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The Pillars of the Earth
Pillars of the Earth Q1 2019
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Pillars of the Earth, Part 4 (of 6)
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Hi everyone, I found this group from Nancy's post in another group. I have just finished reading it, I can just copy/paste my comments from that group into the relevant threads here, I hope that's okay:Jan 10, 2019 07:40AM MK (wisny) | 2865 comments Starting Part 4 - Chapter 10. At about 60% in now.
Everything was looking up, and then .... boom.
Alfred and Jack had a terrible fight, Jack was running for his life. Jack ended up getting expelled from his apprenticeship on the building site. Jack and Aliena are alienated from each other, Jack is now an apprentice monk. There was an awful bear and dog fight show at the fair, and cockfighting. Then William Hamleigh torched the town of Kingsbridge and the first wool merchants fair. Tom Builder (sad!) is dead.
I spoke too soon calling Maud "Queen", she never was crowned. Battles and political maneuvering ensued, Robert of Gloucester, having been taken prisoner, was exchanged for Stephen, civil war still rages. Bishop Waleran switched sides again, and manipulated William Hamleigh to do the same. They are now aligned again with Stephen.
Everything is awful, and bleak. I expect the next part will hold new turnarounds and continue the suspenseful and gripping ride.
Jan 10, 2019 07:54PMMK (wisny) | 2865 commentsKelly wrote: "I am loving your posts because they remind me so much of why I have kept this book on my favorites list since 1990! I love it. Aliena is one of my all-time favorite characters and William one of my most hated. ."
Thanks! :D
Agree on Aliena ... AND on William !
Jan 10, 2019 09:50PM MK (wisny) | 2865 comments I just finished Chapter 12, Part 4. Oh boy, more disasters and calamity. After the fire, Aliena was penniless, all her fortune was in the wool stock William burned up. She saw no way to continue honoring her oath to her dead father, to support Richard until he reclaimed the Earldom, other than to accept the marriage proposal of Alfred (ugh!), who promised to support Richard's knighthood needs (new sword, pay his men, horse, etc). So, she agreed to marry Alfred. Jack freaked out, got himself locked up in solitary, and was despairing because the wedding would be the next day, and he'd not be able to speak to Aliena. Jack's mother Ellen swam an underground water channel to break into Jack's cell, where we learn that she learnt that long ago, when Jack's father was locked up in the same cell.
We find out a little more about Jack's father. He was locked up for months, mysteriously given the jeweled chalice that he was later hanged for stealing, and told he was free to go. When he was a few miles away, with the chalice, he was arrested for a thief.
So Ellen shows Jack how to free himself, he goes to see Aliena, they make passionate love at last, and then she tells him she will still marry Alfred because she can't break her oath to her father. Ellen curses the wedding, the same way she cursed those who hung Jack's father all those years ago, and Alfred is never able to consummate the marriage. He treats Aliena like a dog, she sleeps on the straw at the foot of his bed. Aliena turns up pregnant, which Alfred definitely knows is not his child, because he never lay with her. In dramatic fashion, the pregnancy is concealed until she gives birth ... on Whitsunday, underneath the rubble of the ceiling of Philip's cathedral, which he has bribed the masons with an additional week's put up faster than they expected they could, so he could celebrate the first new mass in the newly sanctified cathedral, with all the bishops and local gentry in attendance, celebrating Whitsunday.
Alfred throws out Aliena, Ellen convinces her to seek Jack, and she's off on a pilgrimage to find him, he's gone to Spain.
At the end of this chapter, Aliena has finally found Jack, they are united and a family, he is a mason on a new cathedral, built with revolutionary new techniques that he yearns to employ himself in the building of a new cathedral. There is a large, very large, Holy Day being celebrated, the king and queen of france are in attendance, bishops from far and wide, including the bishop of Canterbury. The huge crowd of common folk, outside the church, begin to riot. Jack hatches a plan to hold up a statue given to him by a wealthy friend in Spain, which has unusual properties. It retains water in sunlight, and releases water in the evening. (Holds water when warm, releases it when cools). He tells the crowd it's a sin to desecrate the Weeping Madonna, holds them enthralled with his storytelling skills. The crowd throws money, on the spot, he announces he's the new master builder of the Kingsbridge Cathedral, and all the money will help pay for the building of a new cathedral, to replace the fallen one that was in progress. He intends to build it in the light, airy style of the one at Saint-Denis, where they are. The local bishop sees the moneymaking power of the Weeping Madonna, and tries to seize it, the Bishop of Canterbury sees it as well, and being as Kingsbridge is in his diocese, he halts the seizure, and assigns to priests to accompany Jack and Aliena on their journey back to Kingsbridge.
En route, at Chereford, Jack's uncanny resemblance to his unusual looking father enables him to find his long lost family, who first were trying to have the local priest perform an exorcism, thinking Jack was a ghost of the man who they thought had died 24 yrs ago, in a drowning .... on THE WHITE SHIP! (I have to post in that group you mentioned, Ellen, I want to find the title of that book!)
Anyway, Jack is 20, not 24 or 25, so they learn that Jack's father survived the sinking of The White Ship, and somehow ended up in England, where he fathered a child.
Jan 11, 2019 10:19AMMK (wisny) | 2865 comments I finished Chapter 13, Part 4, and have begun Chapter 14, Part 5. Part 5 is seven years after the end of Part 4.
In Part 4, I finally learnt how Remigius knows Ellen so well! He was the confessor of former Prior James.
(snip ... I can't remember how much of this happens in Part 4, and how much in Part 5, so I'll just copy it there ... )
Mod
My favorite parts of Part 4:
1. When a baby is born while the walls were coming down I don't know how she managing to deliver that baby. It was pretty cool when they were able to dig mother and baby out of the rubble.
2. Rashid's house in Toledo Spain. A collection of students and intellectuals talking and sharing knowledge. They even made Euclid's Geometry sound so wonderful. I liked geometry in school, but I couldn't understand my teacher's enthusiasm for Euclid. Now I sort of get it.
3. Eliena's 9 month trip to find Jack. That's some kind of persistence!
4. The ghost of Cherbourg
5. The Crying Madonna
6. Let's build a wall!
I love this post you made, Nancy :)Reminds me again about #5 - drawing a total blank!
Mod
Um, oops. On phone, typed wrong. I meant #4 :-p.The ghost
The Madonna is unforgettable ! :D
Mod
The ghost"
When Jack and his entourage reach Cherbourg, the people stare at him and look fearful. They think he's a ghost. The priest puts a cross in front of him and says something like Begone Demon! They think Jack is a ghost because he looks exactly like his father who they all thought died on the White Ship (along with the king's heir). I loved this part because Jack finally met more of his family members.
And Jack finally learns what his name means ;)
I liked the part where Ellen was seeing Aliena off on the ship to Normandy, and, at the last minute, insists that she take the baby with her - a sigh of relief that mother and son weren't going to be separated after all. It added to the suspense of her journey that she was caring for the little one, and it was a bonus that Jack could see the baby when they all found each other in Paris.I always look forward to hearing through the grapevine bits and pieces about Jack's father - the White Ship, Cherbourg, mother, brother. When I was reading Part IV, I had a theory about why he was on the White Ship but it didn't materialize...oh well, you can't predict all the plot twists especially in an epic novel like this one.
One thing that I thought rather odd is that this ENTIRE BOOK is filled with such LAVISH DESCRIPTION...I mean, Ken Follett can even make 2 pages of detailed architecture sound beautiful....SO, I found it odd that the entire voyage of Jack (and Aliena after him, in search of him) was so...short. I mean- SHORT! And relatively free of the lavish descriptions I had become used to. In fact, at one point, I flipped back in the book because I wasn't even sure if Jack had indeed been to both Spain AND France....
Am I alone in this? (Probably!) ---Jen from Quebec :0)
Mod
I was relieved too, but I don't know how she did it for 9 months riding with a baby. There was no description of a sling or carrier for the baby. It sounded like she was carrying him in her arms the whole time. Every time I traveled with babies, it was such a production, with a huge bag, a car seat, not to mention my own stuff. But back then apparently a lot of people changed clothes every six months instead of every day, so I they didn't need to pack as much.
The White ship is explained in part six if that helps.
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SO, I f..."
You're right. I really loved the section with the journey and I wish there was more to it. I also would have liked some of the practical details of traveling on the road with the pilgrims. You'd think they'd meet some interesting people. I don't even really know where the pilgrims were going or why. Were they sightseeing (like backpackers through Europe) or was it a highly spiritual journey? I really liked the section at Raschid's house.
He seems to focus the details on architecture, so we got that from Saint Denis and a little from Raschid's house in Toledo.
The book is already so long, I feel silly complaining it should have been longer. Though I would have been happy with one less sacking of a village to make room for something else.
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A church in Spain? If I remember right Jack's father told stories to the travelers on that route. It sounded like the group was spiritual pilgrims going to see a church or a relic. It reminded me of Prior Phillip wanting to get the tomb set up so people would make the journey to Kingsbridge.
Nancy wrote: When a baby is born while the walls were coming down I don't know how she managing to deliver that baby. It was pretty cool when they were able to dig mother and baby out of the rubble. I'd say unbelievable was more like it, but I was glad of the outcomeI agree with you that the journey was incredible and required such persistence. I guess it is just one more reason to be on team Aliena!
I was SO happy when Jack found family in Cherbourg.
How fortunate that Rashid took him under his wing and introduced him to math.
And what a smart little devil he is, to think of & use the crying Madonna to his advantage.
Mod
Aliena could have been a main character of her own book, she had so much going on. I love the ending.
Yes, I was tearing up a bit when Jack met his grandmother and other family members. It was funny that they thought he was a ghost.
Rashid seemed so modern and intellectual. In a later era, I think they'd call that a Salon, where artists or intellectuals meet to discuss new ideas. Sort of like Paris in the 1920's with Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, etc.
'Smart little devil' - yes! He came up with that idea so fast. And he was so enthusiastic, and got everyone else on board with the idea. He could have been a conman if he wasn't an artist/builder.
Mod
From the time we're introduced to him he's always getting out or trying to get out of situations he shouldn't or doesn't want to be in. You can see that "con"-ing is a skill he develops.
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There is an old phrase about idle hands and the devil. That works for the mind too I think.
And the walls, came tumbling down, and the walls came tumbling tumbling.
If the man you love, and the father of your baby left (because you married someone else) , how far would you go to find him again? How long would you be willing to search, on horseback, with a baby?
Does anyone else want a crying Madonna, or is just me?
If an evil Earl was preparing to attack your town, what could you do? Hint - Donald Trump knows.