n  "The most expensive part of building is the mistakes."n

My word. I'm quite lost for words after just finishing Ken Follett's supreme piece of historical fiction, the Pillars of the Earth. Quite possibly the best book ever written about building a cathedral.

The premise of this one is not normally one that I would expect myself to gravitate toward. Set in the middle ages it centres around a group of monks striving to build a cathedral. But as with most great stories, this one is so much more, as the characters involved struggle through adversity, hardship and failure during its course.

So what makes this one great and a recipient of the legendary Dave Edmunds' five star award? Follett's writing is not exceptional. It's functional and does the job, portraying the story without being a distraction. But it lacks the flair and style of some of the more elite writers. What it excels at is a fantastic plot with a truly epic scope, spanning decades.



n  "The duck swallows the worm, the fox kills the duck, the men shoot the fox, and the devil hunts the men."n

There's a great set of characters and because you spend so much time with them you come to truly love them, or really hate them as you watch them grow up. Prior Phillip is one of my favourite literary characters, truly inspiring and selfless. An example to us all. And don't get me started on William Hamleigh, one of the most heinous and vile villains I've ever come across. I normally love a good villain, but this guy is so bad there's absolutely nothing remotely likeable about him.

The world building on display here is amazing. Follett is extremely knowledgeable and the book is a real education. I feel enriched from the experience and now know the various aspects of a cathedral. The nave, chancel and transcepts...I'm all over it.



n  "Proportion is the heart of beauty."n

The tables in this one swing back and forward constantly. Just as you think our heroes have made it they get kicked in the face and have to pick themselves up, dust themselves down and struggle on. You never truly know if they're going to make it. Which makes for compulsive reading.

So to sum things up. If you can handle a giant door stop of a book give this a read. Even if historical fiction isn't your bag. If you love a great story, then you'll love Pillars of the Earth.



Ken Follett

Took me a bit to get around to reading this book by one of my favorite authors and it did not disappoint. Follett creates some of the most evil characters ever in this first book of his Kingsbridge Series, and the evil follows us throughout the entire book! This is a book about the ambitious building of a Cathedral in the village of Kingsbridge which goes against the wishes of the the Earl of the region as well as the Bishop. There are a host of interesting characters in the book and we follow their comings and goings over a 50 year period. Well written, interesting and makes us appreciate how far we have come from the time of wooden houses, mud roads and mass poverty. I am not as fond of this book as others, as evidenced by the fact that it took me over a year to finish this, but nonetheless I will be soon begin working on the next book in this series.
See my full review of this book and others at www.ViewsonBooks.com

Toward the end of this 1000 page book I noticed the ad for the equally non-descript titled SEQUEL released 17 years after Pillars. This raises a lot of questions. What kind of author leaves his fans hanging for 17 years? Can there possibly be anything left unsaid after 1000 pages? Is this why Follett looks so smug on the back cover w/his black turtleneck?

Maybe in the sequel he'll explain why he couldn't find room in the story for Martha after age 6. She was my favorite character and she got maybe 5 sentences of mention after page 300. Talk about a huge loose end.

And what was with all the raping? When the author got writer's block he must have pulled out some custom Magic 8 Ball with two possible responses: A) Rape or B) Further uncertainty regarding the King of England

The result of that Magic 8 Ball shaking is Pillars of the Earth. I don't think I'll be reading the sequel.

I should have put this book down forever when the one character marries the forest witch 2 hours after his beloved wife dies a bloody death. Looking back, that was a huge red flag.

Hmmm... a family relation lent me this book. I was mostly interested in what kind of books my particular relation was into. I think you can learn a lot about a person by reading their favorite books. I am actually a little disturbed. Yes you may call me a prude, but there was sex in it. I know what your thinking... thats not a shocker. But its not just sex... it is violent sex. It has several graphic rape scenes. And I have to admit violence to women frightens me.
I don't need that graphic of an image of midevil history. I am sure events like that happened but I don't enjoy reading about them. And I was suprosed how frequently the topic came up within the book.

That being said, the plot was great but the antagonist got boring in the last third of the book. I liked the plot except for the antagonist waring on my patience. I do like complex plots such as this one... however the plot became fairly predictable at about page 600. The bad guy comes in terrorizes the good people and frustrates the building of the cathedral. then the good people rebuild and make a little progress. Then the bad guy comes again and the cycle continues. I think authors should quit while they are ahead. I love a thick book... however it should only be 1000 pages if you can be creative the whole time.

The setting provided and eye opening experience. It took a minute to get used to the midevil setting, but it I found it intriguing. I also liked how the book covered decades of time... I haven't read many books that do that. Well this is what I think. Sorry about the spelling errors.

This is one of my top 10 favourite books of all time.
I had written a review a long time ago but it got lost.
This is a masterpiece. Don’t be overwhelmed by its size. Believe me when I say it’s a fast read. Is that engaging. I did not care for the adaptation for the TV.

Anyways, the ebook is currently on sale for $1.99 (Canadian), today, February 8, 2022.

Full video review here: https://youtu.be/hk36yExrXII

In 1996 I was a junior in high school and had never read a historical fiction book. A friend of mine was reading this massive brick and I assumed it was a fantasy book. I asked him what it was and, really, he had me interested with just the title.

Trying to explain what makes this story so great is hard since most people nope out when you tell them it is about building a cathedral in 12th century Europe. That is the backdrop but there is so much more to it. Follett loves to abuse his characters and, in turn, makes you root even harder for them. If you love characters that work hard and do whatever it takes to overcome the odds, this one has a dozen you'll love and will never leave your head.

Major content warning for the weak of heart. Follett pulls no punches and even gives the main antagonist POV chapters and it is NOT pretty. But as long as you understand things were different in the world almost 900 years ago you'll be okay. This is a trip that is absolutely worth your time.

This is definitely not your usual Ken Follett spy thriller. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a well-written historical fiction novel which centers around one man's desire to build the greatest cathedral in England in the early medieval period. It's a great story which strikes a nice balance between history and fiction. My only complaint-- it's nearly 1,000 pages long. But well worth the time invested!

(Reviewed 8/1/08)

Ich habe es geschafft!

A friend recommended this book. He is no longer a friend. I confess a snooty predisposition against pulpy books. I was going to the beach so I thought this would be a good beach book.

So what's it about? A master builder wanders medieval England looking for work. He's with his family--pregnant wife ("she was his soul-mate"--the author actually writes that twice), medieval Bart Simpson-ish son, scrawny daughter. He Dreams of Building a Cathedral. Along the way he meets a witch in the forest--a pulchritudinous witch, no warts. He loves his wife but lusts for the witch, then goes back to focusing on his lesions.

As the family nears starvation, the wife goes into labor in the gelid forest and dies in childbirth. The baby lives. The mason abandons him and staggers off into the forest.

The witch-babe comes upon the mason for a brief prurient-interest sex scene. She's on top and her breasts swell to his touch. You get the idea. Then she feeds the builder and his kids soup in her cave, which is appointed like Hugh Hefner's "After Dark" lounge.

The baby is then rescued by monks who feed it by dipping a cloth into goat milk and letting the lad suckle. The monks seemed relieved from their daily routine of plain song (oh, for a drum sample!), beer brewing and long, steamy group showers. They quickly devolve into bitchy "Three Men and a Baby" behavior.

This book is 124,000 pages long and I am on page 98. Why I am reading it? 1) Hanging out with my father-in-law in hospice. Not a good time to whip out "Angry Birds" 2) Sex scene with concupiscent witch actually was sexy. 3) Copy of "The Leopard" by di Lampedusa on order.

A monumental undertaking! An achievement to last the ages!

Want to know how it feels to build a cathedral? Read The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. By the time you're done reading this huge book you will feel as if you've spent the better part of your life hoisting brick and laying mortar.




The details are marvelous and intricate. Follett obviously did a lot of research in order to construct this mammoth book. This is reminiscent of Moby Dick in the minutia of its attention to detail. It acts almost as a blueprint or at least a treatise on the craft of construction.

Then there's the story, too. All around the base of this mammoth project is an intriguing and captivating love story. It's a strange sort of romance that'll sweep up most readers...sweep them up like a broom down a bowling alley lane. For me, it went on and on, and frankly, it dragged, which kinda killed the romance after a while.

The length of The Pillars of the Earth is perhaps a bit too long. I don't mind an epic, like the Russian classics, but this one exhausted me at times. Follett's publisher let him off the leash with this one and he ran with it as far as he could. After writing previous money-making books for his publisher on the promise that he would be allowed to create his baby, this behemoth known as The Pillars of the Earth was that baby, and it's a tubber!

A tale large in scope and filled with trial, tribulation and triumph.

The characters were well rounded and developed a lot during the course of the book. Slow at times but with great pay-off!

I hated this book. Let's just get that out of the way so there is no confusion later on.

Ken Follett describes a gloomy, dismal, nearly barbaric society whose citizens' greatest concerns seem to be their egos and their lust for power and control. He uses the building of the great European cathedrals as the impetus for his story; the magnificent structures were made possible through trickery, lies, greed, criminal acts and selfish ambition. Forget about the Glory of God...that's just history's cover story. But Follett's cathedral in Pillars of the Earth serves as much purpose as the hospital in the soap opera General Hospital. He focused much more on the personal drama, romance, and rivalry of his weak characters. This was historical fiction a la Daytime television.

The story didn't even feel historical. Follett tried. He mentioned eating with a knife almost as frequently as the tunics his characters wore (Setting it apart from modern day. We no longer wear tunics, you know). But everything felt too modern - their speech, their attitudes, even their relationships. I read the mammoth 1,000 page story quickly but I can just as easily get sucked into Guiding Light. The plots are interesting enough...just mind-numbing and unlikely. For example, the Alfred-Aliena-Jack love triangle had my interest but then the high drama of Aliena's secret pregnancy followed by her truly unbelievable delivery (during the same time the ceiling of the cathedral fell....underneath the stone rubble....really?) along side Jack's odyssey was just too much. And could someone please just get kill William Hamleigh before he rapes someone else? (They don't. The reader is required to experience one too many grotesque acts by an inhumane man who supposedly fears hell. Once was MORE than enough, Ken. We get it. He's baaaaaad).

Even if there is some historical truth to the background story - the difficulty in building a cathedral (oh yeah..remember that?), it is overshadowed by all the non-historical melodrama. I don't think Follett did that period of history any favors by making it all seem so salacious.

Here Be Dragons does a much better job of storytelling the tumultuous middle ages. Read it if you want to experience the pettiness of power. I'd even recommend Philippa Gregory's novels over this. It was about 900 pages too long.