Rape, revenge and lesbian nuns, oh my!

books:


	• World Without End Ken Follett Dutton Adult, 2007 - 1024 pages average customer review:based on 387 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Green Eyes Are Bad

When a novelist resorts to a green-eyed heroine, I know I'm in for a pretty hackneyed novel -- it's the cheapest shortcut to "exotique." It only took a few pages for me to discover that I was right. On the good side, this saved me from reading hundreds of other stale, hackneyed, predictable pages.

Rape, revenge and lesbian nuns, oh my!

I read The Pillars of the Earth and am now plowing through World Without End. Gritty, earthy and raw, these books depict the town of Kingsbridge, England during two medieval periods. Follett is a master at depicting the brutal and desperate lifestyles of all echelons of society during the Middle Ages through compelling characters and thorough research, but these are not for the faint of heart. Both the length of the books and the gory details could be a little off-putting to some readers, but overall, the triumph of the human spirit shines through.

I was so looking forward to reading World Without End and so hoping that Follett would have grown as an author in the almost two decades since The Pillars of the Earth. I am disappointed. Again, compelling characters and thorough research are the stars of this book, but alas, the same weaknesses as before -- slippages of language where medieval characters sound startlingly modern and historical anomalies that just don't fit. These, as always, are forgivable when the tale is well-spun and the characters well-crafted.

As before, my biggest complaint with WWE is the graphic sexual content that just doesn't fit and is totally unnecessary. I get that the Middle Ages were brutal. There was little privacy and the entire cycle of life from birth to death was lived out in almost animal-like desperation except for the privileged few. This is compelling enough fodder without having to show to the minutest detail every rape, pillage and plunder in all its fantastical gore. We get it, Mr. Follett. The Bad Guys were really, really bad. The lesbian nun sub-plot too, was contrived and unbelievable. Without giving too much away, the details of lesbian intimacies were unnecessary and could have been depicted in a much more tactful manner than the clumsy, guy/boorish way that Follett chose. Again, titillating tripe.

I wrote this for POTE and the same is true for WWE, the gratuitous sex is just garbage, but the main characters are so compelling and enjoyable that you want to spend the 1000 pages with them and will think about their lives long after you have closed the book. It's just such a shame that Follett had to sully up a great book with smut.

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Second Verse, Same as the First

WWE has basically the same plot as POTE. Some obvious similarities:
Jack-Merthin
Lady Aliena-Philippa
William Hamleigh-Ralph Fitzgerald
The list goes on. This book is repetitous and has the same pattern as POTE, good versus evil with a lot of architectural jargon thrown in. I loved Pillars abut soon tired of WWE. Follett is a gifted writer. He deserves to write a book about a subject that fascinates him. It was just too much for this reader.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

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