{"id":913,"date":"2023-03-27T18:24:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T18:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/?p=913"},"modified":"2023-04-06T10:47:07","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T10:47:07","slug":"world-without-end-follett-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/2023\/03\/27\/world-without-end-follett-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"World Without End (Follett 2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I finished World Without End<\/em>, the second book of Follett’s “Kingsbridge” series. While I like the historical setting, this is not really my kind of book. It contains a lot of romance plot points with love triangles (not my thing); it is also quite explicit and contains some graphic violence. The first book in the series, The Pillars of the Earth<\/em> (1989), contained these aspects with one or two scenes that were overly fanciful, but it was very well written and worth reading (however, be warned about the graphic violence, including violence against women, in it). The Pillars of the Earth<\/em> was set in England in the 1100s. World Without End<\/em> is a sequel set in the 1300s. (I have also previously read Follett’s The Evening and the Morning<\/em> (2020), which is a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth<\/em> and set around the year 1000.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title of the book “world without end” comes from the Gloria Patri<\/em> hymn, which is one of the hymns sung to mark seven fixed prayer times of the day (the Liturgy of the Hours) in the early Christian church. The Church, as an institution, is a major component of the series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I almost stopped reading it halfway through. There was a torture-execution scene that I did not want to visualize, and I skipped over the pages describing it (which is rare for me; I usually try to see it through and completely read a book). I read a bit more after that point and almost decided to stop and start another book (again, rare for me), but then it grabbed me and got interesting. I ended up double-checking the year it was published, 2007, while reading because some of the passages were eerily prescient. I don’t think it is a spoiler to mention that a pandemic erupted (it is, after all, set in the 14th<\/sup> century) and there were arguments about how to best guard against the spread of the disease, which became politicized by the characters. (One is forced to wonder, despite all our advances, are we living closer to the 14th<\/sup> century than we realize?) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are some strong recycled archetypes between the two books. There is a political secret that spans the book, an engineeringly gifted young man, a fiercely independent woman, a manipulative political-genius mother, a hard-working understanding father, disagreements between brothers, corrupt officials, including an individual that is more cruel than usual that the reader ends up hating, a square-up near the end where the evil character(s) get justice (it would be disappointing without this, but it is predictable), a king or queen makes an appearance midway through, etc<\/em>. One or two of these would be ok, but I found this broad reliance on the same types of characters disappointing. However, I must also say that it is well-knit and consistent between the three books that I have read at this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing that I have often wondered about is just what was life like in the European Middle Ages (and other periods and places in history and prehistory). It is hard to know because we have the foggy distorted distance of time, gaps in knowledge, and stereotypes that have accumulated. Was it really as dim and brutal as it is portrayed, not so bad, or worse? Could there be aspects that, in some ways, were better than today? How would people from then view how we live today? What would we be surprised by about their perceptions of us and our perceptions of them? In what ways are we more similar or more different than we realize? (Imagining other exchanges in history, besides the present day, of people and their views is also interesting.) Of course, a lot of this is unknowable, but I try to keep an open mind in thinking about the possibilities. Follett’s “Kingsbridge” series, right or wrong, puts you into the framework of thinking about daily life in the English Middle Ages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That being said, the 1300s were a rough time in Europe. The Black Death was the worst of the bubonic plague pandemics that spread through Europe from 1346 to 1353. It is estimated to have killed over a third of the people in Europe. This came after the Great Famine in the early 1300s (where at one point, even the King of England could not find food for meals) that together with the pandemic may have killed over half of the people in Europe. The Medieval Warm Period ended and the Little Ice Age, a colder wetter period that lasted several centuries, was starting at the time which contributed to the famine. These events contributed to the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, which saw increased political instability, overlaying wars with the other problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading the books in this series reminds me of a friend of mine that would go to check on his grandmother each day. She would have a soap opera playing on TV, and he didn’t like watching soap operas. However, he picked up on some ongoing developments in the show because he would be at her house at about the same time each day and it would always be playing. One time while driving there, he realized that he wanted to see what would happen next in the show and was surprised at himself. I feel drawn to read the other novels in this series not because I really like the writing but because I am curious about how the setting develops over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One last note: I avoid reading about a book before posting a review. I don’t want any plot spoilers, and I don’t want other people’s reviews to influence mine. I was putting together links to the book at the end of this post and found out that there was a 2012 miniseries based on the book, which was quite a surprise. Something similar happened to me with Weir’s (2011) The Martian<\/em>. I was going to send the book to my brother to read, and not only had he already read it, but he told me that they were making a movie based on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wordlist<\/p>\n\n\n\n