Ken Follett’s latest historical novel “Never,” published in November 2021, is about a fictional complex game of political tensions that inexorably leads the world into World War III.
The British author presents to the readers the scenario where the major world powers slowly progress toward a worldwide conflict – a nuclear one.
In a brief preface to the book, Follett writes about an important element that he learned about during his research for his 2010 book, “Fall of Giants,” a story focused on WWI.
“I was shocked to realize that the First World War was a war that nobody wanted,” writes Follett.
“Never” sets the same concept into today's society.
Reading the book is like living in a gigantic “what if” where the threat of a nuclear war is no longer a menace looming in the dark corners of mankind, but a real and concrete problem on a planetary scale.
However, the author does not present a surreal scenario but a series of plausible events that do not seem far from our current reality.
There are no explicit war declarations between the countries in the book, but rather a series of events and minor conflicts testing the political alliances that dramatically brings the world to the brink of destruction.
The readers can feel the constant tension growing chapter by chapter through political discussions and military attacks.
The passage between “I cannot see them using a nuke bomb to start a war” and “Who is going to make the first move?” is fast and brutal.
He writes about the kind of events that make readers think, “This could potentially happen anytime.”
For example, the desperate illegal travel undertaken by Kiah, a poor farmer living in the Sahara desert, to leave Africa is a representation of the fate that many immigrants face to reach Europe.
Or the tension between two African countries, Chad and Sudan, presented in the very first act of the book, has several similarities to the current situation between Russia and Ukraine.
The tension between Russia and Ukraine, started in early 2014, resulted in a massive invasion of Ukrainian territory by the Russian army on Feb. 24, according to a Feb. 25 CNN article.
Another example reflecting our reality are the racist and hateful speeches that characterize the U.S. Senator James Moore, another character who seems to be a facet of former president Donald Trump.
Evidently, reality is the engine of the novel.
The book also has elements that characterize many of Follett’s past works, which have involved government spies and politics.
The chapters have a flowing narration without “dead spots” or places where the reader might get bored and lose focus while reading.
There are chapters where an undercover CIA agent, Abdul John Haddad, follows a group of terrorists in Sudan trying to find the head of their organization.
It is during those scenes that Follett exhibits the spy-genre elements and also has the audience empathize with the character’s anxiety and stress as he continues his mission.
However, at the same time, the political elements of the story play a fundamental role that engages the audience into the complex system of alliances between countries.
You don’t need any prior political knowledge to comprehend the book because the author provides clear explanations of the alliances between countries.
The way Follett presents the events to the audience is exceptionally intelligent.
There are many situations where the author does not directly describe events to the reader, but he lets the characters have dialogues about them, or, in some situations, live through them in first person.
There are different parts of the book where President Pauline Green holds meetings in the Oval Office. She, alongside the reader, is unaware of the most recent events, and she discovers them during the conference.
It is almost like the reader is taking part in the meeting with the U.S. President and her entourage.
That writing style provides a deep immersion that is capable of directly connecting the reader to the story.
Follett also does not indicate which characters are protagonists and antagonists as the real threat is the nuclear war itself.
As a result, the reader can empathize for all the characters in a similar manner with them presenting opposing political ideas.
It is hard to blame characters for the events taking place in the book.
I desperately tried to find the “bad guy” of the story, but that is not possible because every character is moved by their principles.
The book has an important trait: it makes it possible to closely analyze opposite points of view and attempt to understand them.
I explored cultures and political perspectives that were far from mine and I found that behind those principles, there were people just like me.
People who were not necessarily wrong.
In many real-life situations we tend to find a “bad guy” or an antagonist where, most of the time, on the other side, there is a person similar to us.
“Never” works on that divisive line, making it clear that while people fight against each other, the only real enemy is the conflict itself.
