Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

I am reading (listening to audio, actually) Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. This book was recommended to me years ago and I bought a copy while completing the Santiego di Compostella by tandem. It appears on lists of Best Historic Fiction. It is definitely time!

What a magnificent book. This is my favorite kind, with multiple storylines and characters overlapping. Intrigue and plotting. And most importantly, the omniscient POV. I have noted one segment where the POV changes within a scene (a ‘bedroom’ scene where the reader is privy to both lovers’ thoughts—definitely my favorite type!)

The time period is around four generations (100 hundred years) before my first book, Dahlquin, A Medieval Saga, begins, during the brutal civil war between Empress Mathilda (Maude in Pillars) and King Stephen. Mathilda/Maude was the mother of the illustrious King Henry II, whose grandson, Henry III is the seventeen year old King of England in 1224 AD when Dahlquin opens.

The legacy of that civil war looms large in my story. King Gerald FitzGilbert of Leinster, Ireland has five daughters and faces the same dilemma as Henry I, trusting his barons to support his daughter as queen after he dies. Hubert and Anne of Dahlquin are faced with the same: A sole heir, a daughter, Eloise. Both families know the sordid history of betrayal with female ascension, and both struggle to avoid a similar fate for their families and estates.

I relish the opportunity to learn so much about that earlier time period while being thoroughly entertained. Studying the craft of Mr. Follett’s writing as well. Such a storyteller AND a new book out in October! Is this good timing or what?

Ah, the lure of the cathedral and its construction. I share Mr. Follett’s enthusiasm heartily and appreciate his fine detail to architecture, construction and design, breathing life into the stone structures, telling the possible stories of the people who built and used them. This is what I long to hear when I press my face and hands against those stones, willing them to speak, to share, revealing those lives.

Characters, motivation, how they lived and survived are my focus in Dahlquin. I hope to achieve the master plotting and sub plotting of an artist like Ken Follett; or my other favorites, Diana Gabaldon or James Clavell. Studying great books like this improve my own writing, and inspire me to keep working. Thank you, thank you, thank you.