Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer

This is not a typical book review post, but more of an emotion. I can't tag this book as yet another favorite of mine. It carries lots of happy and positive memories for me and if at all i've to tag someone for a teacher's day post, that would Jeffrey Archer for improving my english and in fact for having taught me most of the words i use and familiar with at present. His books were my distance learning course which gave me confidence about the language that Rapidex couldn't. My dad was anxious and at times more worried at my language skills, especially English and his insistence and the efforts he took to improve it only made me more scared and insecure about the language. So much so that while my school mates played shuttle on the day before tenth public exam for English, i was slogging till late in the night mugging up lessons as if it was science. Archer's books made me relax and enjoy the language and his easy use of sentences made me understand and realize what contextual meaning actually means!! And this book was the first of the lot that introduced me to his world of characters and i am lucky that it turned out to be one of his best creation. Like FRIENDS, Archer's books, more specifically Prodigal daughter and Kane and Abel are my goto things which never fail to cheer me up. Now to the book.

Whenever i read the book, i felt it was portraying Abel in a negative shade and considering the struggles he undergoes as a kid and making it all the way to the top, solely on his skills and hard work, he must've been more positively shown, as compared to Kane, whose life was nothing but a bed of roses and even the occassional thorn was more like how nepo kids of actors complain about their misgivings in life, like they had only cup cake or rasgulla to cut for their birthday and not a big birthday cake and how their (own) room in their (own) house felt more like a cage in size. Abel was a self made man in every sense and should've been treated like a hero. Even his anger towards Kane was not because of a selfish issue but which caused the death of his friend. Kane on the other hand has things comparitively very easy in life and i felt just to bring the character a shade down, Abel was shown as a womanizer and proud person as compared to ega pathini virathan (post marriage) Kane. But when i read it for the first time, i had actually jump skipped Abel's portions for they were too sad to read and reading a 400 page book in a language that i was not very comfortable with, was not an easy choice in itself. Kane's portion were a happy read and with passing of age, one gets to realize the actual vain character is Kane, even though he silently supports Abel by backing him at his lowest moment. Such is Abel's character that even Kane believes him. 

When i was reading it recently i felt, Archer must've started on Prodigal daughter almost along the same time he wrote Kane and Abel, for the last 50-60 pages were actually a lengthy curtain raiser for the sequel, which he might've edited into two considering the size of the book. In fact, if you binge read both the books, you will never know when the first book ended and where the next one starts. I am off to read my most favorite novel character ever and the one character about whom i've mentioned at least a dozen times in this blog space - Florentyna Rosnovski. It is such a pleasure to read that book and it never disappoints. A welcome relief from all those dystopian mystery  dark thrillers :)