Pillars of the Earth

by Ken Follett
Meeting Date:  September 3, 2009
Hostess:  Stacey

Discussion:  The overwhelming consensus for the book was positive ranging from "liked it very much" to "loved it"!  I believe there was general agreement that it was the best book we have read in the B&B Club so far (with one possible dissension!).  All but one of us had very LOW expectations starting the book (based on the jacket cover) but it failed to meet the expectation of one person who had a HIGH expectation going in.  The predominant negative comment from several participants was the excessive description of the building process, materials, etc. but there were some of us who had some potential explanations for why Follett focused on this so much.  The other negative comment, was that the story had too many highs and lows (the "yay hooray" versus "boo" complaint).  We all felt it was an amazingly well conceived story and was, for the most part, well-told and well-written.  Although there is a large cast of characters we had little to no trouble remembering them all.  We also enjoyed Follett's detailed descriptions of the characters and building of our affiliation with them.  One thing several of us found surprising was that although we were very attached to the characters we did not feel a sense of loss when we finished the book.  Some people commented on the difficulty of reading the "rape" scenes and others believed that the few references to animal cruelty were more difficult.  Not to say the rapes were enjoyable but rather they were a part of the medieval life and were historically accurate.  There were also comments on the strength of the female characters and this was somewhat surprising given the time period.  In fact, we commented that obviously so many things in life have changed, we still could see similarities in the social structure of the time compared to now. There was virtually no consensus on favourite or least favourite characters.  We all liked several characters (Phillip, Aliena, Jack, Eileen, Tom Building) and disliked a couple (William, Alfred) but even still we saw the "bad" in the good characters and the "good" in the bad characters.

Ratings:
Joyce ...............10
Dannette ..........9.2
Lynne ..............10
Kellie .................9
Barb .................9.5
Natalie ..............9.5
Stacey ................8
Stephanie ...........8
Overall Rating:  9.15