Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Genre: Historical Fiction
Read: 31st March 2015
Purchase: Amazon
★★★★★ 5 stars
One word - WOW!
I cannot begin to describe this book and it is not one that I would have normally chosen myself. But it was recommended to me, despite it not being my usual genre and style...but I loved it! I would stay up late into the night, sometimes 3am - one morning 6am - devouring each and every line. And although it is an epic tale, it's almost like a Catherine Cookson novel some 600 years earlier.
I did find a few faults. Some of the language and use of the F word I just don't see being used in the Middle Ages, and to me didn't seem right.
Then there were the unfinished characters. We got the general gist of where Jonathan ended up and Richard got a mention of having died in Syria, but what happened to other characters that seemed to have fallen off the pages and into oblivion? Martha? Francis? Peter of Wareham? Walter, William's lifelong squire and partner in crime? Elizabeth, William's wife? And Ellen, Jack's mother? I know she lived in the forest, but she was there from time to time but no mention of what became of her. I felt as if some characters just weren't finished. Even King Stephen. It wasn't written into the story that or how or when he died, though we assumed he did because Henry was suddenly king.
But my biggest flaw I felt was the book should have ended with Jack's story. He's not even mentioned in the final scenes. Aliena and Tommy are there for the hanging and then it's over to Philip and the Canterbury monks for King Henry's penance. I don't think an epic tale such as this should have ended with Philip doling out lashings on the King...but with Jack. Because the story began with the hanging of Jack's father. So therefore I felt it should have ended with that story and Jack finding out WHY.
But flaws aside, this was a brilliant epic tale, not just about a cathedral or the building of the cathedral, but all the lives that are intertwined and all that surrounds it.
But flaws aside, this was a brilliant epic tale, not just about a cathedral or the building of the cathedral, but all the lives that are intertwined and all that surrounds it.
Definitely FIVE STARS!
