World Without End by Ken Follett Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of World Without End
Book Review: Great Follow up!
Summary: 5 Stars
It is a follow up and it isn't. But for most people like me that read "Pillars of earth", it's a long awaited book. I'm not going to pretend to be a critic, so I'll stick to what I know. It hooked me from the moment i opened the box. I took me less than a week of long reading nights to eat through it, and it was worth the bags under my eyes. It was like being reunited with a family member you always had a great relationship with, you just want to keep the conversation going. The Book starts about 200 years after the other book, although for new readers it doesn't matter if they haven't a clue of "Pillars". Ken follet is a master of characters, he makes us fall for them, the way we felt, for first loves and we can help but loath the bad ones. Hope you have the best of times reading it. Book Review: Thrilling, funny, complex, brilliant. A great book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Ken Follet is one of my favorite authors. His books stand above even the best books I've read. As an aspiring writer, I always feel inspired after reading a Follett novel and wish I could somehow capture the magic he has with the written word. It is hard to review a book like World Without End. It is incredibly long and also a sequel to Pillars of the Earth. World Without End covers a time span of about 40 years and the main characters remain the same. In "Pillars", the novel covered the lives of several characters. Fans of Pillars of the Earth will no doubt want to read the sequel. Those who have never read Follett should probably start with his World War II thrillers.
I never read historical novels, so I don't know how Follett compares. In describing 14th century England , he keeps it simple and assumes the reader can draw most of their own conclusions. The characters are fun and complex, yet nothing new. Follett's novels seem to all have variations on the same types of characters. The novel revolves around four characters: Merthin, the builder, Ralph, Merthin's brother, the amoral knight, Caris, the independent minded girl, and Gwenda, a poor, plainlooking girl. Each character is featured at different times, facing triumph and tragedy. Many, many other characters are woven throughout the story, but they come and go pretty easily. Around page 750, or 3/4ths through the book, Follett introduces the plague, and a lot of main characters are killed. The book changes course at this point and you have a normal novel-length conclusion where the four main characters are the star.
I'm a big Follett fan, so I knew I'd enjoy this book. But what keeps me reading page after page. This is a long book and requires a huge investment of time. It's not suspense. World Without End covers the entire lives of the characters, and there are many twists and turns, but none of the plot elements are so strong that they carry the entire book. It's not the characters. As I said before and as mentioned in other reviews, the characters in this book are really no different than Follett's other characters. I kept reading page after page because Follett powerfully portrays (and I'm assuming he has done his research for historical accuracy) the internal and external conflicts that existed in the 14th century. At that time, the church ruled everything, especially in Kingsbridge. They collected rents and taxes, they could charge women with being witches. Also, the citizens of the town believed the monks and nuns had direct lines to God. Only the monks could practice medicine, although their main answer to everything was bloodletting to rid the body of "evil spirits." This was obviously a time where everyone accepted their lot in life. So when Merthin and Caris question the authority of the monks, problems arise. Also in play was the class system. Ralph went into training to be a knight and had incredible power over his subjects, including Gwenda. He could kill men and rape women and face little consequences.
We live in an age where you can't be forgiven of sins by paying money to monks and you won't be cured of sickness by slicing open a blood vessel. So I was mesmerized to read about a people who had hopes and dreams just like I do yet lived in a society whose ideas were so primitive. The novel is a constant battle between the status quo and progress. In one passage, Follett writes about Caris's attempt to build a hospital using medical knowledge she discovered by working on patients. She is opposed by a monk who trained at Oxford by priests. Caris loses and Follett writes: There would be no separation of different categories of patient. There would be no face masks or hand washing in vinegar. Weak people would be made weaker by bleeding; starved people would be made thinner by purging; wounds wold be covered with poultices made of animal dung to encourage the body to produce pus. No one would care about cleanliness or fresh air." This constant conflict is what makes the novel so compelling.
As I finished the novel, I wondered what message, if any, I would take away. First, I was thoroughly entertained. Follett takes you into a new world. Second, the entire scope of a novel comments on the nature of God. Christianity has obviously advanced a lot since the 14th century, but the debate is still there. How much of what happens on earth does God control? Is there free will? If Follett were to ever write a third book in this series, I believe a perfect time frame would be the Protestant Reformation where the power of the Catholic church was finally questioned.
The novel is full of violence and lots of sex, which can be an enjoyable diversion or an annoying turn-off, depending on your point of view. Follett is a master with words, his prose his simple, humorous and grabs you and takes you into his world. I definitely recommend this book but think you would be wise to read his other thrillers before reading Pillars of the Earth or World Without End.
Book Review: disappointed too
Summary: 3 Stars
Like many of the other reviewers, I could hardly wait for World Without End to come out. I loved Pillars of the Earth, but WWE was boring. I was ready to quit about half way through, but I made myself finish it. I was so disappointed because I generally like Ken Follett very much. Book Review: Very Very Disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
I read Pillars of the Earth wnen it came out and, as I recall, througly enjoyed it. Well either my taste has changed (and matured) or Ken Follet has forgotten how to write. This is a long extremely amatuerish effort written as it were by a smart high school senior or a not so smart college senior. There's absolutely no subtlety: the plot is constantly reviewed and repeated; the characters' thoughts are explicity laid out rather than inferred by developing their personas or what's going on around them; the language is crude and not in keeping. After reading about half of the book, I essentially read the rest at about double time to find out what happened, which was predictable.
Since Pillars of the Earth, I've read a lot of historical fiction, and this book is just trite play-acting. Sharon Kay Penman's Here be Dragons (13th Century Wales and England) and Sunne in Splendour (15th Century England) have the history, are much better researched, character's you care about, and first class writing. Do yourself a favor and try one of these.
Book Review: More Michener than Tolstoy, but an enjoyable read
Summary: 4 Stars
"World Without End" is epic in its intended scope and its ambition and overall it almost gets away with these pretensions. Ken Follett is a masterful writer who delivers plenty of interesting prose and characters, drawing skillfully on the book's hugely admired predecessor, "Pillars of the Earth." He is, at times, ill-served by his editors who did not catch blatant repetitions of characters' descriptions and dialogue. The book progresses through chronological episodes that are generally interesting though, by any standard, can be described as overly formulaic. The main characters move forward with their lives, but always run into reversals of fortune that block them from reaching their hearts' desires. This is followed by some return of fortune and then the whole cycle begins again in the next chapter. Where author Ken Follett is most successful, I think, is in presenting the conflicts of the period--clergy against merchant class; peasants against feudal landowners, etc. There is a feel of authenticity in these parts of the story.
Some reviewers have found fault with the perceived 21st Century sensibilities that Follett is accused of building into this book, but I'm not sure that the criticism is valid. There are many historical accounts of a less hidebound morality present in the 14th Century where "World Without End" is set. Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and Bocaccio's "Decameron" both suggest that the average person was less hung up about sexual activity and variations than the post-Victorians (including our modern selves). In any event, the sex in this book is not nearly as distracting as the often predictable turns of the plot.
I think that this is an entertaining book and worth the time and price as long as the reader does not assume that he/she is taking on another "War and Peace."