Couldn’t find a thread on this, as search sucks.
Anyhow, anyone else read this yet? It’s not quite a sequel to “Pillars of the Earth” in that it’s about the same town, just two centuries later. Some reference is made back to the first book, but it could easily stand on its own.
Thoughts?
I read it. It’s a good read, surely, but very much “more of the same”. Amazon has a bunch of reviews if you want to read more.
I read it too. I consider it to be part two of “Pillars of the Earth” and read it as such. I did enjoy both books very much, even though by the end of them, I was pretty much worn out of that genre.
I’ve go the book, but haven’t started it yet. I finally got around to reading Pillars last summer and enjoyed it (though everybody seemed to live an awfully long time and stay pretty healthy for the era). I read it sitting in the back yard, often with a beverage, and I think that’s how I’ll read World Without End.
Hurry up, summertime! (Is there nothing finer than sitting in the back yard on a summer evening with a snack, a beverage and a big, fat book to read?)
I read it on holiday, which was the perfect time for it. It nearly kept me going for two weeks of waking up before my lazy friends and watching them play poker for hours every evening. It was quite compelling, though not nearly as much as Pillars of the Earth, and it is indeed very repetitive. Follett wrote in the introduction that some characters can be seen to be the descendants of the characters of the first book. Actually, he just recycled the same characters, put them in a slightly different but analogous situation, and rewrote the book. Which was really okay, since I liked the first one and it was like getting to reread it for the first time.
I find it really funny whenever someone talks about how wonderfully accurate they are. He might have done a lot of research into architecture and building techniques, but the characters are all very 20th century. That’s okay, though. I didn’t read either of them for accuracy. I just think it’s funny when someone thinks of them as educational.
Caris sticks out the most as a 20th century character to me (I think most would agree). Definitely a rewrite of Aliena, although it’s been too long since I read PotE to remember all the details. I was a bit disappointed that there was little of the national scene, compared to the first. Thomas’ story could have been more developed and the whole Ralph/Gwenda thing pared down a bit.
Funny this should come up - when was this book released? I was literally just thinking about the thread I was going to start when I finished. I’m on page 905. I’ll be back tomorrow’ish.
I liked it, but mainly because I adored Pillars of the Earth and World Without End is a pretty obvious retread. Nearly all of the Pillars characters are resurrected. I checked it out of the library and don’t have a need to own a copy.
I enjoyed both books. I read Pillars quite a few years ago, so I remember it only vaguely.
Ed
I’ve read Pillars and my wife just read both. I asked her about World Without End, “still a lot of raping?” She said, “Oh yes.”
Ok, done. Whew. Damn thing should’ve been called “Book Without End”. Jesus.
Well, I liked it. A lot. And since I probably liked all the same things about it that you guys did, I’ll just mention some of the things I didn’t like.
-Skimming the Amazon reviews, I saw someone mention that “[the author] wasn’t afraid to kill off main characters.” Huh? He killed a few secondary characters, but all save one of the main characters lived through the book, and the one who died did so around page 995 of 1014.
-The plague. I dunno why, but stories of plague always just kind of sicken me. I’m weird, I guess, in that I believe it could happen today. I consider Outbreak one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. I also didn’t like how it showed up pretty late (more than halfway through) and was then a looming presence for the rest of the read. I think it should’ve been a fact of life from the start or glossed over completely. And, I guess this is a credit to Follet’s ability to make me care about his characters - - I wanted people to stop dying!
-Some things seemed to kind of keep repeating. Caris and Merthin, on and off, and on, and off, and on . . . The plague, here and gone, here and gone . . . Ralph, screwed, on top of the world, screwed, on top of the world. It got repetitive.
There’s more. I need some time to digest it. I’ll definitely be reading Pillars of Earth now, but I don’t think any time really soon.