The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) 
by 

Ken Follett (Goodreads Author)

 

Without Foundation

I don't think I'm a lit-snob. I like a good yarn, well told as well as pieces with complex symbolism and subtle style. But I couldn't get past the first 100 of the almost 1100 pages of Follett's fictional 'masterpiece' about medieval cathedral building. This is the length it takes him to introduce his protagonist, a stonemason who has a rather 20th century view of his importance in the world and an architectural obsession not unlike that of Howard, Ayn Rand’s hero of the Fountainhead. 

Yet the reader knows nothing more about his character after 100 pages than she does after the first 10 pages. Lots of detail about the brutality of life in the 12th century, and several repetitious summaries of the plot are provided along the way, just in case the anthropological overload obscures the story-line. But other than his sexual fantasies at the most inopportune moment - just after the death of his wife in childbirth and the disappearance of his new son - the central character remains a somewhat vague performer of the role of overburdened paterfamilias who has made one hell of a bad career choice long before the novel starts. 

What the reader can guess, unfortunately, is where the story will go from moment to moment, so even plot dies a wordy death. The young woman met in the forest in the beginning of the chapter is of course going to be his saviour and ally by the end for example. The tension is not about what will happen but when we're finally to get to it. My inner pleas of "Please don't let it be so" were as about as effectual as similar entreaties to the divine concerning Donald Trump's election. 

In short, if all I need on a rainy autumn evening is readable prose with no obvious merit, I'd go for Mills & Boone. As far as medieval cathedral stories go, I recollect that Golding's The Spire had something going for it. Maybe I can dig it out.