Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #237 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 1100 pages

Oprah Winfrey
'It's such a great read...I got to 800 pages, and I slowed myself down because I didn't want it to end.'

Synopsis
"The Pillars of the Earth" tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known; of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect - a man divided in his soul; of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame; and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother. A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett's historical masterpiece. 'Enormous and brilliant ...this mammoth tale seems to touch all human emotion - love and hate, loyalty and treachery, hope and despair. This is truly a novel to get lost in' - "Cosmopolitan". 'A historical saga of such breadth and density ...Follett succeeds brilliantly in combining hugeness and detail to create a novel imbued with the rawness, violence and blind faith of the era' - "Sunday Express".

Customer Reviews

Don't mind the snobs!
It seems to me that most of the people who dislike this novel have their heads shoved so far up their own arses, that it would have been very difficult for them to actually read the thing! More than one reviewer griped condescendingly that it wasn't "intellectual" enough, while the other poor reviewers mined a similar vein. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It's vividly written, at times shocking, introduced me to a time and place in history that at the time (more than 10 years ago)was entirely new to me. It's not going to change the world, it's not going to make me a different person (a reason one reviewer gave for disliking it!), but it was a damn good read, and hugely entertaining. And surprise, surprise, that's what some of us look for in a novel!

Great read!
I really enjoyed reading this book! It gives a very interesting view about cathedrals were built and why. It makes one want to read it at least twice to get all the details because the story is so filled with life and history!

Didn't really get it
I was looking forward to this book - I like historical fiction and visiting cathedrals - but I found it distinctly underwhelmimg.

Mr Follett clearly knows how to keep a story going - but the slow building of a cathedral is really not very dramatic. So the plot devices thrown at the protagonists (mostly by stereotyped villains) in order to bring excitement to the tale become progressively more forced and unlikely.

Maybe 2 stars is a bit ungenerous, its certainly better than books like Sarum, but it really isn't up to the standard of other Maud/Stephen era fiction by the likes of Sharon Penman and Ellis Peters.