Yes, I just finished listening to just over 40 hours of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett and I'm a little bereft. It's a lifestyle. And yes, I had a lot of pauses because Goodreads says I started it in November, but I actually started in earnest around Christmas. I chose this book on the recommendation of a trusted friend and the fact that I love cathedrals and their stories.
If you haven't read it yet, then you haven't lived through the 12th century. Or at least the middle 50 years of it. The audiobook is read by John Lee and he does an excellent job. It's the story of the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, England, and is set between the time of the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket, if you're into English history and know those events. I am, but I didn't know about those things specifically. I knew this time was marked by war, famine, anarchy and that life was hard, and that is because I have watched a Knight's Tale and Monty Python and the Holy Grail many times.
This was definitely a more serious approach to the time period. Ken Follett, author of such classic thrillers as The Eye of The Needle and On Wings of Eagles, found himself fascinated by cathedrals after growing up attending very simple, spare churches. Cathedrals took actual lifetimes to build, so he built his story around the lifetimes of several families and their connection to the cathedral. He's brilliant at character development and story weaving, so there was never a minute that I wasn't interested in what would happen next. I loved the way he incorporated principles of cathedral design, construction and the transition from Roman architecture to Gothic into the storyline. The characters are each drawn with such detail and richness that I never really had trouble keeping track of things either, even in the audiobook format, which makes flipping back to check on things nearly impossible. The other thing he did was to zoom out to the macro and in to the micro really effectively. He creates his context and shows scenes of shire, village, cathedral building site, mason's lodge and house in the village, all with equal deftness.
He also managed to place everything understandably on the map of the politics, culture and sociology of the day. I feel like he probably took some liberties with 12th century mores and realities, but all in all, it clearly gives the feeling of the time.
This is a great book, but not an easy one. The ending makes it so worth it, but as my friend said, "There's a lot of pain before you get there." I know there are sequels to this story, but I'm not sure I'm that interested, at least at this point in time. If you've read any others in the Kingsbridge series, let me know if I should definitely put them on my list.
Just a head's up: There is gory violence and terrible, evil, reprehensible human behavior. There is explicit copulation of all the sorts--implausible, normal, violent, horribly violent, and so unrealistic as to be eye-rollingly boring. Use that information as you will. I like my "skip ahead 5 seconds" button.
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Thank you for sharing your insights!