Is anyone else watching Pillars of the Earth?

[giandujakiss]

Because I just finished watching part 4 and I'm kind of having ridiculous amounts of fun. (Warnings for graphic violence, including sexual violence)

If nothing else, it's worth watching solely to listen to the gorgeous accents of Matthew Macfadyen and Natalia Wörner.

Comments

[cofax7]

I will probably ahem it at some point, since I made the somewhat dubious decision to listen to the unabridged audiobook this year; it took me about six months, because Ken Follett starts every chapter with a summary of the previous 30 years of the character's life. And did you know that Jack has red hair and Ellen has golden eyes? And William Hamsley is a rapist? Over and over and over.

OTOH, the casting of Ian McShane as Waleran is rather inspired.

[giandujakiss]

Heh. I've never read Follett, but you're not making it sound tempting.

I am definitely enjoying the series, though. I mean, you know, it's your classic sort of blood-and-guts period adventure kind of thing, with truly excellent casting.

[cofax7]

It is epic in scale, and he does a good job focusing on the importance of agriculture and local markets and tradesmen to the overall national well-being. And how politics and warfare fuck with all that: the opening sequences of an unemployed builder wandering the countryside desperate for work are pretty harrowing.

But the actual writing is clunky, repetitive, and without subtlety or ambiguity. The Bad Guys are EVIL to their bones, and the Good Guys are Virtuous even when they disagree with one another. And the mystery powering the narrative ended up being kind of anti-climatic, as was one final character turn at the end which I found entirely unsupported.

Still, you do get a vivid account of the killing of Thomas Beckett, which I had not seen before. In amidst the multiple explicit rape scenes, ew.

[giandujakiss]

I did notice that the bad guys were EVIL and the good guys were GOOD - and I was completely willing to accept it for the purpose of shallow entertainment.

So far only one explicit rape; I personally am hoping there are no more.

As for Beckett... no mention yet, but I've seen the movie Beckett and read the play ... I didn't know there was more to know :-)