Customer Reviews: Read 1241 more reviews...
 WHICH IS SEXIER, PILLARS OR WORLD WITHOUT END? August 20, 2008
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!!! MUST READ, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THAT TIME PERIOD AND ARE A FAN OF CATHEDRAL ARCHITECTURE. PLUS SO MUCH HOT AND STEAMY ROMANCE!
 Have patience, it's worth it August 20, 2008
I received this book as a gift, and I was not terribly impressed with it at first. With some encouragement from the gift-giver, I continued on. The story was lovely, and it was worth the almost 1,000 pages of effort. It is an informed and well-written story with some very interesting characters. There are some great morality points, too. You have your standard bibilical allusion winding through the novel. Follet was careful, though, to make it subtle, and I appreciated that. It would have been too easy to tell a Sunday school Bible lesson while talking about the building of a cathedral.
Having read the book, I am glad that I persevered, but I had some serious problems with this book, too. First, there are some really graphic scenes of sex and violence that just were not necessary. Of course, this book is about a period of time in 12th Century England called "the Anarchy," which saw its fair share of graphic scenes. I was very disturbed by the scenes, though, and I wish the author had a more graceful way of writing them. I think Follett went a little overboard with the architectural descriptions, too. I believe he probably was greatly inspired by the cathedrals he saw while doing research for the novel and wanted to share it with his readers. That is obvious with in the verbosity of his descriptions. I couldn't visualize what he was describing, though, so I was lost in much of the master builder's musings over his designs. Overall, the characters were good. It seems, though, that Follett spent a great deal of time thinking about his heroes and left the rest to develop themselves. The women in the novel are especially odd to me. They are your basic "strong women" as imagined by a male writer. I have never met a woman like Follett describes. I doubt he has either, but it seems like he wants to. The evil characters are also too much. One example is the man who can't get aroused unless he is with a child and only if he hurts her. It is just too easy to hate a character like that. Once again, I wish there had been more grace.
Having said that, I think there are some great strengths to the book, too. Although the characters are at times too much to be believed, I loved the fact that we were able to watch them grow, learn, and age. We watch their lives over the course of almost 40 years, and we experience with them all the great events of their lives. Follett did a good job with that. In fact, I think he wrote the characters better as they aged. I also loved the twisting and turning the story takes. So as not to give anything away, I will only say that the characters all experience some ups and downs in their lives. Just when you think Follett has said all he could say, a new story begins. Still, he connects them seamlessly. My favorite part of the story is the ending. I sometimes get very angry with authors of long books who write anticlimactic endings. This is not one of those.
If you are willing to give this book some time and effort, it is really an enjoyable read and an interesting look at possibly the most turbulent time in English history.
 A glorified soap opera. August 18, 2008
I'll admit that the story is captivating at the start. But after a few hundred pages, I couldn't help myself from rolling my eyes as the story line was so contrived. Fun read and even entertaining, but definitely not a book of ANY literal value... it was what I call a mindless-guilty-pleasure.
To top it off I realized that around page 500, the author was clueless as to how to end it.
So to do as Follett writes (that is to repeat myself in a different context): 1) the book was entertaining but in a soap opera way not in a must-read literal way AND 2) if it ended shortly after the 500 page mark it would have been more entertaining than annoying.
This might be of note to some people, but reading Follett reminded me of a Philippa Gregory book (although a notch higher). So if you like her, than you will most likely love this author too.
Now this part hasn't a thing to do with the book but rather an irration that I have when I read reviews... "Share Your Opinion" does not mean summarize the story... Duh.
Good historical fiction August 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was not excited at all to read this 970 page tome, but a friend loaned it to me and I have to return it in a couple of weeks.
This is not a fast read for me (too many twists and turns), but it is a great book. The characters are interesting and compelling and the building process is fascinating.
I will say that the writing style took some getting used to, but by page 100, I was good to go.
It's a great book.
 Cheap sensationalism. August 13, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Do not read this if you enjoy good writing. This "novel" is a piece of cheap sensationalism.
|
