A Reader's Opinion on The Pillars of Earth
Posted by Vicki A Benge
Did Ken Follett miss his calling?
My personal opinion is that years ago Ken Follett mistook his writing genre to be mystery and suspense, when in actuality, it is obviously historical fiction. I remember reading Eye of the Needle years ago, (don’t ask me what it was about), and apparently it did not impress me to look for, or forward to, his later works.
I’ll read most anything once, and probably have at some point in my life. However, just like most folks, I have my favorite types of books, and favorite subjects, and genres that I read much more than others, and a few I will never ever read again, and never enough time to read everything I want to, so I have to be selective in order to get the GOOD stuff in.
Some of the GOOD stuff I read are an assortment of history books. I thoroughly enjoy engaging historical accounts of actual people and events, and although I’ve read my fair share of historical fiction, it simply does not stack up with the "real" truth, (sarcasm here), and therefore historical fiction would not have made my top ten list of types of books I like to read a couple of months ago.
Going back to "real" history, there are also certain periods of time I find more interesting than others. Twelfth-century England was not one of them, UNTIL I read Follett’s The Pillars of Earth. The book is magnificent. The writing is so engaging, the words disappeared from the pages and I was transported there, right back to Old England. I walked along beside of Tom the Builder and ran through a spectrum of emotions in observing this group of characters that came from a time period totally alien to mine and suddenly took up residence in my head.
I bought the book because, year after year, it continued to get these rave reviews from actual individual readers in one of the book clubs of which I am a member, as more and more people discovered it, so I kept thinking there must be something interesting in there; these folks read as much or more than I; I must be missing out.
Good move on my part to purchase my own copy.
There’s simply no way I could do the thousand page volume justice in this short space. Just let me say, if you are curious enough, Follett's book should be in all libraries worth their salt and for sale at a trillion and two places online. I would loan my copy, but I plan on rereading it someday when I forget what it was about. . . .
