The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ken FollettEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-02-04
ISBN: 0451207149
Number of pages: 976
Publisher: NAL Trade
Book Reviews of The Pillars of the Earth
Book Review: A Medieval "If You Build It, They Will Come"
Summary: 4 Stars
Without doubt, Ken Follett's 950+ page tome, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH, accomplishes at least one of the main pleasures of a lengthy (historical) novel -- to transport its readers convincingly to another time and place. In this instance, Follett opens up the world of 12th Century southern England at a time when the Roman Catholic Church shared power uneasily with the English Crown. It was also a time when architecture, in the form of grand cathedrals, was making prodigious artistic and technological leaps through increased understanding and use of such elements as pointed arches, flying buttresses, and stained glass.
The book opens with a young man's hanging and the curse pronounced by a pregnant, golden-eyed, 15-year old woman in the year 1123, and it is not until the closing pages (in the year 1174) that Follett reveals the full connection between this event and the rest of his story. For the many pages in between, the author traces the development of the small fictional town of Kingsbridge and the halting replacement of its decidedly rundown church with a magnificent new cathedral. A host of characters fill these pages: the son and daughter of a defeated earl, a striving family seeking to take their place in the earldom, a visionary young mason, a woman who lives with her son in a cave in the forest, a young monk of surprising managerial and political ability, and another clergyman whose sights are set on becoming a bishop or even more. Beyond the town limits, a seemingly endless stream of political battles and actual wars ensue, much of it precipitated by civil war over the English throne following the death of Henry I. During the period known in English history as the Anarchy, earls align and realign as the aspirants, King Stephen and his half-sister Matilda (here called Maud), seek a military resolution. The fortunes of Kingsbridge and its neighboring town of Shiring mirror those of Stephen and Maud (and eventually, Maud's son Henry Plantagenet). The Catholic Church is a powerful player in these struggles at both the national and local levels, vitally interested in the outcomes as it seeks to protect its own interests and further its wealth and power.
To Follett's credit, these external struggles flesh out the background to his main characters' lives without getting in their way. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH is a solidly human story, told through the lives, aspirations, and fears of those individuals. Over the course of roughly forty years, the young monk Philip establishes himself as a successful prior, and his town of Kingsbridge grows in concert with its rising new cathedral. There are setbacks galore along the way, from rapes, massacres, and dirty tricks to famines, fires, and failed enterprises. Many are presented as nearly insurmountable obstacles, requiring all the cleverness and pluck of the book's heroes to overcome them. And therein lies the kernel of the book's greatest flaw.
For all the author's efforts to tell the story of an architectural wonder, his plot is filled with the melodrama of dangers escaped and impossible odds overcome. To sustain so many cliff-hanging events, Follett has to rely on over-the-top characters who are more caricature than simply human. Prior Philip is preternaturally cool, the mason Tom Builder and his successor Jack are gifted visionaries, William Hamleigh and his hideously boil-ridden mother Regan are sadistic evil incarnate, and the bishop Waleran Bigod is a bloodless, scheming worm. Lady Aliena - childhood rape victim, dispossessed landowner, 12th Century feminist, fearless fighter and horsewoman, bold rejecter of organized religion, world class entrepreneur - is certainly the book's most outlandish character, a sop to 21st Century political correctness. The heroes are heroic to the nth degree, the villains villainous in the same way; this tendency toward overkill applies as well to even many of the book's lesser characters.
For those willing to accept these comic book personas as presented for the sake of an escapist historical novel, the rest is easy. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH draws willing readers effectively into its medieval world, with only an occasional hiccup when his characters mouth words like "puke" that sound a touch too modern. Nevertheless, he creates an engrossing world filled with monks and peasants, knights and nobility. Follett is an adept storyteller, capable of making a book of nearly 1,000 pages read like something much shorter. That in itself is no small accomplishment as well as a sure testimonial that this book is an entertaining, fully transporting read.
Summary of The Pillars of the Earth
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Get 15% off when you order 5 or more of this title for your book club.
Simply enter the coupon code FOLLETPILLARS at checkout.
This offer does not apply to eBook purchases. This offer applies to only one downloadable audio per purchase.
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Learn more about The Pillars of the Earth miniseries on Starz.
A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, this historical epic?a twelfth-century tale of the building of a mighty Gothic cathedral?stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanityHistorical Books
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