I did not hate this book (hate would be too strong a word, and I can't hate it because I applaud the fact that Ken Follett attempted to write an epic novel). But I did not like it. I didn't like it from the start; his writing style hit me like a brick, but Jim thoroughly enjoyed the book that I kept trying to convince myself that I ought to give it a chance, hoping it would get better. When I was about 500 pages in, he saw how miserable I was and asked why I didn't just stop reading it, but at that point, I was invested in it; I had spent all that time getting that far, that I needed to finish it, and I couldn't wait to come to the end. I kept counting down: "Only 450 pages left; only 300 to go; last 200 pages...yay, I have 50 pages left!" Those fifty pages were the toughest to get through. By the time I was at the end, I thought it was a wasted effort - both on his part and mine. It's so much easier to explicate on what I did not like because there were so many things: - I loathed the writing style (he vacillated between pages and pages of highly complex architectural discourses to third-grade level simple sentences grouped into short paragraphs). Sometimes it was bearable. Other times, I wanted to pull my hair out. There were times when I felt the only time he came alive as an author was when he was discussing architecture, but these parts were so didactic in nature that it couldn't hold my interest for long periods of time.- I did not like the author's narrative style. He had to tie everything together (causality was so prevalent throughout the text that I wondered how he didn't work in how the killing of a fly affected events 60 years later). Every single storyline was wrapped up - too neatly for my liking, in some cases. Everyone was tied to someone else (it was like playing Six Degrees); every single character had to have a denouement; every little plot twist had to be explained; closure had to be achieved, no matter how preposterous the circumstances, over time and space.- The characterization was poor. In fact, it was appalling how two-dimensional these characters were. Good people were good. Bad people were loathsome. As time went on, the good were always suffering one thing or another; they were put upon; they were harrassed; they were constantly challenged and put to the test like Job (something Follett actually used as a sermon!). The badfolk became more oppressive over time; they were not only detestable, but they had absolutely no redeeming qualities. And to go with a typical medieval stereotype, the good were always excessively beautiful, honorable, intelligent (geniuses or savants, even!) - and if they weren't rich, they would be at the end (I half expected Havelok the Dane and his refrigerator mouth to pop up somewhere, proving once and for all that in the medieval period, to be good was to have the purest light shining out of your mouth each time you opened it). Nevertheless, the bad became uglier, became more despotic, scheming throughout life to get the better of their enemies (the goodfolk). But in the end, good always triumphed over evil; those who could, repented and were forgiven. Those who couldn't, were killed off somehow, because apparently, death is the only way an evil person gets his (or her) dues. And then everyone had a happy ending. I hate happy endings when they're so obviously contrived. And this work was so elaborately, exhaustively, thoroughly contrived. (Maybe it's not too late for me to change my mind and say I hated it. *grin*)- Historically speaking, there was so much left to be desired. Granted, this novel was written two decades ago, and there have been new discoveries about the medieval period since Follett started his research. But he got it all wrong anyhow. His idea of medieval life was so...off, that it hurt my head to continue reading sometimes. I had to pause periodically and rant to Jim about what I currently found off-putting (for example, there weren't many literate people at the time; at the time this novel was set, there was still a distinct divide between England and Wales; reading and writing were two separate skill sets, and people who knew how to read did not necessarily know how to write and vice versa; orality was a prevalent part of storytelling back then and books not so much and yet somehow, he conflated much of both; manuscript writing was either orally dictated or copied tediously by the monks - his concept of a scriptorium was incomplete, defective - and there has been so much written about this that it saddened me; he used modern translations of medieval poetical/verse works and couldn't explain even alliterative verse form effectively - I even wonder if he knew what it was; his understanding of the languages of the period - Old English, Middle English, Latin, Norman French, Old French, Middle French, etc. - and what was spoken by the aristocrats vs. the peasants vs. the growing middle classes disgusts me; he showed a lack of understanding of medieval law, medieval rights, the social classes, gender roles, even the tales and legends of the period, in both England and France; priests were quite low on the totem pole, in terms of the religious hierarchy, and were quite disparaged yet somehow, that didn't quite come across in this novel...I could go on and on, but I won't). And the historical part of the novel I just found lacking. There are enough histories and chronicles, contemporaneously written, of the time, that he did not have to deviate much from history. There is so much written about the period between the death of Henry I through the civil wars between the Empress Matilda and King Stephen, to the time that Henry II ascended the throne (including the martyrdom of Thomas a Beckett), that I don't quite understand how he couldn't have mined the chronicles for better material. I understand that this is why it's called historical fiction, and that there will always be some element of fiction interspersed with historical fact. But the fictional aspects usually have to do with surrounding characters and situations that bolster the history. The fiction is not necessarily to the history itself. Many times, when writing historical fiction, the author has to beware the pitfalls of creating a revisionist retelling, interspersing his or her own ideals or beliefs of what should have been to what was. If this novel had been marketed as a revisionary narrative, it would have been okay. But it wasn't. I'm just glad that the historical aspect of the novel just served as the background and not the real story. Because then, I probably would've stopped reading.The premise was a good one and held a lot of promise. It could've been a great historical epic had it been handled by a more assured writer. By someone who was more of a visionary, someone who had the patience to do exhaustive research or who knew how to craft richly developed characters. It needed an author who understood the epic genre, who knew how to mold the epic, who knew how to keep the narrative going, seemlessly binding time with narration and the human condition, without resorting to stereotypes and grating drama. And most importantly, it needed someone who understood when the story had been told; that while there will always be other stories to tell, that each book has its own natural end, and that these stories may not belong in this book.Ken Follett may be a bestselling author of suspense novels (and even historical fiction such as Pillars of the Earth and World without End), but he is no writer of epics. Compared to writers of historical fiction such as Edward Rutherford, James Michener, Bernard Cornwell or Margaret George, Ken Follett has a long way to go.
First thing to say....Richard E Grant is a fantastic narrator. There was not a single squirmingly awful accent....Derek Jacobi take note. His women characters were not voiced by men doing silly soppy voices as if that communicated woman but were voiced in such a way that you believed the characterization and it did not jar as inane, patronizing or laughable. He communicated tension and horror, sadness and despair, injustice and vengeance, adoration and admiration, grief and fear and frustration and so many other emotions and all without over dramatizing. Full marks Richard.The story itself is fascinating. In a nutshell, it is the story of the building of a Cathedral in Kingsbridge and the way the village clustered around the small priory there gradually grows into a town and then a small city and then a thriving urban centre and the way the fortunes of the town and its inhabitants wax and wane through the long disastrous reign of the usurper king Stephen and his battle with the rightful but ignored monarch Matilda or Maud on into the reign of her son King Henry II and his battles with the ecclesiastical powers of the Medieaval Church and Thomas a Becket. Alongside these national and more historically significant encounters, we have the ebb and flow of the lives of any number of people ranging from the Prior of the Monastery from which the Cathedral grows and his rival Bishop, an underhanded shite if ever there was one, through the aristocrats both great and small who buzz and twitch around the story down the various levels of society grazing past Master Builders and Merchants, Troubadours and Artists to the lowly serf-like peasantry and even touching upon a robber or two. The cast of characters is impressive and yet Follett manages to keep every plate spinning quite wonderfully. He seems to time perfectly when to bring a minor character back into the frame to keep our sense of the wider life of Kingsbridge bustling on. The enormity of the battles and alliances happening on the wider stage are cleverly interweaved and the dramatic use of a Forrest Gumplike appearance by Prior Philip, and one of the other main characters, at the murder of Thomas a Becket is clever and not in any way as annoying as Gump.He teeters along the tightrope of OTT love interests but, IMHO, never quite falls off either side whether into the river of vomit-making sentimentality or into embarrassingly badly written porn. It is a story that sweeps you along, characters are real and believable, and here I feel i ought to almost put in a spoiler alert of some kind because i am straying into major cliche territory, but the Cathedral itself, in its long journey to completion, stands as a major character in the whole work. Follett describes magnificently the way the Church is built, the influences on its design and describes in a truly fascinating way the development of different techniques and actions which enabled the various artisans and architects to build this incredible Chucrh.One little caveat in my hymn of praise might be that coincidence and overly convenient incidents have a tendency to feature perhaps a tad too much. This enables the story to move on, for characters to re-enter the story they appeared to have left for good but dare i say it smacked a little of lazy writing.Having mentioned that little whinge I would say this was a wonderful read and I have already begun listening in the car to the next story of kingsbridge. This one is set 200 years later so none of the characters remain the same except, of course, for the Cathedral.
What do You think about The Pillars Of The Earth (2002)?
I devour books. That is my euphemism for being so OCD that I can't put it down and live my life until I finish it. For shorter books, that's generally not a problem, but for the 974 page Pillars of the Earth...well, let's just say we ran out of food, my children clung to my legs asking for food, and the floors did not get vacuumed for a good five days while I whittled away at this book.CLIFF HANGER: This book is not a cliff-hanger at the end of every chapter kind of book, which makes it easier to read it in multiple sittings. However, Follett does such a masterful job of character development, that I found myself wanting to know what was going to happen next whether the end of the chapter contained a cliffhanger ending or not.CHARACTER DEV'T: Each character is so beautifully defined and fleshed out, that they become almost real. I felt that I knew them personally, that I could accurately predict how they would react in different situations. None of them were 100% good or bad, just like in real life. Some priests were holy, others evil; some were rich people with big hearts, others with small minds and evil intentions; some poor farmers were judgmental, w/narrow-minded attitudes, others opened their doors to strangers.PLOT/PACE: Foreshadowing was a very powerful convention that Follett skillfully weaved in and out of every chapter. It gave subtle hints, but never so overt as to suggest that the reader may be an imbecile. Backstories meander and come to closure at such a nice pace, that it always feels like something is happening and things are being resolved, for better or for worse.THEMES: My favorite theme was that natural consequences followed the actions of the characters. (I'm still a bit out of sorts after reading the deus ex machina riddled Breaking Dawn, where all the natural consequences of three books worth of actions were completely erased-ugh.) There was a natural ebb and flow of triumph and misfortunes in Pillars of the Earth. Good things happened to bad people and bad things happened to good people, just like in real life. Follett does not try to save his characters from themselves, or from each other, and I enjoyed that very much.STRONG WOMEN: I absolutely adored the strong women in this book! What a joy to read about Aliena, carving out her own future after her world had been turned upside down! Life knocked her down plenty, but each time, she got up, made a plan, and triumphed eventually. Ellen, and Agnes in her own way, were also strong women. OVERALL IMPRESSION: As strange as it sounds, with all of the despair and misery that took place, the overarching take home for me, was HOPE. In the face of overwhelming adversity, these characters triumphed. The road was hard and the journey was long, but they CHOSE hope. They CHOSE faith. And in the end, that was all that mattered.Pillars of the Earth will be on my favorite books list for a very long time.
—DeLaina
A tapestry of medieval cathedrals centered around an epic drama and some would term it melodrama but that's open to debate. Ken Follet actually wanted to write this book years before it was published. But his agent told him to build up his base of fans by writing several more thrillers. His EYE OF THE NEEDLE pushed him up to the best seller list. At a later point, after writing those novels and studying medieval cathedral architecture, Follet got to write his 900 page novel centering around the British dispute of the crown between Queen Maude and King Stephen; these were the contestants who preceded Henry II, who is best known for his colorful History with Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lion Hearted and the gray King John. Story centers around several commoner types, with a few exceptions, whose lives intertwine in the eventual struggle to build a glorious cathedral. Without revealing too much and generalizing this story has: lurid scenes of lust, violence, intrigue, political disputes, wars, loves gained, loves lost, main characters dying, a child abandoned at birth and much more. And, to enthusiasts of History, it even teaches readers of the period. Highly advised reading, even if the dialogue is a bit informal and the structure sometimes isn't as focused as it could be. If those two points don't bother you, this is a great book.And, for those too lazy to read the novel, there's now a miniseries. STORY/PLOTTING: A minus; CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: A minus to A; SETTING/EPIC SCOPE: A minus; HISTORICAL FLAVOR/ACCURACIES: B plus to A minus; OVERALL GRADE: A minus; WHEN READ: 2006 (second reading)
—StoryTellerShannon
—Espero que construyas tu catedral —susurró.—Creí que no querías que lo hiciera —dijo él, sorprendido.—Sí, pero estaba equivocada. Te mereces algo hermoso.Tom no comprendía el significado de aquellas palabras.—Construye una hermosa catedral para mí —prosiguió Agnes.Entre los edificios más majestuosos de la antigüedad tenemos a las catedrales, esta es la historia de cómo se construyo una de ellas y de todos los contratiempos, esfuerzos y planes que hay detrás de ella. Esta historia tiene de todo, ambición, guerra, amor, odio, desgracias, vaya que si las tiene, sabiduría, clemencia, misterio, arquitectura mucha arquitectura, luchas de poder, entre reyes, y aspirantes a reyes, entre señores terratenientes, entre el clero, vaya juego de tronos de poder que se da en la iglesia, incluso entre los constructores de la catedral. Personajes ¡wau! un sinfín de personajes, que me llevaría muchos párrafos describir a todos detalladamente, en el espectro masculino vemos casi todas las personalidades, y en los femeninos, quizá no haya muchos pero las que hay son geniales Este libro me llevo por una montaña rusa emocional, odie infinitamente al que se ha convertido en el villano más despreciable del que leído William Hamleigh maldito desgraciado (view spoiler)[como disfrute con la justicia de su muerte, (hide spoiler)]
—Antonio
