historical novice, moreso when it is applied to 20th century world history, but the level of detail, complexity, and art that Follett uses in authoring such a masterpiece is exquisite.

Seeing that this is my first novel post, I want to stay away from synopses of the book and stick with the pros, cons, and a few facts from what I’ve learned from reading the piece. And me being a chemist, I love lists and black and white statements so let’s start that way!

The pros, quite honestly, outweigh the cons. His use of adjectives in describing emotional to war scenes are utter perfection. The last novel that I read that was amazing in this regard was Tolstoy’s War and Peace. But Follett is not Tolstoy, nor should you be sad that he isn’t. He has his own style, and just the uniqueness of that style and the theory behind the work is awesome.

I will be honest, it is over 900 pages (A TOME!) and is coming out in paperback in August, I believe. BUT it’s amazing and worth the exorbitant amount of time that is required to finish it. Another con is the large amount of characters that the reader has to keep straight. Moreover, the author incorporates espionage into the work, which is a fantastic edition, but can at times be confusing. I believe the one character Werner was a German who was a German officer, but participated in espionage against the Nazis. Yet, he told his family that he stopped being a spy for the German opposition, but in actuality was. That piece as well as some of the other character constant changing sides was a bit confusing.

On an emotional note, the most touching and depressing story came by the discovery of how the Nazis were treating mentally retarded, physically impaired, and incapacitated individuals. SPOILER ALERT! Two main characters discover that the one’s brother who was 8 years old but not mentally older than a 2 year old was required by his doctor to leave the facility that he was in for the past few years and be relocated to another where the family could not visit him. A week after his move, the family received a letter that stated the boy died of an appendix infection. The boy, however, had an appendectomy years prior so they knew this was not correct and something terrible happened. To make a long story short, the Nazis were killing these people so that they did not have to take care of them and so they didn’t “taint” the population.

This story line really hit home for me. If anything like this happened to my brother, I would kill someone. But, it also quickly makes clear how evil the Nazis were and how completely unemotionally connected to the populace they were.

Regardless of this very depressing part of the story line the novel is awesome and worth the read. Just make sure you have a chunk of time to read it!