It's historical fiction. Takes place in the Middle Ages. Generally speaking, I like historical fiction. And overall I like this book. I'm glad I read it. With it I have a new appreciation for Cathedral architecture from the Middle Ages. (Look out England- here I come!). That said, I would not call The Pillars of the Earth an enjoyable read.
Pillars is an asthmatic's marathon of a book. There are ups and downs. But mostly downs. The novel took about a month to finish. It's just shy of 1000 pages. Thick enough to regret not purchasing it for the Kindle. I picked it up at Meijer after finishing up the Steig Larson Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy (there may have been a few filler books in between). This is a different type of book entirely. But here I was at Meijer in the late late hours of the evening in a pinch for a new read. So I took Oprah's Book Club seal as recommendation enough.
It took at least 400 pages before I was fully invested. The characters were difficult to identify with. Maybe because they were in the middle ages. But mostly because they were bad people. ***Spoiler!*** The good news is that the inability to connect with the characters pays off as they continually die off. (I wonder if this was done intentionally by the author? Were people in the middle ages assholes to prevent their loved ones from suffering emotional pain at their death?)
Tragedy continues throughout. Just when you thought you were free and could relax you realize there are still a million pages of story/misery left to navigate.
I have been advised by several advocates of the book that the other jumbo reads by Follett are pretty similar so I'm not going to be jumping to get my hands on the sequel anytime soon. Nor will I be so trusting of the Oprah Book Club seal for an exciting read in the future. The last one I tried was Anna Karenina. I didn't make it through that one. From what I hear Anna Karenina didn't either. Tit for tat.
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