World Without End

By Ken Follett

I read Pillars of the Earth last year. What a wonderfully rich story. I still think about the story more than a year later. So imagine my excitement when I learned a few months after finishing the book that a sequel was coming out. Lucky me. No waiting 17 years between books.

So why did I wait so long to read World Without End? Well at 1000+ pages and in hardback, I just couldn't fit the book in my suitcase. It would have made it too heavy. But being laid up with gout, for the the week of August 1st, in 3 1/2 days I read World Without End.

It's a sequel but not in the normal sense. You don't have to read the 1st book to understand and enjoy the story. Why? The story takes place in the same town as the first book but 200 years later, in the 1300's. We follow the four main characters from their childhood to their 40's.

I really like how Ken Follett divides the book into parts and lets you know how much time has passed between sections. There are often jumps of 10 years between parts. It's an interesting way to tell a story. I felt like I got a more complete account of the lives of the characters and could accept the changes due to the labeled passage of time.

If you have read the first book you can see how daily life has subtly changed. The way the Lords and Earls rule over the peasants and laborers. The book mainly follows the lives of Caris and Merthin, but many other characters are developed and followed throughout the story.

In The Pillars of the Earththe overarching story is the building of Kingsbridge Cathedral. I thought that World Without End would be about the stone bridge that is built near the beginning, but it's really just about the lives of the people in the town of Kingsbridge. It reads a little bit like a soap opera. There is lots of sex, less killing than in Pillars of the Earth, and loads of tragedy. Just when you think another bad thing can't befall the citizens of Kingsbridge, it does.
I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the way it drew me into the time period. Unfortunately I didn't experience the deep connection with the characters that I did in Pillars of the Earth. Does this mean World Without End wasn't enjoyable? No. But it wasn't the magical story that the first book was. Pillars of the Earth is probably one of the best books I've ever read so I guess it would be hard to hit gold a second time. The last part of the book follows the characters as they deal with the Black Death and the changes it causes in society.

On a side note, many of the Amazon.com reviewers complained about the language in the book saying "no one spoke like that back then." I know it's historical fiction but not everything has to be exact. Plus I find it maddeningly frustrating to try and read written dialect/slang. So Ken, thanks for modernizing the speech.