The Mesmerising effect of die Nadel

First off, I was quite surprised that the book club picked this book for review! It is probably one of the oldest popular thriller fictions of an era that was still nursing the wounds of the two world wars – incidents that perhaps gave fodder to a lot of imagination. ‘What ifs’ are a great way to prepare for the morrow……

What makes Ken Follett’s work fascinating to me is the historical positioning of the plot and strength of characters. More the latter than the former. I have been a poor history student all my life and ironically, with increasing age, I am just beginning to appreciate the role of history in shaping lives. But then as one interested in psychology, my interest always veers towards the individual and their role in shaping historical events. That, to me, makes all the difference between fiction and non-fiction in some ways.

The book Eye of the Needle, one that propelled Ken Follett into stardom, is one of the finest titles in my opinion, because it invokes the idea of being ‘in the eye of a storm’ – in the midst of action, so to say – and promptly proceeds to dump us right in the middle of one. Perhaps it’s an interesting co-incidence that the climax plays out at the ‘Storm Island’. (The first edition of the book was in-fact called the ‘Storm Island’). The central theme of the book is 'idea' of die Nadal himself (We don’t quite know what name he likes to go by – Faber, Baker…whatever). The man who gets his name from his tool – the stiletto that he is so skillful with. Despite the fact that the book carries extensive description about the man and explains his every thought and behavior, it is rather hard to get under his skin, quite differently sketched when compared with Lucy, whose every thought, feeling and perspective is quite transparent. He continues to be quite opaque as a character throughout the book and we are never quite sure what he’ll do. We know he is capable of intense violence, but we are never sure when he will lash out and when he won’t. He is not a mindless killer and that to me makes him even more dangerous and fascinating. 

Most plots would trace the travails of the protagonist. Follet however does an incredible job of keeping us close to the antagonist, letting us into his every move, every strength and vulnerability, and still not letting us really know him. It’s almost like, if we were stuck in a room with a wild animal, we would be watching it’s every move out of sheer fear of letting it out of sight – a situation where familiarity does not breed liking or trust – it is sheer terror! When he dies, we don’t feel the least bit of remorse and actually are relieved….After all, we know upfront that we don’t want him to win this game – he’s a Germany spy and we know that the Normandy landing was perhaps the one defining moment of the allied victory in the second world war – but then all that is history!!

We tend to like Lucy though and empathize with her situation and wonder why she puts up with what she does. She comes across as a person we could like because she isn’t afraid of being who she is, feeling what she does and doing what she does.

Despite his efforts at being self-sufficient and acting strong, we tend not to like David very much and tend to think of him as a sour loser! Although we feel a twinge of regret at his death, our thought immediately veers to Lucy and at least in my head, I said Good Riddance! (I know - very mean!!).

The side stories of Blogg and Godliman almost seems unnecessary until the end where as usual the police and intelligence forces make the last minute entry. On second thoughts though, this is an interesting parallel as it shows how much it takes to trace a smart spy who knows how to disappear. I kept wondering how things would have been different with the technology we have today!! These characters help to set the political context quite well without making that part of the story a historical descriptive weight on the text.

When I opened the musty and crumbling old book, I started with a slight fear that I might not find it as gripping as I did when I first read it a couple of decades ago. But all that was set to rest rather quickly. It was as fascinating and interesting as I had found it then – actually even more since I seemed to appreciate the historical nuances much better this time around. So also the characters. When I read the book earlier, I wasn’t married and am not sure I could appreciate Lucy’s grit as much as I could now. 

Anyways, the book put me so much in the mood for more Ken Follett, that I went ahead and bought his latest one – The Winters of the World!!