Book Review: World Without End

My apologies to everybody that has thought of this before, as I assume that it's not an original thought, but the book World Without End by Ken Follett should truly be titled "Book Without End."

I haven't read the book that this was a sequel to, "Pillars of the Earth," which I understand from reading the reviews of was well thought of.  I actually ended up with this book because I had just gotten the Amazon Kindle, and they have free downloads of sample chapters.  I had seen this book in the bookstore at the airport, and figured that since the sample chapters were free, I'd check it out.  Let's face it -- Ken Follett is an excellent writer.  The free sample chapters, which deal with the characters as children mostly, was excellent.  The problem is that he sets up several intriguing characters and an exciting mystery.  A knight carries a letter that is so important that other knights are trying to kill him over it, and after he bests those knights and buries the letter, he checks himself into a monestery to save his own life and ensure that nobody else can come after him to find the letter and kill him.  Some children who were playing in the forest are witnesses to some of this, and a young Merthin knows where the letter is hidden but is sworn to secrecy.  Hmmm.  Intriguing!  If only the story was about that. Instead, this part of the story doesn't even rise to the level of subplot in the rest of the book.  So after reading all this, I paid my money and downloaded the rest of the story to the Kindle. 

The story takes off instead into the lives of the people in this small town around a monestary.  Two of the characters are so smart and clever that they seem more like characters in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" than in the 1300's in Europe.  Heavy duty archictecture problem?  Merthin is the only one in the book that can solve it!  Other problem in the town?  Caris, the daughter of the town's leading citizen, will solve it.  The other characters mainly serve to place obstacles in their way, either by their ignorance or by the fact of their sheer evil.  After about the fourth or fifth time that new obstacles are put in these two lover's path, I just felt myself groaning, "Not again!"

The problem with reading this book on the kindle was that I never really had a feel for how much more I had left.  The kindle has some dots along the bottom that kind of show you where you're at in the book, which is good for guessing about half way, about 3/4 of the way, but I missed having the actual book in hand and being able to see exactly where my bookmark was in it. 

I probably would have quit on the book, except that Ken Follett can really tell a story.  He kept my interest just enought to continue to turn the page one more time, over and over.  But in the end, I really felt like the book could have ended at several points in the middle and I would have been just as happy.

Comments

[Sally]

The Pillars of the Earth has been one of my all-time favorite books, and so I was a little skeptical about how good its sequel could be. My concern was totally unnecessary. World Without End, which takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge almost 200 years later and has the cathedral as its backdrop, is an excellent book and I expect that in time it will also be considered to be a masterpiece. Not having read The Pillars of the Earth will not deter you in any way from enjoying World Without End, as other than the common thread mentioned above, it reads like a stand-alone. Follett 'packs it all' in this 1,024 page book -- love, greed, pride, ambition and revenge. Do yourself a favor and be one of the first on line to get yourself a copy of this very entertaining and memorable book. But be aware that your enjoyment won't come cheap -- the retail price of World Without End is $35. I think you'll find, however, that it is worth every penny.

[Avid book reader]

Thanks for the review, I've never read World Without End, but sure have seen a lot of other people. I love long drawn out stories, and based on your review, this may be just what I was looking for. I'll pick up a copy and see.