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The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)

Ken Follett

Start date: January 1, 2019

Finish date: March 31, 2019

Discussion: New School Classics- 1915-2005

Why we're reading this: 2019 1st Quarter Long Read
[close] 2019 1st Quarter Long Read

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New School Classics- 1915-2005

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What Members Thought

Dec 12, 2008 Alisha Marie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-i-own-that-i-ve-read, favorites, historical

I have been putting of The Pillars of the Earth ever since I bought it two years ago (bought for a dollar at a library sale. Major score right there). Mostly because this book is big as hell; almost-a-thousand-pages big as hell. It's also historical fiction and while I adore historical fiction, I figured that a 973 page historical fiction would get a little too bogged down with the history. Plus, I kept thinking "How interesting can a book about the building of a cathedral REALLY be? Not much." I have been putting of The Pillars of the Earth ever since I bought it two years ago (bought for a dollar at a library sale. Major score right there). Mostly because this book is big as hell; almost-a-thousand-pages big as hell. It's also historical fiction and while I adore historical fiction, I figured that a 973 page historical fiction would get a little too bogged down with the history. Plus, I kept thinking "How interesting can a book about the building of a cathedral REALLY be? Not much." Oh, how wrong I was! I loved and adored every single minute I spent reading The Pillars of the Earth.

First things first, The Pillars of the Earth is enthralling. I could not put it down. I figured it would take me at least two weeks to read it, but nope, it took me about five days (granted I'm on holiday from school so I had oodles of time to read) to read this pretty chunky book. This was one of those instances where I wasn't bored throughout anything that happened in the book. It didn't get bogged down with the history. Every thing that happened was captivating, horrifying, and jaw-dropping and helped the pages pass by at an alarming rate.

The next thing I loved about this book was that most of the characters weren't clear-cut. I mean, you had the obvious villains: William, Waleran, and Reagan, but most of the characters were sort of in the middle ground. Even the obvious good ones like Prior Philip and Tom did things that made you think that they would be better off impaling themselves on a sword. Sure they were good men, but everyone in The Pillars of the Earth had an ulterior motive. That was refreshing, reading about characters who weren't too holy (sure, the characters themselves might think they're holy, but is obvious to everyone else that they're not really as holy as they think they are).

However, while there are many good things about The Pillars of the Earth there was one glaring thing that made me pause, not glaring enough to take away a star, but a bit off-putting. The language of the characters was a bit too modern. And trust me, I'm probably the LAST person you would expect to take notice of something like that, so it was glaringly obvious. In one instance, Ellen says "She'll puke and then she'll be fine." And then I was thinking "Puke? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?! Did she just say puke?!" (I have these inner conversations with myself daily). Again this seemed so off-putting that I went on google as soon as I read it and found out that the word "puke" is said to be invented by William Shakespeare in his play "As You Like It" in the '1600s. What the hell was Ellen doing using a word that hadn't been invented yet? Did Shakespeare copy it from Ellen? Considering that Ellen was alive during around 1124 and is oh yeah a FICTIONAL character, I think not and call it a glaring oversite by not only the author but the editor. There were a few more things like this in The Pillars of the Earth, but that was the one that bothered me the most.

Now that I got that out of my chest, I will say that I highly recommend The Pillars of the Earth. It was an absolute, absorbing page-turner. Every time I put it down, the only thing that I could think about was picking it back up again. Sure it's not the most well-written book (Puke...seriously? and dude seriously, I get it. Ellen had intense, golden eyes and Jack had shockingly red hair with penetrating blue eyes. I. GET. IT. Stop describing it to me), but it's main purpose seems to be to entertain. And it certainly does that. ...more

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Jul 29, 2008 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, adventure, american-lit, read-in-2020, favorites, oprah-bookclub

Adventure. History. Romance.

Architecture. Monks. Knights. Royals at War. And a jongleur.

The strongest, smartest and most-loyal female hero, and the most reprehensible villain.

This wonderful book has everything. It is a book I have read at least 6 times since 1990 and will reread again, I am sure.

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