Book Review: World Without End

It wasn't until last summer that I got around to reading Ken Follet's 1989 novel The Pillars of the Earth. An 816 page saga set in the shadows of a Cathedral being built during medieval English civil war.

It was a great book to take to the hospital while Dad was unconscious for three weeks. That may sound crude, which I don't intend at all, but my father of all people would understand being sure to have a book with one during long periods of stress. 

I enjoyed Pillars a lot. That said, it will never be in my Top 10 Desert Island collection or my I Insist My Husband Read This list. My problem with the book was the characters were very much Good or Evil. One character was the hero: more clever than anyone, broad minded and well-intentioned. The other character was spindly, narrow-minded and determined to progress only their own means. Not a lot of grey area there.

The other issue was the Awkward and quite common eroticism. Do not get me wrong, I am by no means a prude and enjoy a well-crafted sex scene as much as anyone — mayhaps more than others, even — but the scenes in Pillars were, to borrow a phrase from a friend,

"like reading a dirty novel for forty year-old women bought in the grocery store"

I suspect this is how many folks feel about Fifty Shades of Grey which I have no problem not reading.


But, this is not supposed to be a review of Pillars but of the 2007 1024 page follow-up, World Without End. The thing is, it's almost the same book just 200 years later — in the same place, facing similar architectural woes, and incredibly familiar-feeling characters who face human failure and the brutality of the social hierarchy and who are in fact related to the protagonists of Pillars.

I read all 1024 pages quickly because it's a Potato Chip Book. One can read a bunch of pages in one sitting without realizing it. And this continues to happen day after day, most of time you can have only a few and get one with whatever really needs to be done that day. But then, at bedtime you end up devouring half of a bag and realize it's late and you feel a little greasy but still almost like you've accomplished something.

 

Did you see this project? I think it's fascinating and 

I have definitely been a data point of poor late-night eating. MassiveHealth.com

In the end I will probably not read any more of Follett's work, he has eight other novels currently in print, because although it was a nice snack I want something better, meatier and more satisfying.

Find nearby library copies of: The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and the rest of Follett's catolog.