Dare You To Move

Book: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Genre: Historical fiction
Length: 973 pp.
Grade: A

Amazon Summary: Set in 12th-century England, the narrative concerns the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The ambitions of three men merge, conflict and collide through 40 years of social and political upheaval as internal church politics affect the progress of the cathedral and the fortunes of the protagonists.

My Thoughts: The summary above can't really explain this huge, one thousand page book. It sweeps through so many emotions—fear, love, lust, hatred, terror, ambition—and so many characters, from the ruthless and terrible William Hamleigh to the amazing, ambitious Lady Aliena to Jack Jackson, who spent the first eleven years of his life living in the forest, of all places. A simple two sentence summary can't describe a book this fascinating, this huge, this engrossing.

This book... it kept me captivated. It is the one of the first historical fiction books I ever read, and I'm glad that my science teacher recommended it to me. Even though it's incredibly violent and slightly inappropriate in some parts, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, considering I finished all 973 pages in about five days. I just couldn't put it down—it was that good. Just when you thought things were going to go as planned, something happens (most likely because of the work of William Hamleigh and the bishop he goes to for guidance and forgiveness, Waleran) that throws everything in the opposite direction. The pages literally flew by, and when I finished and got to the last page, I wanted to go out and get the sequel as soon as possible.

Even though the action was amazing, I'd have to say that I was most impressed with the characters. Even though there are so many characters that Ken Follett had to keep an eye on, he kept a firm grip of every single one of them. Each of them had their own ambitions, their own desires, their own fears, their own loves—none of them were exactly the same. The people you thought were good in the beginning turned out to be terrible and loathsome, but it didn't seem out of character, because Ken Follett is that good. Of course, part of the thing I liked most about the characters in the book is that they all had flaws. It's incredibly difficult to make it so that all of your characters have flaws, but Ken Follett handled it brilliantly. There is no really "perfect" character, and that's what drew me to all of them. Even my favorite character, Aliena, ended up having several flaws, all of which could have easily killed her but didn't.

Like my science teacher said, if I ended up screaming at the book, feeling all the terror and fear of the characters, then I was enjoying the book. If I wanted to reach through the pages of the book and strangle a specific character, then I was enjoying it even more. And you know, he was right. Every single thing in the book was written incredibly vividly and, as you can see, I can't seem to run out of things to say about it.

The only thing that I didn't like that much was that Ken Follett seemed to have a bit of a repetitive style—I must have seen some dozen or so "heart in his mouth" lines—but that's easily overlooked, considering the rest of the book was so beautiful.

Before I end up rambling about this book (which I could do, believe me), I'm just going to say that I can definitely see why this is my science teacher's absolute favorite book.