By William M. Dowd
I don’t know anything about Ken Follett’s religious persuasions, but the man should be made a saint of some kind. Or a demi-god. Or, at the very least, immortal so he can continue to write until the end of time.
I have read literally thousands of books and can’t recall any more enthralling than Follett’s uber-bestseller “Pillars of the Earth” back in ’89. That is, until now, with his “sequel” historical novel, “World Without End,” which picks up two centuries after “Pillars” ended in medieval England. I’m about 500 pages into the 1,000-plus-page tome and have conflicting thoughts about it. To wit:
(1.) I am as entralled with it as I was with the first book and can’t wait to see how it turns out. And, (2.) I don’t want it to end. Especially not if Follett plans to make this a trilogy and it’s another 18 years before the next installment.
Before “Pillars,” Follett entertained me with what way-back-when were known as “ripping yarns,” high-concept books with good vs. evil battles and much suspense. Such best-sellers as “The Mondiglani Scandal” (1976), “Eye of the Needle” (1978) and “The Key to Rebecca” (1980). Since “Pillars” he maintained the pace with the likes of “A Place Called Freedom” (1995), “The Third Twin” (1997) and “Jackdaws” (2001).
I loved ’em all, but still wanted to go back to ancient England, the period in which a simple stone mason with grand dreams became a renowned cathedral architect and builder. Follett actually took stone and mortar and made it live and made readers care about it and the generations of rough-living English people of the time.
Obviously, I wasn’t alone in this desire. “Pillars of the Earth” topped the bestseller list in every language into which it was translated — it was No. 1 in Germany for six straight years — and still, nearly two decades after its debut, sells 100,000 copies a year around the globe.
Here’s how Follett explains, on his Web site, how he came up with “World Without End.”
“Ever since ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ was published in 1989, readers have been asking me to write a sequel. The book is so popular that Ive been nervous about trying to repeat its success. But at last I screwed up my courage, and wrote ‘World Without End.’
“I couldnt write another book about building a cathedral, because that would be the same book. And I couldnt write another story about the same characters, because by the end of ‘Pillars’ they are all very old or dead. ‘World Without End’ takes place in the same town, Kingsbridge, and features the descendants of the ‘Pillars’ characters two centuries later.
“The cathedral and the priory are again at the centre of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge. But at the heart of the story is the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race: the plague known as the Black Death, which killed something like half the population of Europe in the 14th century. The people of the Middle Ages battled this lethal pestilence and survived – and, in doing so, laid the foundations of modern medicine.”
Follett is the master of the plot twist, the creator of sharply-defined characters, the deft explainer of the culture and business of the times. Reading a Follett novel is like reading a history textbook that, rather than having been drained of life as so many our kids read in school, has been infused with spirit, emotion and vibrancy.
Treat yourself. Read it.
(Posted 10/25/07)
William M. Dowd is a Capital Region writer and photographer. Besides this blog on current events, he’ll help you keep up with information on food, drink and destinations at Taste for Travel and Dowd On Drinks.