Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 56

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Popular Culture Review

of-view not only contrast but dramatize the characters’ distance from each other,
and thus their miscommunication.
But Follett has stated that his early works don’t always hold up very well
(qtd. in McDowell 98), and once Winston is killed the text seems to change direc
tion, compensating for the lack of violence in the first half with a Spillane-esque
avowal to exact revenge (72) and with violent actions seemingly every few pages
after that. As if obliged to write formula from then on, Follett tosses in several
more murders, a gunfight, a solution of the mystery (with clues conveniently with
held from the reader), and a Depression-era musical comedy ending in which the
hero buys the business for the workers. In addition, absent the larger thematic
purposes for the contrasting points-of-view, the character studies now seem pur
poseless and the story becomes diffused. As A1 Zuckerman, Follett’s agent of long
standing, has noted, Follett’s early novels sometimes contain too many “point-ofview characters, most of whom appear in one chapter and disappear in the next.
The reader meets and develops an interest in a character, looks forward to spend
ing more time with [him], but instead keeps getting faced with new people” (112).
Nevertheless, these ‘apprenticeship’ novels served a purpose; at the very
least, they perhaps demonstrated to Follett that the mystery series, with its “end
lessly duplicated” characters, plots, scenes and attitudes (Van Dover 5), was not
the right vehicle for his more wide-ranging interests. He has since written books
on Scottish coal mines, a Victorian banking crisis, luxury air travel, and the launching
of a space satellite. Today, he assesses his earliest efforts and other ‘hack work’ as
flawed but useful: “[It] was good for me,” he has said. “Like an unknown rock
band touring the provinces and playing little clubs night after night, I was getting
better by working all the time” (“early” 4).
Saginaw Valley State University

Carlos Ramet

Works Cited
‘"early works.” Ken Follett Official Website. 11 Aug. 2000.
< 5 pages.
Follett, Ken. The Big Black. [Symon Myles, pseud.] London: Everest Books, 1974.
—. The Big Hit. [Symon Myles, pseud.] London: Everest Books, 1975.
—. The Big Needle. [Symon Myles, pseud.] London: Everest Books, 1974. Reprinted under
the name Ken Follett, New York: Zebra, 1979.
— . “re: papers.” E-mail to the author. 21 Mar. 2000.
“on ‘eye o f the needle’” Ken Follett Official Website. 11 Aug. 2000.
< 2 pages.
M cDowell, Rider. “Focus on: Ken Follett.” Espionage Oct. 1986: 92-102.
Van Dover, Kenneth J. Murder in the Millions. New York: Ungar, 1984.
Zuckerman, Albert. Writing the Blockbuster Novel. Foreword by Ken Follett. Cincinnati,
OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 1994.