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 | The Pillars of the Earth
Author: Ken Follett
Publisher: NAL Trade
Binding: Paperback
Released: 2002-02-04
Sales Rank: 201
ISBN: 0451207149
Edition:
Cover
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 2008-08-13 - Starts off strong but steadily goes downhill
This book is very good at the beginning, and I couldn't put it down when I first started reading it. The descriptions of medieval life and mystery at the beginning are very interesting. Here are the problems that caused me to give this book two stars instead of the four it could have easily gotten:
This is a very long book, and I get the feeling that the author had to come up with filler to meet some length goal he had. There is a lot of redundancy in the book, where he explains technical details about things like masonry repeatedly. Also, there seem to be random, graphic sex scenes which become more and more frequent in the latter half of the book. Most of them added nothing to the plot, and I'm not sure if they were simply filler, a marketing ploy, or a result of the author just wanting to write about sex. I couldn't finish the book because the last hundred or two pages got too boring and started to resemble a harlequin soft-core porn novel. It's as if he ran out of fresh ideas when the book neared completion and started to substitute real content with sex scenes.
There are also some problems with the characters. The main character at the beginning, for instance; the author makes it very clear that this man is deeply in love with his wife, and when she dies, he's crushed-- but then has sex with a woman he just met less than 24 hours after burying his wife. It doesn't make sense when you drastically change a character's values like that, and again, it seems as though the author was overeager to write about sex. It's a trend I've noticed in a lot of books these days. Also (and you'll see what I mean if you read the book), some of the other characters are introduced as truly good people, and then do some truly reprehensible things and have no regrets about it. It doesn't make sense. There's no consistency to most of the characters in this book. In fact, my favorite characters were the villains, because I could at least count on them to be consistently villainous, whereas I never knew what the "good" characters were going to do next.
Two out of five. Not worth your money.
 2008-08-12 - Huge waste of time
This book is redundant beyond belief. Why did the author feel compelled to tell us over and over again what we just read. Also, I found three major type errors. Didn't anyone edit this thing? The four page + rape scene was pointless, graphic and added nothing to the story or character. I struggled to even finish the book. I skipped the beginning of each chapter because of the repetition. The characters were hollow and unbelievable, especially the "villan".
2008-08-11 - Over-hyped and too long...
When my book club chose "The Pillars of The Earth" I was looking forward to reading this well-reviewed book. Unfortunately, this book is sloppily written and often redundant. The story might be a good one, but it continually gets lost in the minutia. Some characters are well-developed, while others border on being over-developed, and it could use a good editing to bring the wordiness under control.
 2008-08-10 - It was ok...
Yes I read the whole thing and I kind of don't know why. the first 3/4 of it are ok and then the ending was just too short. It seemed like the story crashed.
 2008-08-09 - The Pillars of the Earth
over 900 pages & I could not put it down, nor did I ever want it to end. A different Ken Follett read, middle ages,12th century, historical fiction not to be missed
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