A Review of ‘The Armour of Light
Novel’ by Ken Follett
“The Pillars of the Earth” series by Ken Follett is a work of epic proportions that chronologically began with “The Song of Morning and Evening” in the age of Viking invasions into England, taking us through the tumultuous times of Thomas Beckett, the formation of the Church of England, and in the latest installment of this series called “The Armor of Light,” we find ourselves embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars of 19th-century England.
It is the dawn before the age of enlightenment, and in our quaint little English town of Kingsbridge, technology starts appearing in the mills, displacing workers by the hundreds, leading to union uprisings which become the defining trait of the decade for England.
Meanwhile, Napoleon is knocking on the doors of all the major European powers and turning upside down the precarious balance of power in continental Europe by pushing the boundaries of France further and further. This causes panic among the rulers of all the different European powers as each of them holds on tightly to their seats.
Set in this scenario, our story follows the journey of a few mill workers who find themselves in extraordinary situations while coming into contact with extraordinary individuals who have shaped the course of time. All the standard tropes that one can find in a solid novel are present here. That is a very clear local danger in the form of a greedy older man and his cronies. There is a looming danger on the horizon in the form of Napoleon knocking on the door with his bartering ramps and trying to take over power and crown himself the new Caesar. There is some forbidden love and a lot of happy endings, quite literally and otherwise, and a generous sprinkling of gratuitous violence and gory deaths that make this book an absolute page-turner like all the other novels by Ken Follett.
Like every book by Ken Follett, the author blends in real history with fictional characters who lived in the same time, giving us a unique, common man’s perspective on many historical events. Kingsbridge in this novel seizes the arrival of its first immigrants from Ireland, and the reactions of the local populace to these immigrants give you a window into understanding how rare immigration of multiple families of individuals was in this era. You see some semblance of distribution and decentralization of power from the monarch in England/ UK, and some of this power trickles down to the local councilman and alderman of guilds. That being said, the life of the lowest rung of society is still no better, and because of a lack of awareness and formal education, any little legal rights these people have cannot be exercised by them unless there are benign or helpful people in positions of power. Despite having a shot at rain, Napoleon Bonaparte was an electric fine figure who sent shockwaves all across Europe. When he was initially imprisoned in Corsica, he manages to come back and take over the army by the sheer force of his charisma. I am so impressed by his ability to sway his soldiers into this iconic submission, so to speak, that I want to go now and find his autobiography and read it. Although I still do not understand how he lost the final battle at Waterloo to the Duke of Wellington at a military level, it doesn’t make sense to me. The narration of this final battle between the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon at Waterloo is beautifully described in the book, so I will have to find an online copy of the book and revisit this or maybe read online. The Spinning Jenny and other power tools disrupt the life of workers in 19th-century England, and this kicks off the debate of technology versus human endeavor and how the lives of people at the lowest strata of society are the ones that are impacted by the changes in technology.
Despite being a book with some very Follettesque themes woven into the plot, “The Armor of Light” is a very engaging read. Especially for a history buff like me, this introduces a period of time that was not studied in Indian schooling systems. The echoes of Napoleonic war cannons still ring all across Europe today. A few hundred years ago, if a Duke battling an emperor would have lost the battle at Waterloo, maybe I will be writing this article in French and not English.
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