The Pillars of the Earth

I had heard a lot of praise for this book. I found that some of it is deserved but the book also fell flat for me in some ways.

Some characters such as william hamleigh we flat 2 dimensional characters that did not show any growth or development while others like Aliena were written well and showed development.

I found the story to be very cyclical and repetitive in many ways and while each new problem was different it was a constant build a church, something gets in the way, build some more, something stops them etc

So for me it loses some points for repetitive writing and flat characters it wins points for the good characters and their individual stories.

There was good opportunity to wrap things up probably 200 pages before the end of the book but I felt follet failed to do so.

So it was ok. Not terrible but not great. To be honest I am split 50/50 I have certainly read worse books but I have also read much better.

A book about the life of common folk in medieval Europe. Well written and researched, excellent character development, but not interesting to me. I like stories to have, if no intellectual components, then at least something extraordinary. That's why I read fantasy and science fiction. This is historical fiction, and the pacing is too slow for my taste.

Judging by what I heard of the book, it will have a lot of really well fleshed out characters, and their stories will all connect somehow. Indeed I felt empathy for the protagonists, which is very good.

The first character if a mason worker, the father of 2 children that he must provide for. His wife is expecting another child, and if he doesn't find work soon, by winter they will starve. He is fascinated by the building of cathedrals, and will put his livelihood at risk to find the job he loves the most.

We get to experience his strive to survive, the risks he takes to get paid when his employer tries to back down, the passion for his work and the devoutness to his family. We feel the the agony of him being refused work town after town and the danger of traveling between towns in the woods, where outlaws live.

Eventually he fails to get a job, his wife dies during birth and he abandons his newborn in the forest, because he doesn't have money to feed him.

His story stops here for now, and another protagonist comes into play, a priest who lives in an isolated monastery. His life is about to change with the arrival of a newborn baby that another priest found in the woods. They decided that this was a sign of god, and must therefore take care of him.

Now the priest story is unfolded, we learn how he lost his parents to English soldiers who butchered them in their houses even after the war was over, and so on.

Read 3:59/40:55 10%

This is a great story with a passionate cast of characters. Follett has a gift for writing from the perspective of characters you just cannot like - he does it so masterfully.

I had to go back and read some history alongside and after this book because that is the way with historical fiction. There are quite a few adult scenes in the story. I heartily recommend it's for all who are not concerned by that.

From the center of it all, the building of a church, from that, the spiral of this whole picture of the mid ages, the harshness and cruelty of it, the politics and scheming of the people in power and the day to day life problems of citizens, the relationship between the church and the crown, the exploration of Christianity and it's effect on people, it even has some epic, and beautiful romance stuff in between.

And it's all intertwined in this wondrous story that spans so many years, hardships and revelations, every moving part influences the other, every character with its own motivations and distinct roles and personalities, and it all comes constantly full circle in so many different ways in such a perfect manner that makes so much sense.

Even the moments of explaining how the church is built never felt like a chore and never went longer than they needed to be.

It's just a masterpiece, 10/10.

I could not decide if I loved this book or hated it. I finished it (audiobook). I loved this epic-ness of this story, but I hated all the tragedy. Of course, every good story needs struggle and this may have been realistic, but it was too much for my enjoyment.

On a related note, two years after finishing this, I started the 2nd book in the series and decided to quit for similar reasons to why I did not love this book.

Finally finished! “The Pillars of the Earth” may not be for everyone, but do not let the size of the book put you off. Yes it did take me awhile to read it. Some parts did drag. But for the overall story (or stories), it was well worth it. Sometimes the author picked up on a thread only to leave it...for now. But by the end of the book, everything is tied up.

For me personally, I loved Jack and Aliena's story.

It's funny...I just finished the book. I was adding movies to my Netflix list and I came across one called “Beckett”, about thomas Beckett and King Henry II. I was tempted to add it, but decided not to. Instead I'm going to start watching the Starz series based on this book!

I actually read the “prequel” first ([b:The Evening and the Morning 49239093 The Evening and the Morning Ken Follett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1585140756l/49239093.SY75.jpg 73816656] and I do feel it works better as a book than this one - less ambitious but more focused in its plot line. Pillars has to be admired for the courage to be written out of love of the subject when everyone is telling you are a WW2 novelist. I loveed the attention to the bulding the Cathedral, but i disliked how he would pack great detail in a one year period and then skip 10 years and abandon or wash over characters. In the end this is Historical escapism, crafted well but not in the top bracket, but for as long as it was it never dragged and i never thought I was not being entertained (and learned a few things about the reigns of Stephen and Maud. ( I thought the Thomas Beckett part was a gratuitous epilog, but i do admit I went off and read more on the subject when i finished the book.

"The first casualty of a civil war was justice."

Well, I finally did it. I finally knocked this one off my to-read list at the expense of my yearly goal (I’m two books behind now!), and I feel good about finally working my way through it. This is a weird book for me to rate, because I’m not very religious and I can’t exactly say I enjoyed it all the way through, but I’m still putting book two on my to-read list for….sometime in the future. Maybe next year.

This is a book about a man with a dream to build a church. Things start small, then quickly snowball as these things do, creating a real mess of church problems and state problems along the way. The lines between the two were, basically, nonexistent back then. Lots of political infighting, jockeying for position within the church/country, stuff like that. Amongst it all we get to know a few members of the village/town/city of Kingsbridge, and follow them as they experience the repercussions of these choices down at the personal level.

I definitely enjoyed some of the points of view more than others. Ailena was far and away my least favorite perspective in the beginning, had some redemption in the middle, and then returned to being my least favorite in the end. Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge, ended up being my favorite point of view, as we see his dreams of a new church building come to fruition. His internal struggles the entire way were interesting to read about, particularly when he struggles constantly with personal pride as a member of the church. I enjoyed the writing, the story was pretty great, I just felt like it dragged a bit in places. I guess in a book of almost 1000 pages it’s to be expected, though.

I don’t know, I’m glad to have finished it and have added the sequel to my to-read list, but I’m not sure who I’d recommend it to. It comes with some religious baggage, so if that’s not your jam, I’d probably pass on it unless you can set your personal feelings aside to experience a good, realistic, medieval story.

The kind of epic novel that leaves you exhausted by the time you finish it. I thought the characters were well written, particularly Prior Phillip. Follett has obviously avoided using language of the period and this makes it an easy read (other than the length!). I found the descriptions of the cathedral building interesting and well researched. I did notice my reading slowing towards the last third, but it did pick up again and I rushed to finish it.

I was disappointed. Characters were either good guys or bad guys (or, in the case of women, all good, strong, highly competent, independent–fighting off rapists while becoming successful businesswomen). Hints of a mystery pop up here and there, then fade away for another 150 pages, until the mystery is solved anticlimactically near the end of the book. No attempt is made to give the characters the sensibilities of their own time–Philip, as the prior of the monastery, probably comes the closest, simply because being the prior of a monastery is a rather medieval thing to be. And at 900 pages, the book is flabby. A lot happens in that 900 pages, but not all of it is interesting or significant. I was expecting something gorgeous, like Edith Pargeter's The Heaven Tree (which some web sites recommend to people who liked Pillars of the Earth), a story about moral conflict and being true to oneself. Instead, I thought this book was more like a novel you'd buy at the supermarket.

This book was way too long winded for my liking. I found i could easily just gloss over pages (something i don't usually do) and not lose track of the plot. The story itself was ok, but for me the characters never really developed. The only reason I finished the novel was to see vile William meet his inevitable comeuppance - horrible man with no redeeming qualities at all. Think I will give the sequel a miss.

The villain character is empty, boring, just exists because the story needed a villain. He's just a gross despicable dude I absolutely DREADED having to go back to after spending some time with the “good guys”. The villain literally only exists in conflict scenes. He has zero background or personality.

Surprised people didn't make me read this years ago. It has the town-building and character writing of Stephen King, the aesthetic of A song of Ice and Fire (HotD is based on this civil war), the historical detail of Bernard Cornwell, and the brutality and emotions of all three.

The journey this book takes you on is grand and by the time I reached the end, I was kinda awed at how much happened while also in the individual moments feeling like I was right there in the middle of each minor and major conflict. Each of these major characters felt very real and well drawn and the things that happened to them were visceral. The last quarter had me surprisingly emotional at multiple times, and I was constantly gripped to the page.

The book is not without flaws, though. It has some of the worst “man writing women” tendencies that I've ever seen. The few female characters are well written (Aliena is my favorite character) but by all that is holy, Ken Follett never saw a scene he couldn't add a rape to and then failed to do so. There are a lot of sexual assaults in this book and most are extremely gratuitous (did you know the bad guy is BAD?!?!) and even the one that is “relevant” is so over the top brutal. Even taking the assaults out of the equation, the sex scenes are cringy and the constant talking about boobs and nipples felt so juvenile. It clearly didn't ruin the book for me but so often I was just rolling my eyes at these scenes. Literally the third to last page is a man considering how his wife's boobs have morphed throughout the years. Relax, Ken, relax.

But besides that, I don't have any complaints with this book. I definitely understand why it's considered one of the greatest historical fiction novels and based on my experience, I'd agree.

loved it! when I thought I didn't like it, by Job, it sucked me back in 3 pages later!
All the events and characters kept coming back full circle. Amazing book, I will recommend it to anyone & everyone.
I have never read Game of Thrones, but from what I have heard, if you liked those books, you will like this one!

One of the best novels I've ever read and automatically makes any book Follett has written a must read. It's a historical fiction book about building a fictional cathedral in 12 century Britain, but there is so much more to this story. I've never read a book that could move me emotionally as well as Robin Hobb. Every death is a gut punch, every character you will care about deeply, and every enemy you will loathe with every fiber of your being. There is romance, there is violence, there is political/religious exploitation, drama, and tribulations from nature.

I went into this with very little knowledge of what it's about and I think everyone should as well. Just go read it and thank me later!

Rarely have I been privileged enough to take such a journey as this. This book has it all... literally. It would be nearly impossible to be disappointed by this book.

I have so many thoughts I ought not attempt any further review. Let me simply add, this is one of the most comprehensively written books I've read. Another epic of its caliber that comes to mind is The Company by Robert Littell.