The book: KEN FOLLETT,
The Pillars of the Earth.
The edition: Pan Book paperback April 2007 edition, 1100 pages.
The story behind this book: Ok, I admit, I had never read this classic up to now. It was first recommended to me by Celina back in Poitiers in 2001; I had heard of it before, but she was the one who told me it was a good read (Celina, if you are reading, thank you). Yet, it was one of those books you never get to, even though each time you come across them you think “Oh, right, that’s one I want to read.” Also, I was never sure whether to read it in English or Italian… until A. gave it to me for Christmas (wrapped in a paper I am still not throwing away, with Mickey and Minnie kissing under the mistletoe — thank you, my most faithful reader!). Finally, I dug into it some 10 days ago, and just reemerged, thankful for the trip.
Synopsis: England, 1123-1174. It’s a time of social and political turmoil, civil war sweeping the land, famine striking, and the like. Follett tells us the story of the building of a cathedral, of all the people around it, their fears, their struggles, their hopes, their dreams, their growth.
My opinion: I liked the story. Despite the crudity and violence of some scenes, I loved the story, and could not put it down. It is also true that it had a lot of parallels with Falcones’ Cathedral of the Sea, which of course was inevitable as the subject matter is so similar; it is clear that Falcones drew a lot on Follett’s model.
And yet. And yet I had a feeling that Follett was not mastering completely the task he had chosen. Instead of weaving a grand painting of the whole story, he seems to go about it in instalments, so the results is a continuous repetition of the same structure: a peril, a way out, safety (***spoiler*** knights burning the village, we recover, we’re safe; more knights coming, we build a wall, we’re safe; etc. ***spoiler ends***).
There were other faults, too. For one, timeline was not wholly plausible, for when he needed a change the author brought it about rather shamelessly; for instance, Richard was destitute, but in the following chapter he needed to be a knight: and there he goes, three years have passed and in those three years he manages to get the money, get his education as a squire and build himself a crique of men-at-arms. Also, I found it annoying that Follett kept repeating the same characteristics over and over: we know that William is afraid of hell, but we keep reading that again and again everytime he comes about. Finally, the last third of the book was somehow jumping from one event to the next, with big intervals, in a way that the rest had not, as if the author wanted to finisheas soon as possible or didn’t know how to deal with certain points.
Still, it is a good read, and I would dive again into it immediately. It was a great trip back in time, to a different world and a different place, with characters that made great companions. Vote: 9/10
The first sentence: The small boys came early to the hanging.
The last sentence: After today, he thought, the world would never be quite the same.
A favourite scene: The priory building the cathedral is always struggling with one problem or another, mainly linked with the lack of money to fund such a huge project. At a point, the king grants the monks the use of a quarry, so they can have the stone at no price, but the owner of the quarry sends his men to prevent the priory’s labourers from working in there and from getting the stone. Not allowed to take the quarry back by force, the prior finds a creative solution. During the night they enter the quarry with a team of 30 monks, ten novices, a team of quarrymen, the master-quarriman, the master-builder, and the prior.
Tom Builder and Otto Blackface began silently to place the quarrymen around the site. They divided them into two groups. One group gathered near the rock face at ground level. The others mounted the scaffolding. When they were all in position, Philip directed the monks, with gestures, to stand or sit around the workmen. He himself stayed apart from the rest, at a point half-way between the lodge and the rock face.
Their timing was perfect. Dawn came a few moments after Philip had made his final dispositions. He took a caldle from inside his cloak and lit it from a lantern, then he faced the monks and lifted the caldle. It was a pre-arranged signal. Each of the forty monks and novices took out a candle and lit it from one of the three lanterns. The effect was dramatic. Day broke over a quarry occupied by silent, ghostly figures each holding a small, flickering light.
Philip turned again to face the lodge. As yet there was no sign of life. He settled down to wait. Monks were good at that. Standing still for hours was part of their everyday life. The workmen were not so used to it, however, and they began to get impatient after a while, shuffling their feet and murmuring to one another in low voices; but it did not matter now.
Either the muttering or the strengthening daylight woke the inhabitants of the lodge. Philip heard someone cough and spit, then there was a scraping noise of a bar being lifted from behind a door. He held up his hand for dead silence.
The door of the lodge swung open. Philip kept his hand in the air. A man came out rubbing his eyes. Philip knew him, from Tom’s description, to be Harold of Shiring, the master-quarryman. Harold did not see anything unusual at first. He leaned against the door-post and coughed again, the deep, bubbling cough of a man who had too much stone-dust in his lungs. Philip dropped his hand. Somewhere behind him, the cantor hit a note, and immediately all the monks began to sing. The quarry was flooded with eerie harmonies.
The effect on Harold was devastating. His head jerked up as if it had been pulled by a string. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he saw the spectral choir that had appeared, as if by magic, in his quarry. A cry of fear escaped from his open mouth. He staggered back through the door of the lodge.
The idea is a simple one (lay people should not and dared not do violence to men of God, so the quarrymen can work safely as long as they have the monks to protect them — and soon the opponents give up the quarry altogether) but the way it is brought about is evocative.
