The Pillars of the Earth

This book gathered dust on my book shelf for maybe four or five years. It was given by one of my mentors in my former company. Colleagues almost always give me books since they know I read a lot. Some books I read right away but some I eventually forget as books pile up.

A few months ago I made an inventory of my books and thought of either giving away some or read them before I purchase other books again. I decided to read them all.

I mentioned to a friend some titles in my possession I have yet to read. She gasped when she heard about The Pillars of the Earth. She nudged me to read it right away. Guaranteed I won't be able to put it down. Still I put off reading because I bought two new books by Eckart Tolle - The Power of Now and A New Earth.

Until finally I was done with the two books, I decided to read first Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth among the books lined up.

How on earth did I let this great book be left out on my shelf? It feels like a sacrilege. Yes, it's true, every turn of the page made my heart skip - rich in detail, very engaging.

SETTING. It felt like I was living in the 12th century England, the century I am most fascinated about. I marvel at how detailed Ken Follet described the era and the life of the people at the time. I can see, smell, feel each house, each castle, church and market place.

The architecture was so vivid I get to picture on my mind how the construction was going on (with a little help from Google since some terms are alien to me).

I was also interested with the food the characters partake. It put a big grin on my face learning about what kind of food people eat during Medieval times. I try to imagine how they were - ale, wine, wheat bread, boiled bacon with small onion, bowl of beef broth. turnips, jug of golden beer, etcetera. Bread was the staple food.

CHARACTERS. I love the build up of each character. No character was wasted even if they just appeared in a couple of pages. All roles are significant in the story that is unfolding. Everyone was given his perfect time to shine (and their time to fall). Strength of character was deeply ingrained with the major characters but they are with flaws too that you get to identify with them at certain points.

I love how the author created the names. You will know the cunning Waleran Bigod, the caring monk Johnny Eightpence, cellarer Cuthbert Whitehead, the jongleur Jack Shareburg.

This book has Father Philip, Prior of Kingsbridge, as the great mediator. Of all the men in religious clothing, he was the most righteous. Probably 90% were depicted as greedy for money and power and unjust. On my mind I was saying it's a good thing there never was an issue with Ken Follet and the Catholic church when this book was released.

The women were either powerful like Aliena and Ellen, devious like Regan Hamleigh and powerless like Elizabeth and some other minor characters. The men had their virtues like Father Philip as mentioned above, Tom Builder, Jack, Francis, among others. But in almost all the critical situations, it was always the woman who made the resolutions successful.

PLOT. Intriguing. It is amazing how the events, the situations are neatly interwoven spanning over 40 years captured vividly in almost a thousand pages. The story and the characters are fictional (but most probably inspired by some real characters or at least impressions on them) with actual historical events as its backdrop.

It's message in a nutshell is evil will never triumph over good intentions. It's a story of love's enduring power over vengeance and greed. Cheesy the way I put it but it's a very engaging read.

This is the kind of book that I was raring to know what happens next but at the last leg I felt a pang of sadness because I don't want it to end. It felt like the book, the characters have lives of their own.

The Pillars of the Earth gave me more than a glimpse of the way of living in the 12th century. It was as if I was there, part of their story. I get so absorbed reading the book that it was like living at Kingsbridge for real and I personally know Jack, Aliena, the prior of Kingsbridge, Father Philip, and the rest of the characters.

Surprisingly when I read about some comments about the book, they also felt sad having finished reading it. I thought I was the only one who felt that way.

What book do I read now? I tried picking up some books but can't bring myself to read them yet because I am still feeling the high of The Pillars of the Earth. It's like anything at this point is incomparable with the excitement I feel whenever I read each page of Pillars.

You see I love the books of Haruki Murakami and Paulo Coelho. I cherish their books and reading them bring my mind and emotions to higher levels of imagination and feeling. But with The Pillars of the Earth, I just don't want it to end. I want to transport myself, go back in time and see everything that is hapening at Kingsbridge. I want to live in Medieval England.

I was more than glad to know that the television series of The Pillars of the Earth is currently in production to be released on 2010! Watching the clips made me more excited as they seem what I had imagined them to be. I am just so happy. I hope they will be true to what the book gave its readers. I hope the series will be grand, majestic and breathtaking.