The 3 best books by Edward Rutherfurd

It is seen that in historical fictions, advancing between the eras through family sagas is a success. Well you know Ken follett, For example. Because this is how you can advance through the centuries with that plot anchor of the current surname, poorly resolved inheritances or uncollected debts.

The point is that Follett was neither the only nor the first. Because the british writer Edward rutherfurd became known worldwide thanks to its trilogy about great cities of the world focused as protagonists or main scenes of great plots, as well as similar plots about different countries and peoples.

And in turn Rutherfurd followed in the footsteps of the American James A. Michener, who did not reach significance beyond his own country. So in the end the trick comes from afar.

The truth is that Rutherfurd's work had its hook beyond its own narrative quality in the fact of completing the unique library with the name of the city in question, whether it was Paris, London or New York. Although for some years it has not found continuity.

Top 3 Recommended Novels by Edward Rutherfurd

New York

The truth is that a novel that takes as its protagonist a city like New York, for which whoever subscribes feels that fascination for the city that concentrates everything, already finds all my predisposition.

The question is to check if, as I understood, Rutherfurd is capable of turning the setting into a protagonist, giving life to the city as a mosaic of its inhabitants, bringing personalization to something as abstract as a large city from the idea of ​​its constant movement. and change... No one better than the author himself to delve into his masterful way of making it possible:

«The 400 years of New York City History is made up of thousands of stories, settings and extraordinary characters. Starting from the life of the Indians who inhabited their virgin lands and the first Dutch settlers until reaching the dramatic construction of the Empire State Building or the creation of the Dakota building in which John Lennon lived.

During the American Revolutionary War, New York was a British territory; Some time later, New Yorkers created canals and railways that opened the doors to Western America. The city has been at the center of the hurricane in good and bad times, such as the crash of the 29th or the attack of September 11.

Great characters have populated its history: Stuyvesant, the Dutchman who defended New Amsterdam; Washington, whose presidency began in New York; Ben Franklin, who advocated for British America; Lincoln, who gave one of his best speeches in the city.

But, above all, for me, it is the story of ordinary people: local Indians, Dutch settlers, English traders, African slaves, German shopkeepers, Irish workers, Jews and Italians arrived via Ellis Island, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans and Chinese, people of good and gangsters, street women and high-born ladies.

I discovered these characters, most of them anonymous, when I was documenting myself for the book. They were one thousandth of all those who came to New York, to America, in search of freedom, something that the majority ended up finding.

Paris

Few cities like Paris represent the transition from our civilization to modernity. The mythical city of light is even more so for being a beacon that, since the XNUMXth century, shone in the artistic and human aspects of the rest of a Europe that watched it fascinated, dazzled by that overflow of the new humanism that emerged from the French Revolution. .

Rutherfurd had to undertake this novel to rescue the most emblematic city from those splendors of the new world that surrounded the turn of the millennium from its last centuries. Paris unfolds through the stories of passions, divided loyalties and secrets kept for years by characters both fictional and real, against the backdrop of this glorious city.

From the construction of Notre Dame to the dangerous machinations of Cardinal Richelieu; from the resplendent court of Versailles to the violence of the French Revolution and the Parisian communes; from the hedonism of the Belle Époque, when the Impressionist movement reached its zenith, to the tragedy of the First World War.

From the writers of the Lost Generation of the 1920s who could be found drinking at Les Deux Magots to the Nazi occupation, the Resistance fighters and the student revolt of May 1968... An impressive, sensual, captivating mosaic.

London

The first in the series of novels about cities. Logical for a British author. And also the most extensive of the three works. A novel in which the vicissitudes of the city are presented to us with their most informative aspect of the three cases.

Even so, his way of approaching the events that marked each era already point to that novelistic intention that works so well in the three works as a whole. This sweeping novel tells two millennia of history of one of the most fascinating cities in the world: London.

From the founding of a small Celtic settlement to the bombings of World War II, through the invasion by Caesar's legions in 54 BC, the Crusades, the Norman conquest, the creation of the Globe theater in which Shakespeare would premiere his works, religious tensions, the Great Fire, the Victorian era... hundreds of stories mix real and fictional characters, belonging to a few family sagas that are perpetuated throughout the centuries. Each episode of London, rich in historical detail, reveals the richness, passion, verve and struggle to survive of a unique city.