"Betrayals of Love" is a title more aproprié!

I ask myself: finally, why choose such a high-sounding title "The Pillars of the Earth", while the real title of this novel would have simply summed up as "Betrayals of Love"? Honestly, I'm looking but I do not see the connection between the story I just read the title chosen by the author (knowing that it is literally the same in the original version). Which pillar is it? Where are they? I've not found ...

The start begins at top speed with the description of the scene of hanging of a young man is supposed innocent. "Owl, there will be suspense, intrigue concrete, short: it'll be huge," one is tempted to think ... at least that was my case. And then everything falls apart over the pages.

This novel is a succession of "problem-solution", "very nice friendly against soooooooooo wicked wicked", "problem-solution", "nice nice veeeeeery against soooooooooo wicked wicked" and even "problem-solution", "very nice gentiles against nasty but really really sooooo bad "and so on. It is boring to read several times the same thing, right? Then you just feel the weariness that inspired me, "The Pillars of the Earth"!

Apart from a linear, especially redundant structure, style could make up for it ... if he had not been so poor, equally linear and more than redundant. I clearly felt that the author either did not know the role of the personal pronouns, or had any grievance against their use: "William sat on the bench (...) William sat so. to monitor the staircase (...). William turned back to Aliena. Aliéna followed the gaze of William. William felt as (...). Matthew looked into the face of William. William saw the knight ( ...), but William had the painful impression (...) "and so on too many pages! Besides spelling errors because there ... I assume they are due to the translator.

Anyway ... I keep a generally quite painful memory of my reading, especially towards the end, where the author offers us yet another conspiracy ... the problem is that there are so many conspiracies had and "problem-solutions" that we end up getting tired; in fact, we do not care!

So, apart from that, not everything can be black: I recognize that certain passages have still liked me, but I do not think "The Pillars of the Earth" deserves the rave reviews attributed to him. If you want a novel, blending history and intrigue, but read "The Circle of the Cross" by Iain PEARS: it really is a new level!