The Pillars of the Earth
“Excessive pride is a familiar sin, but a man may just as easily frustrate the will of God through excessive humility.”
3/5⭐
A historical-fiction epic by any measurement. It spans generations, sees the rise and fall of powerful leaders, and has a healthy dose of large-scale battles.
It’s also incredibly bleak.
Imagine your favorite fantasy novel, then take out all the fun. Replace it instead with cruelty, brutality, and enough gruesome details to make you thankful you never lived in 12th century England.
The best of this books was its sweeping scale. Like all books in the ~1000-page range, the payoff comes in the last 300 pages, when all the many plot threads are tied up in spectacular ways.
Usually, this means the first 700 pages are boring, but this book largely avoided that pitfall by creating real stakes and constantly pushing up against them. As a reader, I truly did not know what would happen in any given crisis scenario—and there were many. In that way, this book succeeded.
In other ways, for me, it failed.
The biggest disappointment was its treatment of female characters. The CONSTANT physical descriptions of female characters ranged from eyeroll-inducing to outright uncomfortable.
There were certainly complex and intriguing female characters, and for that there should be credit given, but there was also an unnecessary and excessive amount of degradation.
Although I enjoyed the historical aspects of the book—and I learned a lot about the corrupt cesspool that was the monarchy and the church—I kept thinking to myself how I would rather be reading an epic fantasy book, which could give me the grand battles, political maneuvering, and sweeping scale without leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
In the end you have to weigh your priorities: do you want a historically accurate portrayal, or a fun one?
It’s all about expectations; so, learn from my mistakes and set them appropriately before jumping in.
Underline-worthy quotes:
“Weakness and scruples had defeated strength and ruthlessness.”
“The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.”
