Clipper Passing Statue of Liberty

The Boeing 314 Clipper was a large flying boat airliner in service for luxury transoceanic passenger flight between 1939 and 1948. Nine of the twelve Clippers produced went into service for Pan Am. The Yankee Clipper flew between Port Washington on Long Island and Southampton. The flyover of the Statue of Liberty shown on a vintage postcard would seem to be staged for publicity. The photograph looks doctored, which is perhaps why the back of the postcard has to state that it's an "actual photograph," although this may have been a common affirmation at the time.

Statue of Liberty
eBay Listing Ended January 7, 2019

https://www.ebay.com/itm/CLIPPER-Airplane-Passing-STATUE-OF-LIBERTY-NEW-YORK-RPPC-Real-Photo-Postcards/173720613568?hash=item28728e32c0:g:jNoAAOSwOt5cLWOI:rk:9:pf:0

Note:  The final commercial flight of the Yankee Clipper at the outbreak of World War II is the subject of Ken Follett's 1991 novel Night Over Water.

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Book Review: World Without End (2007) by Ken Follett

Ken Follett, World Without End (2007)

World Without End (2007)
Ken Follett

Ken Follett's book World Without End is the sequel to Pillars of the Earth, which I have since read, and which is indeed a good read. World Without End is a very large and very ambitious book that feels as if it's intended to be a classic but, for me, it falls short. Follett has a gift for populating the fictitious town of Kingsbridge with an assortment of truly despicable characters, but I found it took me some time to learn to like the handful of decent folk at the heart of this novel.

The sweep of the tale is quite broad, but it's almost all dour and serious, with little or no humor. The writing tends to be dry and straightforward, spelling it all out for you even in those instances in which you don't need it. But, below the surface, I fear there's not much there. That said, despite a few truly improbable plot elements, the book did get steadily more engrossing as it went along. Follett is very good at holding a complex tale together, and he is punctilious about explaining the motivations of his characters, be they virtuous or evil. After all the calamity, the various plot lines resolve quite satisfactorily, and this huge tome ends winningly on a soaring note.

Note:  My brief book review of Ken Follett's Fall of Giants (2010) is here.

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Book Review: Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

Fall of Giants (2010) by Ken Follett.

As a young man, Ken Follett wrote the extremely memorable spy novel Eye of the Needle in 1978. He has since gone on to write the highly-praised historical novel Pillars of the Earth and its sequel World Without End.

Follett's writing has grown more ambitious over the years, and now he has written Fall of Giants, a book of nearly 1,000 pages which is only the first of three projected volumes called The Century Trilogy. Fall of Giants follows eight major characters across three continents during the cataclysmic events of World War I, no minor feat. Subsequent volumes will follow the same characters and their descendants through the 20th Century. It seems clear that the second volume will cover the second World War. Perhaps the third volume will be set during the Cold War.

My knowledge of the First World War consists of hazy memories from high school social studies. Follett has done his homework here--he actually uses a research company based in New York--and he's made the earthshaking events of the early 20th Century seem as palpable as today's headlines. It's hard for a contemporary reader to understand how civilized nations could have subjected millions to the carnage of the first World War. Follett deals with this problem rather well. He places his characters close to the key decision-makers, so we can see firsthand how so many nations were led to such a calamitous outcome.

Follett's writing is very simple and direct. I would not characterize it as literary. He goes to great lengths to describe his characters's motivation for every decision and action. The cruelty and deprivation of life under the Czar is depicted so well that the Russian Revolution, when it finally comes, seems totally plausible, even necessary. Slowly, the horrors of life under Lenin emerge as well. This elaborate work of fiction depicts a host of complex historical events from the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand to the Great Depression in convincing, even compelling, detail. President Wilson, the Kaiser, and Lenin all make their appearances, but they never overshadow the characters we care about.

To be sure, getting so much historical detail in a book with only eight primary characters requires a fair number of contrivances and coincidences. Characters get reassigned from the battlefield to military intelligence and back again, as the story requires. Characters may travel from country to country, but wherever they go they keep running into each other.

As in World Without End, Follett has a fondness for highly intelligent, highly competent young men and women with modern ideals. These are the good guys, the ones who passionately want peace or women's suffrage or safer coal mines, and who we hope will succeed. There are also a number of nationalistic or aristocratic characters wedded to Old World ideals and eager for war to advance their interests. Follett explains their positions, but he doesn't share them.

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