Picture of life in Elizabethan England
IF the reader’s idea of worthwhile literary entertainment is to read Ken Follett’s made-up account of Catherine of Medici, Queen of France, instructing a lady-in-waiting of Mary, Queen of Scots, on how Mary might fake the taking of her virginity by French King Henri II if he were not able to on their wedding day, then A Column Of Fire might be considered tasty reading.
Follett is the author of the bestsellers The Pillars Of The Earth (1989) and World Without End (2007). This, his 23rd novel and likely to be another sales success for him, is set mostly in 16th century England, Scotland, and France. It takes actual historical events, peopled by real historical figures, and then mixes into the story fictional characters that he has invented. The stories of the fictional characters, and sometimes even the real characters, woven together produce a reasonable historical account of the period, but also constitute what used to be called “a bodice ripper”, or, more contemporaneously, “chick lit”.
The historical figures in the chronicle include Elizabeth I of England, Sir Francis Drake, Mary Queen of Scots, Guy Fawkes, Catherine of Medici, King Phillip II of Spain, and Pieter Titelmans, the Catholic Grand Inquisitor of the Netherlands. Follett includes at the end of the book a list of the real characters in the story. I guess that helped.
It was interesting to track the narrative of the period, running from 1558 to 1620, when a grandson of the protagonist of the piece sails off to New England on the Mayflower. Follett, however, totally lost me about halfway through the long chronicle when he has one of his fictional characters engineer the famous St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, when the French Catholics slaughtered the French Protestants, the Huguenots, killing as many as 70,000. That event continues to be considered one of the most important milestones in French history, on a scale with America’s Gettysburg or the Kennedy assassination. He also has one of his fictional characters abort Guy Fawkes’ effort to blow up the British Parliament.
Readers who like to read either history or fiction, with a clear line between them, might have trouble with A Column Of Fire.
There are nonetheless some interesting themes in the story. The pushing and shoving between England, Scotland, and France, with personal relations among the leaders, is dramatic. It was possible to fight wars, then inter-marry among the royal families. Queen Elizabeth I remained unmarried, but with suitors, as part of that game. The most murderous contests were between Catholics and Protestants, with horrid public executions, vividly described by Follett to the point of near-pornography. The 16th-century roles of men and women are explored. Race isn’t left out.
In that sense one comes away from the book with a perhaps better informed picture of life in the period, with key social factors examined to a degree. For me, however, the intermingling of real and fictional characters also spilled over into my feeling about the verisimilitude of the whole portrait of the period, leaving me annoyed, rather than feeling rewarded for having read through what is a long book. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/ Tribune News Service