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This book is very easy to read, but it has an air of smugness about the writing style that I'm not keen on. It doesn't feel as personal as it could, and the writing seems distant to the events being talked about. I may be picking up on that more because this is Archer we're talking about, but nevertheless I can't help but notice it. The story is entirely contrived, so far, with every available cliché being employed. The plot borders on the ridiculous, and each of the two boys being written about come across as bad rpg profiles. First there's William Kane, born to a high profile Boston society family to a wealthy banker. With an idyllic toddlerhood, being doted on by admiring grandparents and an adoring father who sees all his dreams fulfilled in his heir, he seems perfect. Then on a trip to England with his parents he becomes ill, and he and his mother have to delay their trip back to America but his father goes on ahead without them...and perishes on the Titanic's maiden voyage. (It just had to be the Titanic, didn't it...couldn't have killed him off in a less high profile, less tacky kind of way? Nooo!!) His father's death gives him his reason to succeed, and from that moment on he's a high flyer (but apparently devoid of any emotion), and heads off to an exclusive boarding school to make his mark in the world. Meanwhile mommy is left behind to try and find some sort of life for herself without her son and husband, and so falls in love and remarries, much to William's disgust. Then there's Wladek. This just reads like a Greek tragedy, so be prepared. His mother's body is discovered in the woods by the children of a Polish woodsman. Alongside her corpse is a baby, whose birth killed her, and who the family decide to raise as their own. He grows, and is far more intellectual than his siblings, to the point where the rich Baron they work for asks if he'll stay at his castle and be companion to his son. Wladek agrees, on the condition his favourite sister can go too. The years pass, and Wladek thrives under the Baron's generosity, and Leon (the son) becomes his best friend. The Baron begins to treat the boy as a second son, loving and teaching him as if he were his own. Then the revolution comes. Leon is killed and the Baron and Wladek, along with his sister and other servants, are taken prisoner. For years they are held captive, and many starve to death. One day the Baron sees Wladek bathing, and sees he has a deformity...he has but one nipple. Immediately he calls the boy to him, and begins teaching him all he should know about the history of the family, because he knows now that the boy is truly his heir. On his deathbed he wills his estate to the boy, and his title. Soon afterwards their German captors are killed by Russian soldiers, and the prisoners are once more in fear of their lives. Wladek is forced to watch as his sister is gang raped by the soldiers, and killed. Alone in the world now he and the remaining servants are taken on a harrowing journey to a labour camp in Russia. With the help of a kindly doctor the boy escapes, and heads to Odessa after a nice woman aids his escape. So much about this book displeases me. I just can't deal with books that are this removed from logic and reality. Outlandish sequences of events that rely on total coincidence just make me feel cheated as a reader. Can't the author find a way to the place he wants without relying on a million to one chance, ever single time he wants to move the story on?
Anyway, I'm hoping the first part of the book, that tells about the
boy's backgrounds (oh woe is them, poor tortured, damaged
creatures...Yawn!) is over soon, and some semblance of a real story
emerges. I'm a little bored of reading one awful tale after another (in
the case of Wladek) and one slimy success story after another (William).
I would like there to be something less Virginia Andrews to read. |
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This book can be summed up in one word. Dross! I can't tell you how relieved I was to turn the final page of this self-indulgent, self-satisfied piece of...writing. I can see why it would be popular, in the same way that I see why Mills&Boon are so well liked, but that doesn't mean I want to ever have to plough through it's like again. I kept rushing through it, hoping that at some point it would get good...and it just never did! The plot, if you can call it that, was one bizarre set of coincidences after another, strung together with talk of stocks, banks and high finance. There was lots of money talked about, but very few feelings. If it was about anything it was wasted opportunities and pointless revenge, but that would credit the book with having some erroneous moral message. It doesn't. The only message it had for me was that I should trust my instincts and avoid everything Jeffery Archer's name appears on in future. So here we go...from the labour camp Wladek travels to the Middle East, steals some fruit, is about to get his hand cut off when (dun dun duuh) he is saved by an English diplomat, who takes him in, feeds him and packs him off to the good old US of A. On arrival he takes the name Able, whoohoo, the title suddenly makes sense!!! So why didn't he start off called Able...I'm thinking maybe Archer thought it would make the title too contrived, hehe, oh the irony! Anyway, back to the story. On arrival Able starts working as a waiter, which is his first rung of the hotel management ladder. He's snapped up and goes to manage his first hotel (which he makes a total success) and eventually invests his life savings in the company's shares. Then disaster strikes, and the owner, now his best friend, is going to have his chain of hotels repossessed by Kane's bank. Meantime Kane is busy making sure his no-good thieving step-father has no access to his money when his mother becomes pregnant by the cad. Inevitable she dies in childbirth and William throws the hate-filled widower out on the streets and reclaims his home. Once back in his father's house he sets about working his way up the banking ladder so that one day he can take over his father's bank. I won't even bother going into details, unless you get turned on by merchant bankers (there's a good reason it's cockney Rhyming slang!). Eventually he does (and no, it wasn't an enormous shock seeing as he basically got everything he wanted the whole way through the damn book!) and merges the two biggest banks to create one huge great money house. Dull, dull dull, and then we get to the point of the story where Archer was clearly building to. Able comes to him to ask for finance for his greatest friend and mentor, which Kane has to decline. Later that day the hotelier (whose name I can't be bothered to look up) jumps out of the hotel window to his death, leaving his chain of hotels to Abel. Able hates Kane, blah, blah, blah, they spend the next forty years trying to bring each other down, while their own fortunes grow and their reputations thrive. Kane gets married to a beautiful woman (with whom he barely seems to spend a minute, but claims to love nonetheless) and has children. The eldest, and future heir to the fortune, becomes the focus of William's life. Able has a daughter...well, it's so bloody obvious where it goes next it's just not funny any more. *Sigh* they meet (bizarre, stupid coincidence of course!) fall madly in love, and both get disowned by their fathers when they decide to marry. It just goes on and one and on. An now you don't need to read the book, cause you know what happens. I hope I helped out some poor sod out there in the virtual world who was, like me, waiting for it to get good! IT DOESN'T GET GOOD! I whines on and on with a sketchy, emotionless story about two men entirely devoid of character, who think their the centre of the Universe! Urgh, I'm sorry to be so negative about it, but the amount of willy waving in this book is simply ridiculous. And don't get me started on the sex scenes...OK, I got started...The sex scenes in the book are really uncomfortable to read. They're written in a dispassionate manner that feels so voyeuristic to read, and without any semblance of hotness about them. I've read some good sex scenes in my time, and when they're good they're very, very good, but when they're bad they're creepy. This book dives right into the deep end of creepdom, and fails to surface. The sexual politics in the book are horrific, with Able visiting prostitutes to learn how to do it right (which gives a hint at his psyche, that he'd rather be good than involved!). William's not that much better, but I couldn't help thinking that the lack of humanity in this book stems from one place; the author's own lack of interest in anyone buy himself. Perhaps that's harsh, but the kind of power-driven megalomania that the two lead characters aspire to has to come from somewhere, and Archer was a politician...1+1=2! I know lots of people love this book, and I'm sure there will be treatment for that affliction some time in the future, but this was not a book I got any enjoyment from. The only thing I can say in it's favour was that it was over quick, and that was a Godsend! I won't be looking out any other Jeffrey Archer novels, and I'll be damned if he gets any more of my money!
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