The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ken FollettEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-06-29
ISBN: 045123281X
Number of pages: 1008
Publisher: Signet
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780451232816
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Pillars of the Earth
Book Review: I can't say enough bad (99 percent spoilers)
Summary: 1 Stars
I wasn't put off by the anachronistic dialogue, I had heard in advance that the author uses contemporary speech in this novel, so I was prepared. I didn't find the characters one-dimensional. I didn't roll my eyes at the elements of romance. I didn't throw the heavy thing at my wall when the pretty lady from the woods gave surprise sex to the snoozing builder just hours after he'd buried his wife and left his newborn child atop the grave for the wolves. The author gave me a LOT to accept, digest, and go along with, but I did it. I kept reading, and just accepting, until the middle of the book. From there, this "story" (one reviewer called it a "train wreck," and so do I!) nose-dived into nonsense, and my entire emotional investment was thrown in my face, page after worsening page until, a few dozen pages from the all-fired ENDING, I peeked to be sure the villain died, slammed it shut, and hurled it at the wall so hard I can now drive my car through the giant hole, into my living room. (FIGURATIVELY.)
I'll never know whether Waleran got his comeuppance, whether Walter got his, or precisely what William finally got hanged FOR. I couldn't ferret out that information in my scan of the last 30 or 40 pages of "asdf jkl;" which was all there was to the story by then, just typing, typing, and more typing. This story coulda and shoulda been told in 400 pages or less.
The author couldn't even remember what he'd said in the first half to carry it over to the second half. He couldn't remember from paragraph to paragraph, and this ham-fisted failing compounded the horrible inequities he imposed on the story and its characters. He was all tell, tell, tell, retell, and tell again differently, but never show -- the most presumptuous of all writing styles. Prior Phillip and the monks "Cannot witness or take part in bloodshed or violence, it is not allowed!" says our author. Except that he also says Prior Phillip and the monks CAN and DO flog each other, themselves, and wrongdoers in the community, gang up and forcibly throw disobedient novices into cells to sit and rot, and Prior Phillip, as "lord," is in charge of hangings which he would "carry out whenever necessary." He was such a "great guy" for buying Aliena's wool at the market that day. Never mind that all the wool he'd brought to market that day came from sheep on land he stole from her!
Like many, I objected to the nature of the rape scenes. There was a jarring sense that the author was getting off on the salacious details of these prolonged, repeated scenes. I got SICK of William hurting women, it went on soooooo long, and just keeeeept happening. Nobody fired an arrow at William from the trees as he rode all around with his "knights" (his kuh-nigits), nope, he just kept raping, burning, stealing, slasher-killing, face-slapping, raping some more, threatening to rape again, law scorning, and then showing up at church for saints' days with his momma and the nasty ole bishop, all of them purportedly untouchable.
The nasty ole bishop, purportedly, was acting all along out of a belief that anything goes as long as it's "for God" or "for the Church." BS! He was clearly an atheist, exclusively self-serving in his ambitions. There were no bones about that. Why tell it two different ways? And what about King Stephen? He imprisons and kills Earl Batholomew, leaves Bart's kids to a merciless fate, but when anyone else betrays him (William, let's say), he's "weak, always forgiving of his enemies," and lets it slide time and again, while inexplicably not restoring Richard who fights more bravely than any other man he has. And Maud? Not restoring Richard's and Aliena's legacy to them, not punishing William, while she could? Instead, she rewarded William, who had taken out her loyal man, Bartholomew. Nonsense! INFURIATING nonsense!
The Pillars of the Earth is the worst novel I have ever read, hands down. I said that I can't say enough bad, and I meant it. The above isn't even a start. I have not even TOUCHED on what I did not like about this overrated mess of a book that claims sales and fame while great novels languish and go out of print.
Something new to hate about it, though: the crazed reactions of readers who loved it to any negative review of it. They are irrational, as if you were hurting their child, not critiquing a book.
I came away loathing Prior Phillip and despising the cathedral. I believe my reaction is not only sane, but a sanity test, which I passed. Prior Phillip was a selfish, egotistical, sly and dishonest man, and for me, the villain of this story. Everything bad that happened, except the convenient death of Tom's wife, was Phillip's fault, beginning with his and his brother's political meddling. It's like Cecilia Holland said for the New York Times: The book contains two churchmen, a prior and a bishop. One is good and the other is the bad, you can tell because the "villain" wears black, although "the saint plays politics as much as the sinner." Both men scheme, manipulate, and trample over others to obtain every last drop of what they want.
I waited and waited, for 800+ pages I waited, for Phillip to feel contrition over the human misery and far-reaching chaos he had caused. It never happened. Instead, Phillip grew more and more in love with himself, and considered more and more of his victims to be indebted to HIM, even unto cleverly sending young Richard to his death in the end. I cannot express how I hated him for that, and so much else, all because the first half was readable enough to claim a HUGE emotional investment from me. The book was unworthy of even a fraction of what I was ready to give it.
The "winding up of loose ends" was pat and disgusting. Ken Follett, you should be hoss-whipped for that alone, and ridden out of author-town on a rail, coated with tar and feathers.
This is a novel of let-downs, of tortured and contrived situations that lead one way and (thud!) end up nowhere or WORSE. Seven years or more, the lovers live apart, the children can't enjoy both their parents within a loving, happy, functioning family and home. So much for any element of romance.
Prior Phillip was a hypocrit, a grasping, priggish, self-seeking monster of a little man, whose brother Francis was no less than a traitor, and I believe that the author knows it, that he intended it, and is waiting for just ONE READER to finally get it.
Well, I DO.
(This too: The incorporation of the murder of Thomas Becket in such a silly book is presumptuous beyond belief; I am still agape. Like so many others, I had to start another book right away to remind myself that I love to read.)
Summary of The Pillars of the Earth
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett comes this spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known-and a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.
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Learn more about The Pillars of the Earth miniseries on Starz.
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