The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
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Book Reviews of The Pillars of the Earth
Book Review: Great story; horrible writing
Summary: 2 Stars
Story: Fascinating plot that made you want to pick up the book again to see what happens, but that was not enough to redeem the book from:
1 - Anachronism - What are all these 20th century characters doing back in 12th century England?
2 - Simplistic characters - All of the main characters were "good" or "bad" to an extreme degree. It read like someone realized this too late and went back and inserted either a few negative or redemptive characteristics to make the characters more believable. Life (and people) are just not that black and white.
3 - Minutiae - Unless you have a degree in architecture (and even then it might not be enough), you will have NO idea what the author is talking about for several hundred words at a time. The only way to do these descriptions justice would have been with illustrations. So the reader ends up skipping over a lot of what could have been condensed.
4 - Verbosity - At least "Thorn Birds" had the good sense to cover a lot of time in its pages. I think we had progressed about 6 years after 600 pages (excluding the prologue).
5 - Vocabulary - Despite the above-mentioned verbosity, the vocabulary was at about a 9th grade level. Then every once in a while, the author would say "lugubrious" (3 times I believe) or "piquant," for no apparent reason other than to perhaps prove to himself that he is not in the 9th grade.
5 - Unbelievable plot twists (spoiler here) - I am not even sure what to call this but at two points, the characters made choices that were so ridiculous you wanted to throw the book out the window: 1 - when everyone in the entire country is starving due to famine, and the craftsmen building the cathedral decide to go on strike (not realizing yet that Philip would hire them.) Hello. Maybe in today's auto industry; not in 13th century England during a famine. Then Aliena decides to leave Jack, the man she supposedly loves beyond words, etc. etc. ad nauseam because the church for 17 years has denied annulment. I can't even begin to comment on how many ways this strained credibility.
But i finished it.
Shame on you, Oprah.
Book Review: Starts off strong but steadily goes downhill
Summary: 2 Stars
This book is very good at the beginning, and I couldn't put it down when I first started reading it. The descriptions of medieval life and mystery at the beginning are very interesting. Here are the problems that caused me to give this book two stars instead of the four it could have easily gotten:
This is a very long book, and I get the feeling that the author had to come up with filler to meet some length goal he had. There is a lot of redundancy in the book, where he explains technical details about things like masonry repeatedly. Also, there seem to be random, graphic sex scenes which become more and more frequent in the latter half of the book. Most of them added nothing to the plot, and I'm not sure if they were simply filler, a marketing ploy, or a result of the author just wanting to write about sex. I couldn't finish the book because the last hundred or two pages got too boring and started to resemble a harlequin soft-core porn novel. It's as if he ran out of fresh ideas when the book neared completion and started to substitute real content with sex scenes.
There are also some problems with the characters. The main character at the beginning, for instance; the author makes it very clear that this man is deeply in love with his wife, and when she dies, he's crushed-- but then has sex with a woman he just met less than 24 hours after burying his wife. It doesn't make sense when you drastically change a character's values like that, and again, it seems as though the author was overeager to write about sex. It's a trend I've noticed in a lot of books these days. Also (and you'll see what I mean if you read the book), some of the other characters are introduced as truly good people, and then do some truly reprehensible things and have no regrets about it. It doesn't make sense. There's no consistency to most of the characters in this book. In fact, my favorite characters were the villains, because I could at least count on them to be consistently villainous, whereas I never knew what the "good" characters were going to do next.
Two out of five. Not worth your money.
Book Review: Ditto... review to help the avergage, non-academic reader
Summary: 1 Stars
I was so pleased to see that others found this book to be excrutiatingly boring as well as having other serious flaws. I'm no scholar, but definitely have an opinion about this one.This year I committed to reading 52 books, and have often chosen books based on best seller status. I hate to give up on a book, as I feel it is the easy way out. Some material just isn't easy to get through and sticking it out is worth it in the end. This book lost me for good at the point that the church had burned, and Philip and Tom were going to the Bishop for funds to rebuild. BORING! This left me wondering what qualities define an "epic" story - length, as in 970 pages? It's true that there is excessive description from the process of building, characters' interactions, to the layout of structures (i.e. the castle, the church) etc. The worst part of this book is it leaves nothing to the reader's imagination. Every little thing is spelled out. Several characters' behavior and character changed suddenly. For example, the fact that William was a sadist. you get the sense he is a bad guy from day one, but there was no lead up to this fact he is a sadist. It was brusquely presented to the reader. Tom, inhumanely left his child to die from the elements or to be devoured by wild animals. This contradicted the idea that he was a decent person who was committed to feeding and providing for his family. Jack went from a poorly socialized and mildly retarded child; to one who critically plotted a plan to save Tom's employment prospects- and it works out perfectly. While I'm not acquainted with that time period, it struck me as odd and unrealistic that they spoke w/modern day profanity- base descriptions of female anatomy, for example. There was no differentiation from modern day language in terms of vocabulary or syntax, for example. After reading that I can look forward to excessive violence and gore if I choose to continue this book, I'm glad that I'm moving on to another.Book Review: A very long bodice ripper . . .
Summary: 3 Stars
This book reminded me of the bodice rippers that I read when I was a teenager - you know, the ones with Fabio on the cover? It was much longer, of course, more like 3 bodice rippers in one novel. There's the sexy heroine (Aliena), the likeable tradesman (Tom), the evil lord (William), and the saintly monk (Phillip). The story is good vs. evil, true love conquers all, blah, blah.
I finished this book, and found it readable, and even compelling in some parts. The violence bothered me, and I got weary of all the challenges, one after the other after the other, that the characters had to go through. The descriptions could be tedious. When Jack sets fire to the church, it takes pages and pages - it should have been done in one page.
I have to disagree with some of the reviewers who thought that the cathedral building information was well done. I found it confusing and hard to visualize. Even though I have visited cathedrals all over the world (Westminster, York, Notre Dame), I still don't know what a Nave is, so when you tell me that it crosses the chancery (don't know what that is either) or some such - it doesn't do me a bit of good. I would have found it helpful if 10 or so pages of the 970 were devoted to a glossary or even some drawings. I had to go online to look up St. Denis just to get an idea of what the mythical Kingsbridge Cathedral would look like.
I would not call this historical fiction - it was more like fiction set in a past time. Unlike most historical fiction, the places and people described in this book did not exist. It puts into question how much of it is historically accurate.
In summary, I would say that you could read this book and be entertained, but if you skipped it, you wouldn't be missing anything. You could read A Kingdom of Dreams by Judith McNaught or The Love Knot by Elizabth Chadwick, and you'd get the same idea.
Book Review: A Truly GREAT Historical Novel that EVERYONE Should Read!
Summary: 5 Stars
Mr. Follett, the first thing I would like to say here is "Thank You." What a wonderful and entertaining and enlightening read you have given us. I have read this book 3 times, and the third time was as great as the first. I eagerly await "World Without End."
The Review:
Of all the historical novels I have ever read this ranks up there with the best of them. I do not remember when I have read a modern-day writer's work that so completely captivated me, and hung onto me until the end. At nearly 1000 pages this tome is "time consuming", but it is so wonderfully crafted that it just skips along, and one really has a hard time putting it down. I have carried it with me everywhere each time I have read it! It currently exists on my bookshelves in three editions, and I will always have a copy of it, in some form, in my personal library. I cannot say how many people I have talked to and recommended this book to, but it is several dozen, and those who I have talked with, after they have read it, agree with me that it is a phenomenal work. It truly is. Of course, we have the equally great "Eye of the Needle", "Key to Rebecca", and "Night Over Water" from Mr. Follett also, among many others.
If you are unfamiliar with Ken Follett's work, you will also want to try these others, mentioned above, as well. You will not be disappointed in the least, trust me.
This fall (2007) brings the "sequal" to "Pillars of the Earth", "World Without End". According to his website, Ken says that he could not really do a direct sequal, but has come forward some time to a few centuries later and picked up with descendants of the original characters from "Pillars". I am sure that there are a couple million other fans out there of Ken's that are eagerly awaiting this new book!
Hoping this has "helped" those searching for a great read. Enjoy! ~operabruin