World Without End, by Ken Follett

It is time for my first book review of 2009! I finished this book in January and it was great!

The continuing story of Mr. Follett’s epic novel The Pillars of The Earth, World Without End proves itself a worthy sequel. Like the first, you experience large events across a sweeping landscape through the story of a few individual people. It almost leaves you breathless – you follow the compelling characters through 14th century Florence, France and London during the beginnings of The Hundred Years War and the Plague.

The four main characters of the story meet at the beginning as children and their stories are intertwined throughout the book in surprising ways. When they meet, they witness a murder and one becomes the keeper of a deadly secret. This story has a bit more intrigue than the last, but at its core, it is still a story about the relationship between the characters and the larger effect these relationships have on the surrounding community. The ways these characters cope with things like war with France and the deadliest plague humankind has ever known make this a tale that grabs you and reels you in to experience major events in history in a relatable way.

Mr. Follett is writing about a time in which the church and government were closely related and both were filled with corrupt men and women who sought to manipulate and control the masses. However, Mr. Follett seems open to the possibility that some people practice their religion sincerely and devoutly. Prior Philip, in the first story, for example, is someone who genuinely tries to do God's will. Unfortunately, this idea didn’t seem to carryover into this book. There are “good” characters in this story, but they express their own doubts about God and religion and use the religious system to manipulate things the way they think they should go. So in a way, they are using religion in a similar way the corrupt characters do, but for a nobler purpose. The sad thing about these stories is that no real character in the story seems to know the gospel of Jesus Christ, which would give the story much more hope than the humanistic version of hope it depicts.

The most compelling thing for me about reading these stories is that it gave me a better picture of why these were called “the Dark Ages” and why Luther’s reform was so amazingly refreshing to the masses and threatening to those in corrupt leadership. I am so glad I live in a more hopeful time!