Harold C. reviewed on 8/27/2011 + 15 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

This is an exciting and interesting historical novel, rich with incident and melodramatic in characterization and effect. My only reservation about it was caused by the quality of the writing itself. Follett uses the language as a blunt instrument, which is fitting for the writing of thrillers. But here a more poetic and delicate touch is often needed, and the failure of his prose produces bathos too often in passages where he is reaching for the sublime. After all, the topic is cathedral building, a subject on which his engineering interests are more evident than his religious sensibilities. Perhaps the clue to this may lie in his atheism, which is declared in the preface. It is something of a paradox to find an atheist writing a religious book.

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