Ken Follett is
renowned for writing some of the top thrillers in the English language,
including Eye of the
Needle and The
Key to Rebecca. The book Follett considers his best, however, is
a historical novel that received lukewarm reactions from publishers and
most critics and no prize nominations. As Follett writes in a preface
to The Pillars of the
Earth, "This is a word-of-mouth book. . . . the personal
recommendation of one reader to another . . . was selling Pillars."
Why did the builders of medieval cathedrals want to erect such astonishing monuments to faith? Follett, a self-described nonbeliever, wrote an almost 1,000-page novel to try to understand. Among The Pillars of the
Earth's
many well-drawn characters, the godly Prior Philip is the main one.
It is for Philip's priory in Kingsbridge that first Tom Builder (many
surnames were inspired by occupation) and then Jack Jackson (his
father was named Jack) struggle through many
natural and manmade setbacks over more than four decades to build a cathedral. Other important
characters are Aliena, daughter of a deposed earl, shrewd wool
merchant, and love of Jack's life; Jack's strong-willed, forest-dwelling mother, Ellen,
considered by some a witch; the cruel William of Hamleigh, whose family
seized the earldom from Aleina's; and an unscrupulous archdeacon,
Waleran Bigod.
Follett steeps his story in the fine points of arches, windows, vaults, and
the geometric proportions needed for both aesthetic beauty and
structural soundness. Just as thorough as the architectural details is his historical research
about the political and religious culture of 12th-century
England. Political intrigues, including one that cost Jack's innocent
father his life, drive the plot. Two royals vie for the English throne,
their subjects take sides and court favors, and the fate of Kingsbridge
and its cathedral hangs in the balance.
Written by an author who knows how to write a well-paced, suspenseful,
lively tale, The Pillars of the Earth
is enormously entertaining as well as informative. Readers clamored for
Follett to write a sequel. He decided the characters were too old at
the end of Pillars
to survive another book, so he wrote a novel about their descendants
two centuries later. World
Without End (2008) revolves around the Black Death and the
foundation of modern medicine.
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