The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) in Relaxing Fun

Jun 15, 2012 Mark rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

First thing to say....Richard E Grant is a fantastic narrator. There was not a single squirmingly awful accent....Derek Jacobi take note. His women characters were not voiced by men doing silly soppy voices as if that communicated woman but were voiced in such a way that you believed the characterization and it did not jar as inane, patronizing or laughable. He communicated tension and horror, sadness and despair, injustice and vengeance, adoration and admiration, grief and fear and frustration First thing to say....Richard E Grant is a fantastic narrator. There was not a single squirmingly awful accent....Derek Jacobi take note. His women characters were not voiced by men doing silly soppy voices as if that communicated woman but were voiced in such a way that you believed the characterization and it did not jar as inane, patronizing or laughable. He communicated tension and horror, sadness and despair, injustice and vengeance, adoration and admiration, grief and fear and frustration and so many other emotions and all without over dramatizing. Full marks Richard.

The story itself is fascinating. In a nutshell, it is the story of the building of a Cathedral in Kingsbridge and the way the village clustered around the small priory there gradually grows into a town and then a small city and then a thriving urban centre and the way the fortunes of the town and its inhabitants wax and wane through the long disastrous reign of the usurper king Stephen and his battle with the rightful but ignored monarch Matilda or Maud on into the reign of her son King Henry II and his battles with the ecclesiastical powers of the Medieaval Church and Thomas a Becket. Alongside these national and more historically significant encounters, we have the ebb and flow of the lives of any number of people ranging from the Prior of the Monastery from which the Cathedral grows and his rival Bishop, an underhanded shite if ever there was one, through the aristocrats both great and small who buzz and twitch around the story down the various levels of society grazing past Master Builders and Merchants, Troubadours and Artists to the lowly serf-like peasantry and even touching upon a robber or two. The cast of characters is impressive and yet Follett manages to keep every plate spinning quite wonderfully.

He seems to time perfectly when to bring a minor character back into the frame to keep our sense of the wider life of Kingsbridge bustling on. The enormity of the battles and alliances happening on the wider stage are cleverly interweaved and the dramatic use of a Forrest Gumplike appearance by Prior Philip, and one of the other main characters, at the murder of Thomas a Becket is clever and not in any way as annoying as Gump.

He teeters along the tightrope of OTT love interests but, IMHO, never quite falls off either side whether into the river of vomit-making sentimentality or into embarrassingly badly written porn. It is a story that sweeps you along, characters are real and believable, and here I feel i ought to almost put in a spoiler alert of some kind because i am straying into major cliche territory, but the Cathedral itself, in its long journey to completion, stands as a major character in the whole work. Follett describes magnificently the way the Church is built, the influences on its design and describes in a truly fascinating way the development of different techniques and actions which enabled the various artisans and architects to build this incredible Chucrh.

One little caveat in my hymn of praise might be that coincidence and overly convenient incidents have a tendency to feature perhaps a tad too much. This enables the story to move on, for characters to re-enter the story they appeared to have left for good but dare i say it smacked a little of lazy writing.

Having mentioned that little whinge I would say this was a wonderful read and I have already begun listening in the car to the next story of kingsbridge. This one is set 200 years later so none of the characters remain the same except, of course, for the Cathedral. ...more

26 likes · Like · see review

Feb 21, 2012 Chris rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: hated-books-blech

I found out that this was an Oprah book. No wonder I think it's crap. You want taste and style reviews from somebody who commissioned oil paintings of her dogs and hung them on the walls of her mansions?

Tom Builder has had a busy 24 hours. He stalked then murdered a man with a hammer, delivered his baby, watched his wife bleed to death, abandoned said newborn to the wolves, screwed a wild woman near his wife's grave, watched monks try to feed his abandoned kid, then re-abandoned his kid as he d ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Dec 02, 2008 Jordan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-books

I read this book when I was 13 and read it in a 24 hour period. I remembering absolutely loving this book, and apparently I'm not the only one cause it's the 4th biggest selling book of all time. However recently when I revisited this book, I couldn't figure out why I like it so much. I think if I picked it up today I wouldn't finish it. How interesting 10 years can make when falling in love with a book. ...more

9 likes · Like · see review