Pillars of the Earth

[Gwenivere]

Anyone read Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett? Best book ever!

[ifonlyiknew]

The Pillars of the Earth really is the greatest book ever. I've read it twice, and I know I'll read it again. It's a shame this novel doesn't receive the recognition it deserves.

[didiervg]

I've read it too and although it makes for a very entertaining and exciting read I don't think it even comes close to being the best book ever.

For one thing I find the characters very one-dimensional. The 'good' characters are unbelievably good and the bad characters nothing but bad which all in all makes everything they do / think / say / feel very predictable, don't you think?

[Kafka's Crow]

Sorry, I chose to dig out this old thread instead of starting a new one. What a disgusting book. I am amazed that people are so enthusiastic about it. This is by far THE worst book I have ever, I repeat, ever, read including some of the rubbish they force you to read in schools and colleges. My God, if you think Dan Brown is bad, try this monstrosity. I have never come across such wooden characterisation and condescending and verbose style. All kinds of things happen randomly. It is the story of a cathedral and now the cathedral has fallen down! A character is buried under the stones and she gives birth to a baby and both mum and babe are ok when the stones are removed and baby is found sucking on his mother's breast! I have heard of 'water birth' but this is the first time I heard of 'rubble birth'. People make love at most unfortunate times, no they don't 'make love', they have most explicit and randy 'sex-scenes'.
I will finish it as I don't want to mention the most over-rated book without having read it. This is a lesson in how not to write a novel

[JBI]

I have similar sentiments, though my attack is with the fact that the prose is just dragging, the plot slow to develop, and right at the beginning, there is the most mediocre sex scene ever written, of a man whose wife dies hooking up with some weird forest dwelling woman about five minutes later, only to leave her in the next chapter on his "quest" to build a cathedral.


The problem with historical novels of this type, is they rarely work; the history is wrong, as is the case in this one, and the premise rather shabby. It seems that historical novels built in the public vein are just impossible to do well these days, but the excitement of going to a make believe place, that is would-be medieval England, creates an appeal to readers who never read Chaucer, or even Eco.

[DonovanTalbot]

Anyone read Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett? Best book ever!

Personally, I am leaning towards Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. But that's offtopic.

[Wilde woman]

Funny, I read this in high school and really liked it then. I believe it was my first book with explicit sex, and I enjoyed seeing the different stages of the cathedral-building. I haven't read anything else by Ken Follett, but after reading these reviews, I'm not sure I want to.

[Delta40]

wilde woman, be the best judge of what you would like to read and do not let the grumblings of others influence you. It is easy to insult literature in every form and some readers who feel differently are silenced and become self-concious about their choices - as if the critic knew any better about what they like as opposed to what you do. I enjoyed Pillars of the Earth. Harry Potter Sucks and so does Lord of the Rings. It is all about taste and what gives you pleasure. You know yourself better than anyone who posts here what you like.

best wishes

[kasie]

I've read Chaucer and Eco Umbert and I still somehow managed to enjoy Pillars of the Earth when I read it many years ago. I took it for what it was, a book to be read for entertainment, not Higher Literary Worth. No, I agree, it's not the Best Book Ever but it's an agreeable read, if that's your area of enjoyment. If you want a more solid background for the period, try Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael books and if you want an almost identical (and earlier) story about building a cathedral, try Edith Pargetter's Heaven Tree trilogy (Ellis Peters and Edith Pargetter were noms de plume for the same writer, btw.) Again, they are not higher literature but some people do actually enjoy a little mental relaxation in their reading matter and don't require all books to have a rarified atmosphere - they find a mixed diet sufficiently sustaining for everyday life. :)

Wilde woman - Ken Follett is a writer of very varying quality: some of his thrillers are quite good, some are quite poor. One of his early titles, Eye of the Needle, was made into a film with, I think, Donald Sutherland as the bad guy. Follett was part of the consultation committee set up by the Blair government (UK) in the late 90s to investigate reading development in and after school and I think he came under the influence of 'reading experts': he wrote one book that seemed to be aimed at adult readers with a low reading age, I recognised short sentences, paragraphs of one or two sentences, simplified vocabulary from my days of working with adult remedial readers. The book was dreadful - it was far too long for adult learners anyway and I think even he recognised the dire nature of the early chapters and reverted to his normal style to move the plot along and finish the tale. (The consultative committee seemed to die a similar quiet death - not much was heard from it.) But to give him credit, he's not quite as bad as Dan Brown - at least his plots hang together.

[Kafka's Crow]

I am almost done with this thing and stick to my opinion that it is THE most disgusting so-called classic ever. Everything is so predictable, so black and white, so two dimensional. I was scandalised by this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0230736076/ref=sr_1_10_cm_cr_acr_pop_hist_5?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar&qid=1276701235&sr=1-10

Hi Kassie

When you wrote about Follette's book about young learners, I thought you meant The Pillars of the Earth. At places it looks as if some 10 year old wrote it, specially when characters talk. Dialogue is absolutely rubbish. How could this man mange to sell millions of copies. I am really amazed.

[kasie]

I'm at a bit of a loss at to why you think it's a Classic, KC, it's only about twenty years old.

I think it has recently been revamped with a new cover because last year Follett wrote a sequel, World Without End (which I guess you will not be rushing out to buy :) ) and the publishers were no doubt trying hard to push sales of the older book to tie in with it.

This is just a personal opinion but whenever I see rave reviews such as you quote, I can't help feeling there is an element of self-congratulation in the reviewers for having managed to finish such a mighty tome - cf LotR, HP, TDaVC. They are possibly not normally 'readers' of any book that requires lengthy attention, it seems to me.

( btw - I think the book you should avoid for its dire style was The Hammer of God.)

[Kafka's Crow]

It is repeatedly called "a modern classic" in many online reviews. It was voted 33rd in Nation's Favourite 200 Books (a survey by the BBC). I finished reading it this morning. What a relief! Now my all-time worst books:
1) The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
2)The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
3) Moon Palace by Paul Auster

Nothing can beat Follett's book though. It only gets worse towards the end.

[kasie]

I see where you are coming from now, KC: bear in mind however that the BBC poll was entitled Favourite books, not Best books - I think this has been discussed at some length in other threads - and the results of the survey were quite unstructured, so you have children's favourites mixed in with adult favourites mixed in with (then) current best sellers/film/tv adaptations. (For example, I seem to remember that somewhere on the list was Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle - before the film came out, I was hard put to find anyone else who had heard of it , let alone read it.) The list also reflected titles that frequently appear as set books in UK exams - I'm sure that, for some people, studying just one or two texts is all the close reading they do in a lifetime and leaves them with a love it or hate it attitude to the books concerned.

I still think that to call PotE a 'Classic' is a touch of publishers' hyperbole ('puff' as it used to be called) and should be taken with a (large) pinch of salt. :smile5:

[Pecksie]

Personally, I am leaning towards Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. But that's offtopic.

:smilewinkgrin:


I'm sure that, for some people, studying just one or two texts is all the close reading they do in a lifetime and leaves them with a love it or hate it attitude to the books concerned.


That is very true! In the Amazon website, for example, it's very common to find lots of reviews beginning 'I had to read this book for school and I HATED IT...' (or its 'positive' variant, 'I had to read this book for school and thought it would be AWFUL but I LOVED IT...') --- that kind of thing.

How sad to think that so many people read only a few books in the course of their lives. At least for people like us, who love reading so much.

I know this is way off-topic, but ---since we're talking about people who don't read--- I can't resist mentioning the anecdote of the Argentine model (her name varies according to the teller, so it may be an urban myth) who was asked whether she preferred Ortega or Gasset ('y' means 'and' in Spanish, so 'Ortega y Gasset' could be understood to mean 'Ortega and Gasset' by someone who didn't know the name) and after a moment's hesitation replied: 'Gasset!' In another story, another model (or maybe the same one) is asked about her favourite book, and she names Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist'. The reporter then asks, 'Oh, really? And what was it about?', to which she dumbly replies: 'Uh... I can't remember'. :ack2:

[Scheherazade]

I am filled with a strong urge to read this now.

:-/