Ken Follett’s Foray into Film
63
There are two things I miss in the proposal that have become
Follett trademarks. One, is a plot that centers around a turning
point in history, or at least where the stakes are higher than
just the individual fates of the central characters. The other, is
historical characters in the story, which is really an off-shoot
of the first problem.
Additional off-shoots of the first problem, which was the use of a contemporary
setting, would later be encountered by a film production company in its efforts
to adapt Folletf s novel for the screen.
Lie Down with Lions was published in 1985, the same year that Follett
married Broer, and reached the number one spot on the New York Times
bestseller list by February 1986. Two months later, Follett was in contact with
Geoff Reeve Pictures, Ltd. over a proposed film version of the book. Reeve was
best known at the time as the producer of the television miniseries The Far
Pavilions (1984) (based on the novel by M.M. Kaye and also set in the Afghan
mountains), and as the producer of the movies The Shooting Party (1985) and
H a lf Moon Street (1986).
Although clearly a commercial success, Lie Down with Lions has been
deemed a good example of the critics’ main complaints about Follett’s novels:
that while he is an engaging writer, his work sometimes descends into bathos
and manipulation (Macdonald 123). John O’Sullivan, in reviewing Lie Down
with Lions for the Wall Street Journal, thought it highly readable but faulted it
for the Afghan characters straight “from central casting’’ (25). Andrew and Gina
Macdonald, writing for the Dictionary o f Literary Biography, found Jane’s
actions to be inconsistent, motivated by sentimentality in some episodes and by
pragmatism in others, and leading them to question whether Follett’s sense of
character had failed him in the novel (123).
Follett, known for his rapid pace of production, uncharacteristically would
not publish his next novel for another four years and when he did, it