Pillars of Earth

On a scale from Dan Brown to Umberto Eco('s Name of the Rose), how good of a historical novel is Pillars of the Earth?

I do enjoy page-turning thrilling adventures, just the kind Dumas wrote rather than redundant soap operas such as Game of Thrones, so I wanted some opinions on PotE before committing to its 1000 pages.

I read this book last year and I regret it to the very bitter end. I had just read Eco's Baudolino and The Name of the Rose and felt like reading more medieval stuff. Since this was very popular and all-around hailed as a great book, I bought it and read it.
user, stay away from it. The whole book IS a soap opera, and it is also very repetitive. The book basically follows 5-7 characters who want the cathedral to be built, and two characters who are VERY VERY EVIL AND MEAN AND SCARY AND BIGOTED AND HATEFUL who want to stop the construction. Almost every chapter works like this: THE BAD CHARACTER puts an obstacle that prevents the main characters from building the cathedral. Then, they need to find a solution. Magically, by the end of the chapter, they do find a way to circumvent the obstacle and keep on building. It is a sitcom-cum-novel. This sinewave pacing runs for about 700 pages. It is pathetic. And let me tell you about the fucking prose. Unlike Eco, Follett makes no attempt to sound medieval, and he writes very mechanically. What do I mean by this? If a character swings a sword and attacks, he will describe the guy grabbing the sword, the motion of the fingers, the raising of the sword, the pressure being applied to the sword, the swinging of the sword and finally the landing of the blow. This extends to non-combat descriptions. Every mundane action is written as if by a toddler who discovered the notion of action sequence. His descriptions, EVEN OF THE FUCKING CATHEDRAL, are very uninspired and they you will leave you baffled by how such an inept author could be so famous. I'm not memeing here, but I literally started to count on the back of the book how many times he used the expression 'with his heart on his mouth': there were more than eight. The female leading character is basically a Mary Sue, who will be raped over and over in order to become "deep". She will also, as if by magic, succeed in every single endeavour she undertakes. This is not a historical novel, no matter how much people say it is. The research was very basic and it fucking shows through every single line in this book.

Don't read it. Don't fucking read it. Life is too short and this book is too fucking long. I hardly ever put any effort on writing posts, but I wanted to warn you: don't waste your time with this bullshit novel, its bullshit author and its bullshit prose. It is worthless. Game of Thrones is light-years ahead from this piece of crap. Please steer away, man. I beg you. Dan Brown is far better as his books are actually pot boilers.

Pic very much related. It's me after finishing this novel.

kek
Calm down, user. it's just a book. It sounds like the kind of thing I wouldn't enjoy, then. I'll skip it, thanks.

That was the impression I got from the two chapters I read last year, thank you, kind user, you saved weeks of my life.

I guess my longing for historical adventures will find satisfaction elsewhere, luckly I still have Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris and The Laughing Man on hold so for a couple of months I should be fine.

Nah, it's a decent book, 5-6/10. Worth a read, OP

10/10 post, user.

I love medieval historical novels and I've actually seen the two mini-series based on those books and wondered if they're worth it (be better than the series), but yeah, it looks like it's just the same but in written form.

>Nah, it's a decent book

This is now a medieval fiction thread. Is The Monk comparable to The Name of the Rose?

Damn friend. I walked away feeling much the same way. Its only saving grace is that it was a fast and easy read. But my god did it get old.

My teacher introduced me to Pillars of the Earth and its sequel, World Without End, and I personally loved the story. It was a very long and detailed read for the both of them, but I personally think the length fits well with the type of book it is. I tried reading Pillars of the Earth again last year, but I for the life of me couldn't get past the first few pages. I don't know how I read it when I was younger. The story was amazing for the first book, and I remember loving it, and being genuinely upset when the protagonists were given the shit end of the stick. Overall, I like the descriptiveness because it allows me to paint an extremely clear image in my head, but you have to be very patient with it. I would give it a 7/10 personally.