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aw21594377 's review for:
The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett
This was my third time through. For a long time, I said it was my favorite book, but upon my second and third times, it was a 5 star book that's been demoted to 4. You can really tell it was written in the 1980's. Some of the archetypes/tropes are a little dated for me, but I do commend Follett's ability to write with the contemporary ideas of the time. I think the most impressive for me is his prequel: The Evening and the Morning.
This time around, I had less patience for the lengthy descriptions of cathedral building, architecture, and construction, especially because this was made into a mini-series. I think the characters were less charming to me in this read. I got a little more frustrated with Jack as a teen and young twenties character because he came off as immature, surly, and whiny at times. I do commend Follett's experimentation/attempt to write from a character's perspective at multiple ages/points in their life. I actually think he did that really well -- particularly with Jack and Aliena. I found some of the secondary characters a little 1D --Walter (who seemingly just disappears off the face of the planet at the end? Where was he during the murder of Thomas Beckett...?), Martha (I'm glad she had a bit more of a resolved story in the mini-series, but also seems to just kinda fall off the face of the earth in the novel), and Richard. I found it hard to believe that Richard was so terrible at everything except fighting and military -- that he was always so selfish. I would have liked to maybe have seen some scenes from his perspective. The trauma he also experiences could have been explored more and made him a more complex character. There is no doubt that he is a selfish, entitled human, but I also found it hard to believe that he was as poor of an earl as Follett made him out to be, considering his ability to marshal and organize his troops during battle. I guess one way to look at it is that Richard and William are products of their environments of hyper-masculinity and violence. Perhaps they are Follett's criticism of raising people, especially men, in such an environment where issues are resolved with violence, intimidation, exploitation, and war and they have everything handed to them. I didn't quite understand in the book where William's conflation of violence and sexual desire came from. I think that could be why in the mini-series they definitely implied an uncomfortable, possibly incestuous and sexually abusive relationship with his mother that led to his confused and perverted understanding of sexual desire. (I don't mean to shame people for their sexual desires, but when I say "perverted" here, I mean misplaced, violent, non-consensual, expressed poorly (to the point of abuse), twisted, harmful, abusive, etc.). It was represented as a worst case scenario manifestation of a Pavlovian response.
Tom's attitude of "boys will be boys" infuriated me. I actually couldn't exactly tell if Follett was parroting an old-fashioned idea or criticizing it through Tom's character by demonstrating that it's a flaw/a major blind spot of his. I agree that the world they lived in was cruel and rough, but his justification of "well they have to learn somehow" is not an excuse to allow your son to bully another child. I really liked Tom's character as a whole -- and it was really hard to read about all of his family's suffering and starvation for 200 pages. And I also remember when he died the first time I read it I couldn't believe it. My mind almost didn't believe that Follett had killed him off and he was somehow going to survive his brain getting knocked out by a horse's hoof? But his handling the dispute between Alfred and Jack made me really angry at him (though I do think Follett's showing how much inner turmoil it caused him was appropriate and made the reader sympathize with him...maybe too much?). I was 100% behind Ellen's decision to leave him to protect Jack. It's what any mother should do. I actually also really commend Follett's ability to write despicable characters who are despicable in various ways: Waleran, William Hamleigh, and Alfred.
It's clear that Follett likes to write about religion and politics (all 3 books I've read in this series contain these themes and he likes to write trope-y characters). Waleran's demise is more satisfying in the book than the mini-series. Same with William's. While Alfred is used as a pawn in both representations, I never felt like he got what he deserved. Death felt a little too easy... though I was glad that his family didn't have to suffer his existence any longer.
I found Philip, Jack, and Aliena to be complex characters that I actually didn't like all the time, which I found interesting to track. I liked them all throughout the mini-series, but I think Follett captured them as human beings trying to survive in a turbulent time pretty accurately. Their frustrations and fluctuations in mood are normal, which I don't feel like we get as much of in the mini-series. I don't know - I think the realistic portrayal was well-done, but I'm not sure if my opinion of characters has fluctuated like this in other books. I guess what's lacking here for me is compassion? I definitely found myself get frustrated with them more during my reading experience than I usually do with most books/characters.
I didn't remember anything really from the last 100 pages. Follett's Thomas Beckett was really compelling to me -- I felt like Follett did a really good job with this character in a few pages that he didn't do with the secondary characters I mentioned above. He's clearly able to portray interesting secondary characters, but just didn't do it consistently here (imo). Honestly, it felt like the book could've ended with Jack and Aliena's wedding, but I realized that Follett had a few loose ends to wrap up: what happened to Jack's father, Jonathan's birth story (though the mini-series never explains this to him), and how William ends up being hanged. I had remembered that the mini-series really deviated from the book, but had forgotten by how much -- Waleran dies in the mini-series, William is hanged by a mob at Jack's trial for killing Alfred, Walter dies at Richard's hands (I actually think that was really well done in the mini-series and we see more of Richard's pain. I suppose Aliena explains seeing this when he finds Alfred raping her, but it just didn't feel like it had much gravity or gave Richard much credit from a few lines :/), and nothing about Thomas Beckett or Jonathan's succeeding Philip. Henry and Maude also play a much smaller role in the mini-series.
I enjoyed the portion from about when Jack and Aliena consummate their relationship on more than the first portion of the book. I think partially because the explanations/descriptions of the church-building got a bit tedious as someone who can't visualize things like this very easily (and having read it twice before and having a ready visual reference anyways in the mini-series). Overall, I think Follett wrote a great book -- the world building through the different characters' perceptions (and also the sheer # of characters that are introduced to give a very full picture of how complex the politics were) as well as the very lengthy descriptions of the town (and Europe at the time) were very well-done.
This time around, I had less patience for the lengthy descriptions of cathedral building, architecture, and construction, especially because this was made into a mini-series. I think the characters were less charming to me in this read. I got a little more frustrated with Jack as a teen and young twenties character because he came off as immature, surly, and whiny at times. I do commend Follett's experimentation/attempt to write from a character's perspective at multiple ages/points in their life. I actually think he did that really well -- particularly with Jack and Aliena. I found some of the secondary characters a little 1D --Walter (who seemingly just disappears off the face of the planet at the end? Where was he during the murder of Thomas Beckett...?), Martha (I'm glad she had a bit more of a resolved story in the mini-series, but also seems to just kinda fall off the face of the earth in the novel), and Richard. I found it hard to believe that Richard was so terrible at everything except fighting and military -- that he was always so selfish. I would have liked to maybe have seen some scenes from his perspective. The trauma he also experiences could have been explored more and made him a more complex character. There is no doubt that he is a selfish, entitled human, but I also found it hard to believe that he was as poor of an earl as Follett made him out to be, considering his ability to marshal and organize his troops during battle. I guess one way to look at it is that Richard and William are products of their environments of hyper-masculinity and violence. Perhaps they are Follett's criticism of raising people, especially men, in such an environment where issues are resolved with violence, intimidation, exploitation, and war and they have everything handed to them. I didn't quite understand in the book where William's conflation of violence and sexual desire came from. I think that could be why in the mini-series they definitely implied an uncomfortable, possibly incestuous and sexually abusive relationship with his mother that led to his confused and perverted understanding of sexual desire. (I don't mean to shame people for their sexual desires, but when I say "perverted" here, I mean misplaced, violent, non-consensual, expressed poorly (to the point of abuse), twisted, harmful, abusive, etc.). It was represented as a worst case scenario manifestation of a Pavlovian response.
Tom's attitude of "boys will be boys" infuriated me. I actually couldn't exactly tell if Follett was parroting an old-fashioned idea or criticizing it through Tom's character by demonstrating that it's a flaw/a major blind spot of his. I agree that the world they lived in was cruel and rough, but his justification of "well they have to learn somehow" is not an excuse to allow your son to bully another child. I really liked Tom's character as a whole -- and it was really hard to read about all of his family's suffering and starvation for 200 pages. And I also remember when he died the first time I read it I couldn't believe it. My mind almost didn't believe that Follett had killed him off and he was somehow going to survive his brain getting knocked out by a horse's hoof? But his handling the dispute between Alfred and Jack made me really angry at him (though I do think Follett's showing how much inner turmoil it caused him was appropriate and made the reader sympathize with him...maybe too much?). I was 100% behind Ellen's decision to leave him to protect Jack. It's what any mother should do. I actually also really commend Follett's ability to write despicable characters who are despicable in various ways: Waleran, William Hamleigh, and Alfred.
It's clear that Follett likes to write about religion and politics (all 3 books I've read in this series contain these themes and he likes to write trope-y characters). Waleran's demise is more satisfying in the book than the mini-series. Same with William's. While Alfred is used as a pawn in both representations, I never felt like he got what he deserved. Death felt a little too easy... though I was glad that his family didn't have to suffer his existence any longer.
I found Philip, Jack, and Aliena to be complex characters that I actually didn't like all the time, which I found interesting to track. I liked them all throughout the mini-series, but I think Follett captured them as human beings trying to survive in a turbulent time pretty accurately. Their frustrations and fluctuations in mood are normal, which I don't feel like we get as much of in the mini-series. I don't know - I think the realistic portrayal was well-done, but I'm not sure if my opinion of characters has fluctuated like this in other books. I guess what's lacking here for me is compassion? I definitely found myself get frustrated with them more during my reading experience than I usually do with most books/characters.
I didn't remember anything really from the last 100 pages. Follett's Thomas Beckett was really compelling to me -- I felt like Follett did a really good job with this character in a few pages that he didn't do with the secondary characters I mentioned above. He's clearly able to portray interesting secondary characters, but just didn't do it consistently here (imo). Honestly, it felt like the book could've ended with Jack and Aliena's wedding, but I realized that Follett had a few loose ends to wrap up: what happened to Jack's father, Jonathan's birth story (though the mini-series never explains this to him), and how William ends up being hanged. I had remembered that the mini-series really deviated from the book, but had forgotten by how much -- Waleran dies in the mini-series, William is hanged by a mob at Jack's trial for killing Alfred, Walter dies at Richard's hands (I actually think that was really well done in the mini-series and we see more of Richard's pain. I suppose Aliena explains seeing this when he finds Alfred raping her, but it just didn't feel like it had much gravity or gave Richard much credit from a few lines :/), and nothing about Thomas Beckett or Jonathan's succeeding Philip. Henry and Maude also play a much smaller role in the mini-series.
I enjoyed the portion from about when Jack and Aliena consummate their relationship on more than the first portion of the book. I think partially because the explanations/descriptions of the church-building got a bit tedious as someone who can't visualize things like this very easily (and having read it twice before and having a ready visual reference anyways in the mini-series). Overall, I think Follett wrote a great book -- the world building through the different characters' perceptions (and also the sheer # of characters that are introduced to give a very full picture of how complex the politics were) as well as the very lengthy descriptions of the town (and Europe at the time) were very well-done.