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Bookish Quotes
"Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day."
Pillars of the Earth, The
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Pillars of the Earth, The
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8 journalers for this copy...
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Journal Entry 4 by
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Journal Entry 5 by
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Journal Entry 6 by
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Journal Entry 7 by
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This arrived in the post today - Thank you! I had totally forgotten it was coming, and had to look up an old bookrelay forum page cached on google to remind myself. Shaunesay was clearing out some books and I said I'd be interested in this one. Thanks for being willing to ship international, S! I don't think I had appreciated that it was going to be 983 pages long :) so it'll probably sit on the TBR shelf at least until this semester is over.
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I'm taking this to England with me for Christmas reading. If I finish it (or, like shaunesay, decide it's not for me), I'll wild-release it and make an official release note when I get back to my computer.Picture: Pillars of the Earth, the board game! |
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Sorry. I got a little behind in journalling! I'm going to spread out my comments over a couple of entries now - apologies in advance to prior readers for the email alerts you'll get.First to say that I picked this without (or before) realizing that it's gotten a lot of hype recently thanks to Oprah and others. I just picked it because it had a medieval setting and was about cathedrals. I hadn't even realized [[blush]] that Follett was the author of "The Eye of the Needle", a book I read when I was probably still too young for it because my grandmother had it lying around the beach house. I still remember the sex scene, and being pretty terrified by the thriller elements - tension and violence. Nonetheless I remember it with some affection :) So I was glad to have this to read, although I was a bit daunted by the length! Needless to say I did NOT finish the whole thing over Christmas! |
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This time around I don't have the pre-teen's fascination with sex scenes, and have not acquired any further ability to stomach scenes of violence. If anything, I have stopped being embarrassed about covering my eyes in the movie theater. :) So there was a LOT that I skipped over in this book.I got a little bored with how relentlessly evil William was. It got to the point that whenever the plot turned to him I automatically skipped four pages ahead, knowing that whatever he was up to - I didn't fancy reading about it. I'd give the merest glance to check whether this time it was rape, pillage, murder, or what - just so that I'd know how the plot was developing - and then skip forward to the next section. At first I was irritated with Follett over this, but then I got to thinking about something which my dad told me. Apparently Tolkein (or was it Lewis? Williams?? One of the Inklings anyway) complained that in much literature the bad guys are fun to read about and the good guys are boring. He said in real life it was evil that was boring, and good that should be full of interesting depth. And I think Follett accomplished that in this book. Certainly Philip was both good and interesting. And Tom. Aliena I guess had an interesting life, although we didn't see so much of her character development perhaps... Anyway, something fun to ruminate on! |
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When I was an undergraduate, I took an elective course called "The Gothic Cathedral". It was the only fine arts course I've ever taken, and I did pretty poorly in it! But it was fascinating! The teacher had LOADS of slides of architectural detail from cathedrals across France, and I still own a huge 600-page book called French Gothic Architecture of the 12th & 13th Centuries. On my first proper trip around Europe I visited almost all the Cathedrals we'd studied - Amiens, Rheims, Chartres, and others - and while I craned my neck and stared up at the diagonal pointed vaulting I desperately tried (usually in vain) to remember what the lecturer had said.So what I liked best about this book was that it took me back to those lectures - Abbot Suger, flying buttresses, the lot. I've gotten my textbook out for the first time in years and will leaf through it this afternoon. I'm sorry that I was too sick to join the Turku Bookcrossers in late December when they joined up to play Sobergirl's new board game based on this book, in which you build a cathedral together! (See the uploaded picture a few entries up.) Thanks, nvangel2073 for registering this, shaunesay for sending it as an RABCK, and everyone else who's been part of this book's journey. |
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Journal Entry 15 by
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Journal Entry 16 by
Released 3 yrs ago (4/21/2009 UTC) at Corby Glen, Lincolnshire United Kingdom CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
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Released 1 yr ago (1/18/2011 UTC) at Bourne, Lincolnshire United Kingdom CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
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Journal Entry 19 by
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