Few novels have so totally and utterly gripped and consumed
me as Pillars of the Earth has. Only few novels I return to read and re-read
again, and Pillars is one of those I consistently and passionately
recommend to pretty much readers of any genre because the storytelling,
tension, characters and atmosphere are universally beyond compare. Pillars
converted me to historical fiction, Pillars is one of the few books that gives me an itch to write myself. There is a reason this book has a cult following,
we weren’t kidding, y’all. In my nigh 12 years as a bookseller, I have made
countless people sit down to just read the first page, most of whom would
quickly become so absorbed they would be rendered unresponsive to hell fires
and high waters. I have never had a customer come back to me and tell me they
hated it. In fact, many told me they consequently became Folletteers. (That’s a
term now. I retain all rights and royalties. But when the Kool-Aid comes out, I
had nothing to do with it, just saying…)
Now there’s a build-up! But then, it’s preaching to the
choir, because I assume most people reading this review have been gagging for
this sequel anyway. I myself have been hyperventilating since I saw Follett’s
Instagram pictures of doing research into Elizabethan England and put two and
two together many moons ago.
But there’s the dilemma. With the massive gaps between the
three books (Pillars was released in 1989), each of them had plenty of time to
work themselves up onto an unrivalled Olympian pedestal, putting more pressure
onto the follow-up. I love World without End, but had to read it a couple of
times to succumb to Pillars Polygamy. And
the key was to accept WWE as a book in its own right, not one attempting to be
its literary mother. (Parenting analogies, see! We’ve come to that. There goes
Larkin’s “your children are not your children”.)
The same goes for A Column of Fire. Face it. It is not
Pillars of the Earth. It’s set over 400 years later, so it couldn’t be. All the
original characters are long dead, though I was glad to see Prior Philip got a
decent tomb out of it, even though it gets abused as a hiding place for
Elizabethan teenage canoodling. But the red-haired Jack Jackson gene is still
going strong. The female leads are still feisty. Kingsbridge Cathedral is still
standing in all its glory, even though the Puritans have some beef with its
riches and idolatry and might have clobbered some saint statues (how dare you
touch Jack’s fine handiwork!). The monastery is falling apart though, thanks a
lot, King Henry VIII.
Kingsbridge has expanded, but is still torn by polarised
families and its usual villains and heroes, that being exacerbated by the
outright war between Catholics and Protestants, which thwarts, in true
Follettesque Romeo & Juliet fashion, the romantic relationship between
protagonists Ned Willard and Margery Fitzgerald. But the cathedral is no longer
a focal point in the story, and Kingsbridge, despite being a returning setting,
is no longer the centre of the story. A large part is set in France and the
bitter, murderous feuds between Catholics and Huguenots, and the focus is on
Elizabeth I and her network of spies trying to stay in power while Catholics
scheme left, right and centre to get rid of her; Mary Stuart lingers in various
prisons trying to communicate with the outside world, and generally everyone is
constantly under threat of being either a heretic or a traitor, depending on
where the fickle winds of power blow.
Kingsbridge characters play key roles in this epic battle,
and oh do they play them well. The heroes are as deliciously human, flawed and
tormented as the villains are delightfully Waleran/Lady Reganesque, with their
trademark sadistic psychopathy. A group of characters you’ll grow to love
embody the larger conflicts they inhabit in cinematic storytelling, bringing
this turmoiled era home to you like a missile. It’s a cracking historical epic
which you will just devour (it took me less than two weeks) and thoroughly
enjoy once you manage to let go of the idea that this is not attempting to be a
rehash of Pillars. And you’ll probably grow to love it even more once you
re-read it.
Follett truly has outdone himself once again. I bow to thee, master.
With Elizabethan curtsies,
Patty
