Pillars of the Earth Amazon link

This is one of my favorite books. I will go as far as to say that I love this book. It is very big at about 1,000 pages. Yup, 1,000 pages. But it takes this size to convey the scope of the story. It takes place throughout the whole of the 12th century and one of the biggest aspects of it is the building of cathedrals - or more accurately, the dream of building a cathedral, which in itself can take a whole century to complete.

But here is my take on this book. It is, when it comes down to it, about the battle between good and evil. Not in the spiritual and religious aspect but in the human aspect.

It's real simple. Good will work to make everthing better for all of us. Good will do things and expend energy, even give it's life, for the benefit of us, and others.

And evil.... well, it only things about itself and how it can benefit.

This is shown in a variety of ways including characters that are pure in religious belief and characters that use religion for personal gain.

And it it shown by characters that are emotionally balanced and characters that are pure psychopaths.

The whole human condition is shown in this book. And it is shown during a period of time that was astonishingly challenging (hunger and starvation are a common theme in the time period and in the book).

This book has every human condition and hardship including betrayal, love, misunderstanding, murder, ambition, drive and more. It has the whole spectrum.

For me there were many moments that impacted me but there is one that stands out in my mind above all the others. (Spoiler alert) scroll down to see it....

In the first part of the book we follow somebody called Tom the builder. He is a big man with a family and they are undergoing terrible suffering. He suffers much as does his family. But he, as a mason and a builder, has a dream to build a cathedral. It drives him.

And just as he manages to make it happen and work on a cathedral is beginning he is murders by a blow to the head.

And that's that. The man is done, the dream is done, and all is turned to dust.

Pillars of the Earth Amazon link