Skip to main content

The Evening and the Morning

 


Book Review

Title: The Evening and the Morning

Author: Ken Follett

Publisher: Viking, 2020

Pages: 915

Ken Follett is a master when it comes to narrating tales about the medieval period. His Kingsbridge trilogy went on to sell millions of copies in various languages. The Evening and the Morning is a prequel to the trilogy. It tells the story of some very fascinating characters who lived at the turn of the second millennium CE. The plot is set in Kings Bridge (as Deng’s Ferry came to be known in that period with the replacement of the ferry by a bridge) and surrounding places in the period of 997-1097.

Ragna, a Norman noblewoman, falls in love with Wilf, a British aristocrat without knowing that he was already married. Those were days when the British men could just “set aside” an existing wife in order to take a new one and thus Ragna becomes Wilf’s legal wife. Those were days when priests had wives and children though not always openly. Even bishops and cardinals had concubines as well as other clandestine pleasures. Wilf’s brother, Wynstan, is one such bishop whose venality knows no limits. They have one more brother, Wigelm, whose brain is not as clever as that of his brothers but the brutality of his heart does give them a competition. Ragna has to deal with not only these vile men but also their mother. She has much to endure.

Aldred is a noble monk who tries to bring more knowledge, light, and wisdom into the dark world that he lives in. Wynstan won’t make it easy for him and he has much to endure too. Ragna’s goodness becomes his sustenance to some extent.

There is a younger man, Edgar, who is an illiterate carpenter whose destiny becomes inextricably intertwined with those of Ragna and Aldred. All these three characters are driven by certain ideals such as integrity, justice, and compassion. But all the powerful people in their world are wicked. Why is goodness so helpless? This is one of the fundamental questions raised in the massive novel.

The state and the church were always in collusion in those days. Even now the collusion continues though not so overtly. Both the church and the state worked for keeping a few aristocrats, a small group of powerful men, securely in charge of everything. Everything includes the ordinary people too. People were just tools to be wielded as situations demanded. How Bishop Wynstan uses and throws people at the quirk of his will is just an example.

Follett keeps the reader engaged from the first page to the last. The plot moves from one gripping incident to another. This novel is yet another unputdownable thriller from him.

PS. October is the month of The Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa campaign of which this blog is a part.

 

Comments

  1. Look forward to read this, have never read Ken earlier. Thriller are really my favorite. Thanks for reviewing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Follett is charming. He re-creates the period convincingly.

      Delete
  2. Looking for something like this I will give this a read . Thanks for the review.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's really gripping especially if you are interested in ancient periods.

      Delete
  3. I have read 'Eye of the needle' by Ken Follett. This is very precise and well-penned review. Definitely adding this one to my TBR list.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This sounds like a gripping story .I like how you reviewed it keeping the suspense intact

    ReplyDelete
  5. This sounds promising. Thriller and suspense are a favourite genre. Thank you for the detailed review. Will definitely check this one out.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

The Ghost of a Banyan Tree

  Image from here Fiction Jaichander Varma could not sleep. It was past midnight and the world outside Jaichander Varma’s room was fairly quiet because he lived sufficiently far away from the city. Though that entailed a tedious journey to his work and back, Mr Varma was happy with his residence because it afforded him the luxury of peaceful and pure air. The city is good, no doubt. Especially after Mr Modi became the Prime Minister, the city was the best place with so much vikas. ‘Where’s vikas?’ Someone asked Mr Varma once. Mr Varma was offended. ‘You’re a bloody antinational mussalman who should be living in Pakistan ya kabristan,’ Mr Varma told him bluntly. Mr Varma was a proud Indian which means he was a Hindu Brahmin. He believed that all others – that is, non-Brahmins – should go to their respective countries of belonging. All Muslims should go to Pakistan and Christians to Rome (or is it Italy? Whatever. Get out of Bharat Mata, that’s all.) The lower caste Hindus co...

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so...

Books and Rebellions

Books become my ideal companions in times of political turmoil. Right now, as you’re reading these lines, there are dozens of active armed conflicts going on around the world. Besides, developed countries like America are asking foreign students as well as others to leave. The global economy is experiencing significant instability, characterised by weak growth projections, persistent inflation, high debt levels, and geopolitical conflicts. Even when a country like India advertises itself as becoming the third largest economy, the living conditions of the poor aren’t showing any improvement. Nay, the world isn’t becoming any better than it ever was. It's when such realisations hit you from all sides, you need the consolations of an abiding hobby. Reading is at the top of my list of such hobbies. First of all, books help us understand current events in a broader context . They can reveal patterns in history: how democracies falter, how propaganda spreads, how resistance movements...