WORLD WITHOUT END
by Ken Follett
(Dutton, New York, 2007, 1014 pages,   $35.00)

No one will ever accuse Ken Follett of being a great novelist. Nor will anyone ever accuse him of being a great stylist (The author himself calls his style 'unobtrusive').   However, he can be--and often is--a great storytelle, as he has proven in such novels as Eye of the Needle, Lie Down with Lion, and perhaps his best book, the epic Pillars of the Earth .

Now comes World Without End , a loose sequel to Pillars .   In reality, one need not read Pillars first. World Without End opens in 1327 almost 200 years after the close of Pillars , and with the exception of the setting--Kingsbridge, England --and the fact that a few characters are descendants of those in the earlier novel, the two share little connection.

On a larger scale, they are very much alike. Both are full of sweeping historical events; both have heroes and villains larger than life; and both, despite their tome-like lengths, move at a brisk pace.   The characters live and breathe, and Follett makes the historical settings so real you can almost smell the sweat and cow dung.

In World Without End he follows the fortunes of four people who as children witness a killing in the forest. As they grow older, they grow apart, come together, grow apart, come together. If some characters are a little too good and others a little too bad, the events move at such a pace that the weaknesses seem trivial. Interestingly, the most dastardly villains of the novel are monks. Several are not only are downright evil, they are so stubborn and protective of their power, they put the town as well as themselves at risk.

The novel may be little more than a historical thriller, but it is so well researched, the fourteenth century so well defined, the tension so well preserved, that Follett succeeds admirably.  

World Without End is popular fiction--but popular fiction done about as well as possible.

--reviewed by Jim Hitt

 

THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER
by Tom Perrotta
(St. Martin's Press, New York, 2007, 358 pages,   $24.95)

Apparently Tom Perrotta sold this novel to the films even before it hit the bookstores. With his track record, no wonder.   Two of his previous novels, Election and Little Children, made it to the screen, and both proved very successful.

In this novel, a ninth grade sex-ed teacher, Ruth Ramsey, comes into conflict with a local evangelical Christian group called the Tabernacle. Her daughter's soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner who found salvation through the church. An incident at a soccer game ignites a conflict between Ruth and Tim, and soon the Tabernacle manages to force through a ruling by the school board that sex ed must teach only abstinence. No longer can Ruth teach safe sex, and she sees this as unrealistic and dangerous.

At first Ruth and Tim mistrust each other, but after the incident on the soccer field, they begin to talk, and soon find themselves going beyond first impressions.  

Perrota writes well.   His style is fluid, his characters well drawn.  Ruth and Tom resonate as characters long after the novel ends. Every time the events threaten to degenerate into popular romance, the author makes a sharp turn and presents us with an unexpected although logical alternatives.   Perrota appears to favor Ruth in her struggle to teach the truth over religious intolerance, but he never piles on the invective.   

In fifty years from now, will the conflict over sex ed in the high school elicit the same urgency as it does today?   If not, the book may become dated.   On the other hand, the story is actually about people, who in the midst of conflict, find common ground and discover that people are more than the surface. Also, as in Little Children, Perrota explores the unexpected and surprising undercurrents that exist in American suburbia. These themes are timeless .

The Abstinence Teacher may miss the mark as a great novel--Little Children is stronger and more urgent--yet it showcases Tom Perrota's talents as a storyteller as well as his ability to dissect the foibles of America suburbia.

--reviewed by Jim Hitt