Ken Follett returns to the medieval world with this novel we were all waiting for. And let me assume that you have read The Pillars of the Earth: after all, it's been voted into the BBC's top hundred of Britain's favourite novels, and you would not be here on this site if you were not an avid reader of books set in the medieval period.
Is it, then, a sequel?
Not exactly. It is set in the same place – the imaginary city of Kingsbridge – two hundred years later, opening in 1327, and several of the characters are the descendants of characters who appeared in the original novel. There is the same breadth, the same sweep, the same coverage of all manner of people coping with all manner of problems, some heroically, some villainously, but mostly simply surviving (for a while) like you and me. You can get lost in it, yes, but you can get bored with it, too. I know I did, by about half-way through the 1,200 pages. For unlike The Pillars of the Earth, this book has no theme, and neither does it have one central plot: it is, like real life, a mingling of dozens of stories of mostly trivial events. All sub-plots, like a soap-opera, and one that could be set in any period anywhere in the world. Even the introduction of the Black Death does not save it: how much, much better that was done half a century ago by Anya Seton in Katherine (as I believe JM has already remarked somewhere when reviewing another book).
No. I loved The Pillars of the Earth, but I cannot recommend this "sequel"; and I have to admit that I only went on reading it because I had to, and it took me three months!
RG
[I have to say that I agree with this reviewer. I had been intending to review it myself, but gave up, quite unable to keep my eyes open any longer, at p121. Which is why I passed it on to poor Rowena. If I had been writing this review, I would, unkindly, have entitled it BOOK WITHOUT END. JM]
