Abel-Daughter

"Malai da, Annaamalai"

I read the Jeffrey ARCHER books 'The Prodigal Daughter' and 'Kane & Abel' in that order, but the former was written later. Only after reading the latter, was I told that 'Kane & Abel's (KA) sequel is 'The Prodigal Daughter' (PD). The story of a Mr.Kane and a Mr.Abel forms the story of KA, and the life story of Mr.Abel's daughter - Florentyna, is PD.

Well, PD is not literally a sequel to KA. The story of PD starts when KA is half complete. When PD is half way through, KA ends. If we take all the pages of KA and PD and sort them in a time line, i.e. the order in which the events occur, to be specific, if we divide KA into two halves say, 1 and 2, similarly PD into two say, 3 and 4, and plot them in the time line graph, it will look like this:
4
2 - 3
1
Since 2 and 3 occur at the same time, one would think that it will be boring to read 2, if you've already read 3,4 or vice versa. Ok, I am not talking any math here. In whichever order you read these two books, the pleasure derived while reading the second one can be .. hm.. how can I explain it?.. yeah! it can be compared to watching the replay of Sachin Tendulkar hitting a six off Shoiab Akthar from two different camera angles.

The same time period, same events, but we look at them using different eyes. Mani Rathnam handles this in Aayudha Ezhuthu and Kamal handles this, even better, in the movie Virumaandi. I am not commenting on the stories here, just the screenplay.

It might have been a simple task for Archer, as he wrote the second book, keeping in mind the events of the first one. But the narration was simply superb. It gives us the pleasure of discovering things which are not explicitly said in either of the books. After reading many crime stories, lawyer-solving-puzzles stories, doctor-inventing-medicines stories, this one, which plainly describes the life events of Kane, Abel and Florentyna, was a different experience. I think, in our 10th or 12th standard (grade) [Matriculation / Stateboard] English non detail section we read Thomas Hardy's 'The Mayor of Casterbridge'. If you liked that one, you will enjoy this one too.

When I started reading the 'Kane & Abel', my father told me that this is the same story used in the Rajni movie Annaamalai. Of course modifications were made to make it a single hero subject, but as I was reading the book, I was able to relate and appreciate how this one was adapted into Annaamalai. Now, don't ask me if Abel was a 'paalkaaran'.