By chapter 3 you'll be ready to take an exam for an architecture license. It takes a long time because the author insists on giving every iota of detail possible. If I had to carry that dictionary-sized tome and look up every weird medieval word, I doubt I'd pick it up a 2nd time.īut the reader is excellent and keeps you hooked into the story - once you FINALLY get hooked. This is an incredibly well-written book with several compelling parallel and over-lapping storylines. Around the site of the construction, Follett weaves a story of betrayal, revenge, and love, which begins with the public hanging of an innocent man and ends with the humiliation of a king.At once a sensuous and endearing love story and an epic that shines with the fierce spirit of a passionate age, The Pillars of the Earth is without a doubt Ken Follett's masterpiece.' From humble stonemason to imperious monarch, each character is brought vividly to life.The building of the cathedral, with the almost eerie artistry of the unschooled stonemasons, is the center of the drama. Against this richly imagined and intricately interwoven backdrop, filled with the ravages of war and the rhythms of daily life, the master storyteller draws the reader irresistibly into the intertwined lives of his characters into their dreams, their labors, and their loves: Tom, the master builder Aliena, the ravishingly beautiful noblewoman Philip, the prior of Kingsbridge Jack, the artist in stone and Ellen, the woman of the forest who casts a terrifying curse. The vast forests, the walled towns, the castles, and the monasteries become a familiar landscape. Follett has re-created the crude, flamboyant England of the Middle Ages in every detail.

But what makes The Pillars of the Earth extraordinary is the time the twelfth century the place feudal England and the subject the building of a glorious cathedral.

Ken Follett is known worldwide as the master of split-second suspense, but his most beloved and bestselling book tells the magnificent tale of a twelfth-century monk driven to do the seemingly impossible: build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known.Everything readers expect from Follett is here: intrigue, fast-paced action, and passionate romance.

Pillars of the earth hardcover