#BookReview: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Title: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Originally published: 1989

When you start a book club you will inevitably make some life-long friends and discover fabulous books you otherwise would never have read.

This is the perfect example of one such book.

This 1 000 page doorstop of a novel sat in my book club pile for over a year before I even considered picking it up.

A book about a 12th-century monk with cathedral-building ambitions simply did not appeal.

Only then I could not put it down.

Ken Follett is renowned for his suspense stories but it was this historical novel that really launched his career into orbit.

Probably because its about so much more than cathedral building.

It’s the characters who make this novel and Follett delivers the whole package: love, greed, revenge, political manoeuvring, faith, war and plenty of intrigue.

The story spans 3 generations of stone masons building the cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, England.

My only grievance was the graphic descriptions of the sexual violence committed by the story’s main villain, who is basically the devil incarnate.

Otherwise the characters are beautifully crafted and the story a masterpiece.

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