The Pillars of the Earth

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 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.