Review - Paths Of Glory

There always exists a work pattern among people (who work). Some call it style, some call it uniqueness, but I m simply gonna stick with work pattern here. Yes, be it an actor or writer or a movie director (or a teacher even) or some profession which does something, the individual follows up on a pattern, that sticks to all of his/her works. A leitmotif.

Tarantino and his chapter narration,
Manirathnam and his fewer-than-necessary dialogues,
Eastwood and his ad sentimentum,  
Jason Reitmann (directed Up in the air and Thank you for smoking) and his assertion for negative subjects,
Vijay and his punch dialogues/fight sequences, (Now you see why I called it work pattern rather than style.)
A friend of mine and his arguments, (The pattern is 'baseless reasoning' here)
The way a gamer scores his goals in FIFA,
Devi Sri Prasad and drums,
Dan Brown and labyrinths,
Any man on the planet and his 5 most often heard songs,
And any woman on the planet and her 5 most recently bought clothes.


Similarly, Jeffrey Archer has a habit of writing the entire life history of an individual (or two), from moments before his birth and years after his demise. His pattern or in fact the plot of most of his novels can be summed up by his own quote :

"When I was three, I wanted to be four. When I was four, I wanted to be Prime Minister"

More than most, Archer's protagonists are ambitious. Self willed. Either exceptionally talented or crafty. And naturally, it most often is a remarkable journey through one's life rather than a sorry account of one's existence.The only thing that separates Archer's novels from biographies is his works are most often fictional or semi-fictional, which gives him the liberty to strike out the boredom and include some creativity on his part. 

His latest of this genre, 'Paths of Glory' is a semi-factual account of the life of George Mallory, a Cambridge graduate, a World War I survivor and most of all, an ardent mountaineer. Set in the late 19th and early 20th century, the story is pretty simple. Did George Mallory make history or not ? 
(I m not gonna add anything more to the plot, not cos there is not a great deal to it, but simply because you will lose interest in reading as I have heard.)


Well, POG made me realize how good a writer Jeffrey Archer really is. Or rather how good a storyteller he is. And I had to admit, without doubt one of the greatest storytellers ever. His language is simple. Perhaps too simple in POG. But again he makes up for it, with his very own crisp editing and to-the-point narration. Archer must have had one of the most difficult tasks a creator could have - to explain a similar sequence of events twice. Gautham Menon did it in Vinnaithandi Varuvaya. And I cant say Archer too comes up trumps, but he did good. And without Trisha, tats a big thing. :D


The frequent inclusion of George's letters to his wife is nice in the beginning, but turns most irritating towards the end. The description of different mountains is neither too great nor too less. (I never believed I would say this), but Archer should have taken a leaf out of Tolkien, when it comes to mountains. 


And like the Fourth estate or Kane and Abel, there is another individual rivaling the ambitions of the protagonist. Again, an Australian. But Archer seems to have been very careful in handling the rivalry to not remind you of his above works. Still, fails in parts.


Overall, POG turns out to be a good read. I heard Archer wrote the novel in about 3 months time. Although one might choose a better topic to write on in that time, none could have written better. 
I would give it a rating of  8.5/10.


PS. pls dont wiki the fella George Mallory, for it says in exactly 10 scrolls of your mouse, what Archer wrote in 467 pages, albeit the latter is still enjoyable.