by Ken Follett
I finished this book in the jury assembly room, while waiting to see if I would be selected as a juror for a DUI / 2nd degree murder case involving the death of a 6 year old boy.
The Pillars of the Earth is centered around the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge in England during the 12th century. History is not my strong suit, but I believe a lot of the events in the book are based on real events, like the sinking of the White Ship (resulting in the death of William Adelin, King Henry I’s only legtimate son), and the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket.
Follett interweaves the story of Tom Builder who dreams of one day being master builder for a cathedral, with that of Prior Philip, head of the monastery in Kingsbridge. His dream is to see Kingsbridge rise to greatness, in the eyes of the monks, the people, and the church. There are many other lives and stories in this book, but Tom and Philip are at the center, while war over the throne rages around them.
You do not have to be religious or a history buff to enjoy this book (I’m certainly neither of those things). You just need to love a good story, and good characters.
While some of the lesser characters are not well-fleshed out, there are so many main characters who are, that it does not detract from the story. In fact, if there were more details about the lesser characters, the book could go on forever. It is very long as is, but I feel that it set out to cover certain events, a certain time period, and it did that well. At the end, I felt very satisfied with the story and the way the novel was completed.
At first, I was skeptical about reading The Pillars of the Earth, solely because it’s an “Oprah’s Book Club” selection. I have to say, this is the first and only book that she has picked that I actually enjoyed (apart from some of the classics, like Steinbeck and Faulkner that she has on her list). Love in the time of Cholera was a miserable book, boring and appalling and horribly wrong all at the same time. Middlesex was so-so, but I felt the balance between the greek ancestry and the narrator’s current life to be off-putting. I feel I would have enjoyed it more if it had been a memoir, rather than just loosely based on the author’s real life and heritage. After reading those two, I thought I would avoid all Oprah’s selections in the future, but I couldn’t resist The Pillars of the Earth, and in the end, I am glad I didn’t.