Catalonia is the one country in the world where I can celebrate St George’s Day with a clear conscience and no feeling of disloyalty to Wales!
This United Nation’s Day only produced two books, only one of which was a novel (and neither, I might add, on United Nations Day itself!)
The Time Out guide to films is a mammoth tome with a suitably encyclopaedic inclusiveness. It is one of those books which I find addictive. I start off with a restricted intention of looking up just a few of my favourite films. The films I like range across the critical divide from generally accepted classic films through interesting but opinion dividing films and ending in my choice and I’ll stand by them films. Perhaps that range can be exemplified by ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘The Bitter Tea of General Yen’ and ‘High Anxiety.’ A nicely mixed bunch!
That was one of the books (Thank you Pauls!) and the other was from The Family and was, according to them, the only book in English in El Corte Inglés and was a novel by Ken Follett. This was another massive volume of over a thousand pages and it had a suitably epic sweep following the lives of different families in England in the Middle Ages. Centred on the fictional Cathedral and Priory town of Kingsbridge, it traced the developing municipal and commercial identity of the town as it attempted to come to terms with living with a powerful Prior whose ideas were often at odds with those of the tradespeople. The action of the novel concentrated on the lives of four children who, at the beginning of the novel are confronted with the bloody reality of living in the fourteenth century.
Basically this is a novel of politics and power struggles, stripped of the medieval background the basic plot could be transposed to any century: creative artist frustrated by small minded bigotry; career woman weighing options; sadistic bully protected by class interests; working class woman makes good in spite of overwhelming difficulties – all mixed with an assortment of colourful characters easy to identify and compartmentalise.
Compared with the Ellis Peters novels of Brother Cadfael this extended narrative lacks the concentrated tension of a murder mystery and it also lacks Peters` easy and unforced familiarity with the historical period. The power of the Church is emphasised in ‘World Without End’ but not the theology behind it which made ‘The Name of the Rose’ such an interesting read, but rather as the power base for a great deal of politicking.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and would welcome reading the novel to which this is the sequel, ‘The Pillars of the World’- which at the moment is swamping the supermarket shelves in its Spanish paperback version.
I think that my biggest reservation about the quality of this novel is in the dialogue. Follett spells things out: he rarely leaves things for the reader to do. All his characters are articulate (unfeasibly articulate in some instances) about their motivations and the motivations of others. A participant in this story might be a thug but he soon develops a perception well out of keeping with his ostensible character. It does, of course, make it easier to follow and is perhaps a key factor in the success of this sort of writing and allows a reader to follow such an epic tale.
Roll on another thousand pages! And Saint George’s Day, which in Catalonia, is the day for the giving of books as presents.
This United Nation’s Day only produced two books, only one of which was a novel (and neither, I might add, on United Nations Day itself!)
The Time Out guide to films is a mammoth tome with a suitably encyclopaedic inclusiveness. It is one of those books which I find addictive. I start off with a restricted intention of looking up just a few of my favourite films. The films I like range across the critical divide from generally accepted classic films through interesting but opinion dividing films and ending in my choice and I’ll stand by them films. Perhaps that range can be exemplified by ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘The Bitter Tea of General Yen’ and ‘High Anxiety.’ A nicely mixed bunch!
That was one of the books (Thank you Pauls!) and the other was from The Family and was, according to them, the only book in English in El Corte Inglés and was a novel by Ken Follett. This was another massive volume of over a thousand pages and it had a suitably epic sweep following the lives of different families in England in the Middle Ages. Centred on the fictional Cathedral and Priory town of Kingsbridge, it traced the developing municipal and commercial identity of the town as it attempted to come to terms with living with a powerful Prior whose ideas were often at odds with those of the tradespeople. The action of the novel concentrated on the lives of four children who, at the beginning of the novel are confronted with the bloody reality of living in the fourteenth century.
Basically this is a novel of politics and power struggles, stripped of the medieval background the basic plot could be transposed to any century: creative artist frustrated by small minded bigotry; career woman weighing options; sadistic bully protected by class interests; working class woman makes good in spite of overwhelming difficulties – all mixed with an assortment of colourful characters easy to identify and compartmentalise.
Compared with the Ellis Peters novels of Brother Cadfael this extended narrative lacks the concentrated tension of a murder mystery and it also lacks Peters` easy and unforced familiarity with the historical period. The power of the Church is emphasised in ‘World Without End’ but not the theology behind it which made ‘The Name of the Rose’ such an interesting read, but rather as the power base for a great deal of politicking.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and would welcome reading the novel to which this is the sequel, ‘The Pillars of the World’- which at the moment is swamping the supermarket shelves in its Spanish paperback version.
I think that my biggest reservation about the quality of this novel is in the dialogue. Follett spells things out: he rarely leaves things for the reader to do. All his characters are articulate (unfeasibly articulate in some instances) about their motivations and the motivations of others. A participant in this story might be a thug but he soon develops a perception well out of keeping with his ostensible character. It does, of course, make it easier to follow and is perhaps a key factor in the success of this sort of writing and allows a reader to follow such an epic tale.
Roll on another thousand pages! And Saint George’s Day, which in Catalonia, is the day for the giving of books as presents.
At last a civilized country!
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