2023-09-29 16:05:44
Ken Follett appears dapper, wearing a white jacket and shirt and a black tie and ankle boots, a sober look that contrasts with the muted colors of the cloths and fabrics on display at the Royal Tapestry Factory of Santa Bárbara, in Madrid, the setting chosen by his editorial to present the new creation of this maker of ‘best-sellers’.
The writer, a money-making machine, has sold 188 million copies of his 36 books, shipped halfway around the world and translated into thirty languages. The novelist is in the news because he has just published ‘The Armor of Light’ (Plaza & Janés), the fifth and final installment that closes the successful saga ‘The Pillars of the Earth’. Follett has created a fiction in which he addresses the consequences of the Industrial Revolution between the 18th and 19th centuries. A turbulent time in which conflict and brutality were exacerbated by the war between Great Britain and France, a conflict that bled Europe and reached its climax with the Battle of Waterloo. «The advent of machines disrupted many lives. The very high taxes served to finance a war that, together with high prices and the doubling of the price of bread, generated a lot of unrest,” says Follett, who sees obvious parallels between those years and Europe devastated by the war in Ukraine. The threat that the mechanization of looms posed for many is now called artificial intelligence, digitalization and robots.
The plot of the novel, profusely documented, is set in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, in 1792, and concludes in 1824. The narrator follows the trail of a group of families whose lives are dramatically turned upside down by the new machine age, some of which will end up destroyed at the hands of the Luddites, workers furious at the degradation of their working conditions and grueling work days that were worsened by a reduction in the workforce. «I read many history books and in them I find material to write my novels. If there is enough drama and emotional conflict the books work. Without conflict there is no story,” says Follett, 74 years old.
‘The Armor of Light’ is the fifth book in the ‘Pillars of the Earth’ saga, novels that, added to ‘The Century’ trilogy, make up a frieze of the last millennium of Western civilization. Knowing that readers are passionate about the adventures of ordinary people and not so much about the tribulations of kings and emperors, Follett tells the misadventures of the spinner Sal Clitheroe, the weaver David Shoveller and Kit, the clever son of the former.
Political correctness
The author does not feel constrained by political correctness and admits that he has always been in charge of painting diverse characters in his stories. «I usually make a woman the heroine of my novels. I was smart, I admit it. Once in a bookstore on Fifth Avenue in New York, two African American women who were somewhat tipsy showed up for a book signing. They told me: “We love your books, but they lack color. It was true. Since then I try to introduce more diversity,” says the writer, who has not hesitated to investigate the homosexual love of two men terrified of being discovered.
If there is a common denominator in their narrative, it is freedom. «I am fascinated by how people have fought for freedom… and won. A lot of my stories are fundamentally about that. I have written about the suffragettes, civil rights, the desire for scientific experimentation in the face of the Church’s reaction. That’s where great stories come from. “The theme underlying ‘The Armor of Light’ is freedom of expression.”
War is omnipresent in his work, as well as contradicted and fortunate loves, which in the end are what hook the public. «I love love stories, I can’t help it. And war makes emotional plots reach their climax. In this installment there is a lot of smell of gunpowder, it talks about a war that lasted 20 years and, as far as Spain is concerned, about the battlefields of Ciudad Rodrigo and Vitoria, a city to which it is linked by emotional ties. «I helped a little to raise funds for the restoration of the Vitoria cathedral and in the end they made me a statue. My children make fun of me, they ask me if it is an equestrian figure and my adopted son questions me if I am naked.
A lover of the good life, Follett’s vice is to have custom-made suits made in some of the refined tailor shops on Savile Road, a place frequented by members of the British royal family. In the old Tapestry Factory, Follet was seen in his element.
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