A book, related to Notre Dame

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Wednesday, April 17. 2019

A book, related to Notre Dame

Ken Follett's historical fiction, The Pillars of the Earth (1990)

The protagonist is a 12th C English stonemason who travels to France to learn about the new design fad we now know as Gothic. Besides the architecture, there's a lot of novel in this novel. Good fun and a compelling portrait of 12th C England.

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 13:35 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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My sister recommended "The Pillars of the Earth" to me years ago. I'm a voracious reader so I was happy to see it was a big, long book and I'm also a Ken Follett fan so it was double good fortune. I'm sorry to say the book was total dreck. More like reading a soap opera than literature. I picked it up several more times and tried to read it but finally threw it away.

#1 FRP on 2019-04-17 14:42 (Reply)

Yes, sorry to say the book is utter trash. Gang rape scenes galore. What's going on in an author's brain that he would write like that?

#1.1 California on 2019-04-17 16:03 (Reply)

I agree - I could not finish this book. Most of descriptions of the architecture and trades’ work were truly interesting but I simply could not slog through the story. I was looking and looking for a story and couldn’t find it. It seemed as if someone other than Follett wrote the book. His other work is crisp and solid and sharp on the story. If it was a stylistic departure, I don’t think it was a success. I know - everyone but me loved it......

#1.2 Annie on 2019-04-18 06:58 (Reply)

That's an epic book by Ken Follett. I had read his spy excellent novels before (Eye of the Needle , Key to Rebecca), but was surprised when he came out with Pillars of the Earth. I can't say enough good things about the book. They made a mini-series out of it, too.

#2 snopercod on 2019-04-17 14:44 (Reply)

My brother gave it to me a few months ago, saying that in his opinion it was the world's best book. I enjoyed it very much but was surprised that he liked it because it's basically a historical romance novel.

#3 LP on 2019-04-17 16:20 (Reply)

Excellent novel that puts the reader directly in the world of the characters. It's a story that makes you actually hate certain characters. It's probably time for a reread.

#4 Jack Walter on 2019-04-17 18:14 (Reply)

It is an epic. I think there is Salt of the Earth and maybe another sequel. I read it when it came out as one of the huge books I took on deployment and got into it. It's not everyone's cup of tea.
The cathedral building portions were wonderful and describe pretty closely, probably, what the world and conditions were like for the men and women that built the cathedrals just like Notre Dame.
As with his spy books, I think Ken did a good job with his craft and spun a good yarn on an epic scale.

I'm going to laugh if I hear anyone whine about the length or romance aspects who got sucked into Game of Thrones. I read the books as they came out up until 4 and then I gave up. It was a twisted reality I wanted no part of and yet there appear to be millions of fans of the show.

I doubt they ever read the books.

#5 Curtis on 2019-04-17 18:34 (Reply)

I read P o t E because I had enjoyed other KF novels. Then I made my first trip to Paris. My main takeaway of the book was the description of the evolution of the architecture from the massiveness of the walls and flying buttresses of ND compared with the lightness and elegance of latter church’s as demonstrated by St Chapelle including making big columns appear as a group of several smaller, lighter columns and massive windows and light.

#6 Jim on 2019-04-17 19:33 (Reply)

The first steps toward public health. There is a sentence somewhere in the story, almost a non-sequitur, where a character observes, pretty much in passing and only to himself that since the village was rebuilt after the fire that had leveled it there had been very little disease. To me, it suggested Follett had completely immersed himself in that era and in the lives of his characters.

#7 chip on 2019-04-18 13:50 (Reply)

"Sarum" by Edward Rutherfurd also looks at building the great churches. It chronicles England from the time the surging North Sea created the English Channel to fairly recent times. It's a great read.

Follett, I find, is a very uneven read. Some I've loved; some I've just put to one side.

#8 Frances on 2019-04-18 21:50 (Reply)

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Wednesday, April 17. 2019

A book, related to Notre Dame