Richard Warren Field's Blog

“The Pillars of the Earth” Mini-Series Reviewed.
“The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series is great entertainment, with action, romance and intrigue set against the exotic, unfamiliar time and place of the Middle Ages in England. It is well-acted and beautifully filmed, including the effort made to place us inside one of the main characters of the production, the fictional Kingsbridge Cathedral. Viewers who enjoy historical dramas will enjoy this one, as they are transported to a world utterly different than the 21st Century. Those familiar with the book will wish there was more time to tell the story. But they will certainly recognize the book in the mini-series.

Casting was nearly flawless. Matthew Mcfadyen as the pious Prior Philip brought his mellifluous voice to the portrayal, setting the tone effectively for this character. Ian McShane plays that slippery, slimy villain so well that we willingly choose to ignore the fact that he starts old and never ages. It would be hard to imagine a more effective Waleran Bigod, so we sit back and enjoy his great work. Natalia Wörner plays Ellen with the boldness and daring the character demands, a nonconformist at a time when a single woman in the forest would need a lot of strength and courage to do what she does. As Jack’s mother, and as the curse of the villains, literally, Wörner carries the part effectively. I would have liked to have seen as much Ellen in the mini-series as there was in the original novel. Eddie Redmayne as Jack has a wide stretch as a character, and he pulls it off pretty well. He may be a tad more convincing as the quiet, mysterious creative savant of the first part of the series than he is in the later stages as the dynamic leader, commander of the huge building project. But he makes this huge evolution of Jack work.

I have only a few criticisms. First, great liberties are taken with the actual history. No one watching should mistake this lavish, engaging entertainment for an accurate portrayal of the English succession conflict that eventually ended with Henry II of England on the throne, starting the Plantagenet line of English monarchs. Second, sometimes in the interests of “cliff-hangers,” or high drama, some silly over-the-top sections suddenly sprang out of the mostly dignified, credible drama. I am thinking particularly of King Stephen foaming at the mouth at the end of Episode Two, and every scene with the weird incest-hinting between William Hamleigh and his mother. People who like these types of dramas are generally adverse to campiness, and at times the series flirted with the line dividing sharply set conflict and drama from campiness.

What the Production of “The Pillars of the Earth” Mini-Series Says About Our Times
This will be the most opinion-laden, contemplative, personal writing I will do on “The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series. In mid June, I wrote about what Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Talisman said about his times, and what my own novel, just published, The Swords of Faith, says about our times. I do believe that two big changes between Follett’s novel and the mini-series reflect our own society’s grappling with two wider issues of today. The two changes between the novel and the mini-series? 1) The different portrayals of the church and church characters and 2) the different approach to the character of villain William Hamleigh.

The Church and Church Characters in “The Pillar of the Earth” Mini-Series. “The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series portrays the church characters much less sympathetically than The Pillars of the Earth novel. Prior Philip is more scheming and less principled in the mini-series (and he is the most principled of the church characters in the mini-series). Waleran Bigod is completely unredeemable and evil in the series; in the book he is more nuanced. Bigod is the main villain of the mini-series—William Hamleigh is the main villain of the book. Even Philip’s ally in the mini-series becomes a potential assassin of an innocent person (Jack) to gain proper burial for his deceased prostitute sister, a clear lesson offered by the mini-series on what religious fanaticism can do to good people. The mini-series omits the concluding chapters of the book when church triumphs over royalty after the murder of Thomas Beckett. Ellen in the series acts as the chief anti-church character to the extent that her character becomes more one-dimensional and less featured because she is ostracized from Kingsbridge due to her provocative anti-church behavior. King Stephen is portrayed as a little demented because he says he speaks directly to God (Episode Five). For this time in history, such a sentiment might well have been considered normal for a king, but it is not depicted as normal, or even sane. After Richard returns from the crusade, he comments negatively about the crusade, and the anti-semitism of the crusades, though this has really nothing to do with the plot. Waleran Bigod in the book becomes a repentant monk at the end. In the mini-series, his evil is unredeemable as he “climbs high to fall.”

So, the church appears to be portrayed more negatively for a television audience, presumably a mass audience. What does that choice say about our current society? Right now, the world struggles with secular versus sacred, with organized religion and religious fanatics, with a search for the proper place of spirituality in our world. Muslim religious fanatics launched a terror attack on the United States that triggered two wars. There is a real concern that organized religion produces dangerous fanatics, and so is a potential evil. (In 1999, I wrote my own essay on this: “Leave Organized Religions—And Find God!”) The comparison is made—fanatic Muslims of today launch terror attacks the way fanatic Christians launched the crusades during the Middle Ages, the way fanatic Christians launched the Inquisition a few hundred years later. This acts as an influence on how organized religion is portrayed in today’s mass entertainment. We have Waleran Bigod torturing his own prior and supporting other atrocities to advance his nefarious ends couched in the guise of the church. The Ellen character further advances this perspective with her not-so-subtle hints at spirituality without organized religion. (This theme gets only slight development—after all, this story is about building a huge, elegant church for the glory of God, God very much worshipped within an organized religious context!)

So I am asserting, consciously or subconsciously, that organized religion gets a less favorable treatment in the television series, because religious fanaticism in the service of organized religion is a pervasive fear in our society. Fanaticism is a theme of my own novel, The Swords of Faith. When the main characters behave less fanatically, they are more successful securing what they are looking for. The idea is that good people of different faiths can thrive together during times of confrontation if they can accept the idea that good people can have different paths to God, that there may be more than one path to God.

As we moved through the “Enlightenment,” the “Age of Reason,” the “scientific revolution,” we toyed with the idea of doing away with God. But this has not worked as well as those enlightened, well-reasoned, scientifically logical intellectuals had imagined a world without God would function. Governments acting in the name of the anti-religious political/economic system of “Communism,” inspired by Karl “religion-is-the-opiate-of-the-people” Marx, are responsible for the slaughter of more innocent people than any religiously inspired slaughters. The Nazis, religiously ambivalent, inspired in part by a misapplication of the philosophy of Frederich Nietszche (the philosopher who said “God is dead”), were responsible for millions more innocent deaths. So do we look for God again, recognizing that humanity has a natural desire to seek the Divine? Or do we recognize that the Divine is present in some way and as intelligent creatures, seek to uncover its mysteries? Do we look back to religion, and God? We grapple with these questions, and worry that established religions are insufficient, maybe even destructive as we seek the answers. So the established Christian church of the Middle Ages becomes a target of that present-day concern.

We find ourselves challenging ingrained assumptions—was monotheism truly the huge advance most western civilization classes describe it as? Monotheism led to the Chosen People, and to the prosthelytizing religions of Christianity and Islam. Before monotheism, conquerors did not worry about the deities worshipped by their subjects. They just added the gods of the conquered to their own gods. There are so many recognized gods in Hinduism that there is no one accepted accurate count of the number. But the moment we went to one god, this raised the issue of who or what is the correct god. To survive monotheism, I believe we need to adopt a “more-than-one-path-to-God” approach. I think society is headed in the same direction on this point, so our entertainment reflects this. “The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series reflects this, as does my own novel, The Swords of Faith.

William Hamleigh in “The Pillars of the Earth” Mini-Series. William Hamleigh is a different villain in “The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series than he is in The Pillars of the Earth novel. In the book, he is an evil stalker from the beginning, obsessed with Aliena, but not really loving her—more obsessed with possessing her. When she rejects him, his obsession multiplies, as if this is a contest he must win. His desire to possess now grows into a desire not just to possess, but also to humiliate. William is simply a horrible human being, with no apparent real conscience. The only real curb on his malevolent behavior is his fear of hell. But again, this stems more from his own selfishness, his desire to avoid the searing agony of hell. William Hamleigh is simply evil. No further explanation is offered.

In the mini-series, William Hamleigh seems to be more of a manipulated victim—manipulated by his twisted mother, who has a strange, incestuous obsession with her son, and manipulated by Waleran Bigod, that dastardly autocrat of the church, that symbol of organized religion at its worst. It is as if the mini-series producers needed to offer a reason for William to be so evil. There had to be an explanation—just being evil wasn’t enough. (Of course, this can be an endless regression, because we then need to know why William’s mother was so evil and twisted. With Waleran Bigod, we can accept his evil as generating from the so-called evils of organized religion.)

This dramatizes another issue that confronts our society—in a more secular world, without organized religion to circumscribe good and evil, how do we deal with evil? Are those who perpetrate evil acts, who inflict barbarity on their fellow humans with little remorse, always inspired by some other evil done to them, or are some people bad simply right from the start? Clearly the mini-series producers felt it would be easier to accept William as a villain if his evil acts were a result of his victimization by others. Follette seems to have been less concerned with this idea.

I grew up during the 1960s. (I turned 16 in 1970.) I went through my phase of believing that if we just brought enough love and understanding to everyone, all humans would live in harmony. After all, wasn’t that the real message of Jesus? But I learned fairly young, that there are bad people in the world. There are people who will take earnest attempts to approach them with love and understanding and snicker as they devise ways to exploit the charitable person making the unselfish effort. There are truly bad people in the world; they’re just bad with no explanation, like William Hamleigh in the book.

I recently read a book that addresses this issue: The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, Ph.D. The book explains that an estimated four per cent of humans basically have no conscience at all. The normal empathy humans usually feel for each other, that little flicker in the back of the mind that says “you’re wrong/what you’re doing is bad/you need to stop”—it doesn’t exist for the sociopath. Sure, there could still be some kind of victimization component involved. But though she is not able to offer with certainty the causes of this lack of conscience, she implies there is a genetic component involved—some people are born at least with the tendency to be bad. She gives riveting, chilling case studies of the conscienceless, acting in normal, familiar settings, inflicting damages on people, some who trust them, some who will never suspect what has been done to them, with no second thoughts, like cats torturing prey before dispatching it.

Yes, fellow idealists, there are bad people in the world. What shall we do with them? Shall we search for how they were victimized, and then treat them not as wrongdoers to be punished, but as victims to be helped? Are we wrong to fight them with all our resources if they truly are victims? Or do we need to destroy them before they destroy others, and protect the good from the bad first, before worrying about the victimization element? If we had rescued William from the clutches of his mother, and the evil churchman Waleran Bigod, would Shiring and Kingsbridge have been spared from his brutalities? In the book, no. In the mini-series, maybe. Or should we forget about helping William and just get him out of the way, for the protection of everyone else? The issue of how to deal with evil does arise as we look at the discrepancies between the book and the mini-series. The answer seems a shade different in the two versions of this story.

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I hope you have enjoyed my commentaries on “The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series, and will pop in with some comments of your own—agreements or dissents. Also, I hope you will sample some of my other writing, at this blog, as well as my recently released novel, The Swords of Faith, and at my internet column.

I’ll be off of posts for a little over a week when I’ll come in with a book review. Magic the Cat will guest blog again, probably about a week from now, with what he says is some serious news.

(Synopsis of The Pillars of the Earth novel.)

*****

The Sociopath Next Door

The Pillars of the Earth (paperback)

The Pillars of the Earth (deluxe edition/Oprah’s Book Club)

The Pillars of the Earth – Comments on Episode Five August 21, 2010

(Richard Warren Field wrote the award-winning novel,
The Swords of Faith. Read why this book will make a great movie.)

Episode Five leaves us in place for the series-concluding Episode Six. The final scene in France, with Jack smiling as he gazes at a glorious church, hints at actions to come. But the inspirational tone of that scene, across the English Channel from the main action of the story, offers a wonderful dissonance with where the plot is now. Because back in England, all the villains appear to be ascendant, or at least more comfortable than our heroes. The folks on the bad side of the good-bad ledger appear to be in command. In a sense, Jack has had to flee his world to reach the inspirational image that brings an awe-inspired smile to his face. Will he be able to import that feeling back to our story in England? We suspect so! And this means the general shape of Follette’s novel remains intact, though with some big variations! For the most part, the changes create a more hyper, dramatic edge. As I’ve been doing throughout these commentaries, I’ll discuss in-synch and out-of-synch with the book, along with my own opinions, ripe for comments if you wish!

Aliena/Jack/Alfred: This plot line is largely preserved, complete with Ellen sneaking Jack out of his cell so he can make love to Aliena. The reasons Aliena feels obligated to marry Alfred also remain the same—Richard needs resources to keep fighting for King Stephen so they can remain in contention to take back the earldom of Shiring and fulfill their vow to their father. Ellen’s curse of the wedding is also right out of the book, with Ellen making crystal clear the curse of impotence. Ellen’s encouragement of Aliena to find Jack in France is also direct from Follette’s original novel.

There are a few variations worth commenting on: 1) Jack is confined to his cell in the priory because of his loud protest to the Alfred/Aliena marriage. (His opposition in the book is more quiet and passive). This change makes him a more active character, and in that way strengthens the story. 2) The food given to Jack in his cell is poisoned (not in the book) which adds a nice little dramatic edge to the expository/back-story scene as Ellen tells Jack more about his father, with the poisoned food sitting right next to him throughout the scene. We wonder as Ellen tells the story—will Jack eat this stuff? Then, just when we think he may ignore the food, his own mother insists he eat it, obviously unaware of what is in it!

The in-synch situation remains through what I considered an awkward part of the novel, maintained in the series, that Aliena somehow hides her pregnancy from Alfred, who has been unable to consummate their marriage. This leads to the contrived coincidence of her giving birth in the middle of the cathedral collapse. Awkward in the book—still awkward in the series. This does lead to a similar result, though in the book Alfred leaves Aliena; Aliena is not ordered to leave by Alfred.

Prior Philip: Just as his storyline looked like it would remain almost entirely in synch with the book, we go on a huge detour at the end, when Philip is removed as prior. (He never loses that position in the book.) This sets up some wonderful possibilities, putting Philip in a serious underdog position. I like the potential here. Even those of us who know the book will be guessing about a number of directions this could go.

Waleran Bigod: My goodness, he gets more evil and twisted as we go. His self-flagellation has now graduated to self-mutilation. Does this make him sympathetic because we know he feels remorse for the horrible things he keeps doing? No. It makes him look more twisted, and self-obsessed at the expense of others. In this episode, he commissions the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury by Regan Hamleigh! And it almost works for him, though those of us who know history, and know the book, suspected that Waleran Bigod would not be able to keep this position.

He also gets a little of his own back when William Hamleigh holds a sword to his throat, insisting the bishop make sure that William is confirmed as earl of Shiring. The Hamleighs are in charge this time. I wonder if the series producers are trying to reposition Waleran Bigod more toward his characterization in the book, as we move toward the ending. We’ll see about that next week.

I still like Waleran Bigod as the more nuanced character he was in the book. But I have to admit that this plot-line leads to one of my favorite individual scenes of the whole mini-series—the Regan Hamleigh murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury. As the scene starts out, we think Regan Hamleigh is going to betray Waleran Bigod. But just when it looks like she will complete the betrayal, she follows through with the deed, complete with a well-placed scream. Great dramatic television!

A Mysterious Ring: I have to admit I missed this earlier. It’s not in the book. I recall the early incidents—a ring stolen from Jack, in the possession of Martha, who hides it behind a stone in a wall. But this ring is obviously going to have a dramatic role in the final scenes. The set-up has been effective. The dramatic question has been posed—how is this ring going to figure in the final revelations on the secret involved with the death of Jack’s father?

Stephen and the Royals: Stephen remains on the bad-guy side of the ledger, though not as a major player in this part of the story (similar to the low profile of the royals in the book). He seems to have become a little demented, saying he now talks directly to God. We also see Maud/Matilda briefly, training her son Henry to take the crown, setting up the future resolution of the story.

William and Regan: Still the twisted implied-incest relationship… Still my least favorite variation on the story in the original book.

A few other isolated comments on this week’s episode:
• They added a dual marriage scene, reminiscent of the dual birth scene in episode one, with the Alfred/Aliena and William/Elizabeth marriages, and wedding nights, juxtaposed. This is effective story-telling, important for later developments, showing the two troubled matches getting off to horrible starts. These relationships will have consequences, so this is important set-up material offered in a creative, intriguing way.
• Ellen in the mini-series is more clearly anti-church than in the book. In the book, she does become hostile to the church at times, but almost always as a reaction to church actions that affect her—pertaining to her relationship with Tom Builder earlier, and pertaining to the relationship of her son Jack and Aliena later. In the mini-series, she is hostile to the church right away, and with more venom. It is ironic that her beloved son is developing into a potential designer/builder of glorious churches.
• I thought for a moment Philip would tell Jonathan that Tom Builder was his father, spilling the beans earlier than in the book (as it looked like Tom Builder himself was going to do during the previous episode). But though Philip walks Jonathan right up to it, he stops short, just saying that Tom Builder knew his mother.

______________

I expect a lot of surprises next week, and a long post. For one thing, even though this will be a two hour concluding episode, it doesn’t seem possible they will get to all the story that is left in The Pillars of the Earth. It looks to me like we are about up to Chapter Twelve, of eighteen chapters. That’s two thirds of the book. But we have completed three fourths of the mini-series. (See my synopsis of the novel at my website.) This will give me a lot to comment about next week, not just about what the mini-series producers include, but what they condense or leave out. Come and stop by at this blog next Saturday!

(Synopsis of The Pillars of the Earth novel.)

*****

The Pillars of the Earth (paperback)

The Pillars of the Earth (deluxe edition/Oprah’s Book Club)

The Pillars of the Earth (hardcover)

The Pillars of the Earth – Comments on Episode Two July 31, 2010

(Richard Warren Field wrote the award-winning novel,
The Swords of Faith. Read why this book will make a great movie.)

Sometimes, you just gotta love television. Ending a fairly tame, you could even say tepid episode, with a king in convulsions, foaming at the mouth, blood dripping from a hallucination’s head… that’s what you do when you have the resources of a visual medium, and you want to bring people back for next week’s episode.

Leaving aside the end-of-the-episode histrionics, what were the high points and low points of “The Pillars of the Earth” episode this week, and does anyone care if they are staying close to the book? (I do—when things work especially well, and when things don’t work well at all.)

• High Point/Improvement: The public execution scene of the former earl of Shiring (played by Donald Sutherland) was more dramatic than his fate in the book, where he just fades into death after a bittersweet meeting with his children in prison. The exchange between Aliena and the king felt contrived, but overall, this scene took advantage of the visual opportunities of television.
• Low Point: Yes, they’re continuing the creepy, incestuous scenes between William of Hamleigh and his mother. I’ve commented on this previously—I just don’t think this is necessary. It seems unsettling for no real discernable purpose. Actually, I can think of a purpose, but it involves psychoanalyzing the writers and producers, in fact, a whole general class of writers and producers, so I’ll save that for later.
• High Point: Right out of the book—the monks surround the Shiring quarry with chants and candles and take possession of the quarry in a beautiful looking and sounding scene.

But maybe the biggest overall divergence from the book is the emergence of Jack as a key character even now in the story, when he is still not much more than a boy:

Knowing the book, I am aware some key scenes are coming up, and I am curious to see how they will be addressed in the next few episodes:

• How will we bring Ellen back into this? She’s relegated to hiding in the woods for occasional hot trysts with Tom Builder, and rightly figures she will have trouble coming back, even if she and Tom are married.
• Richard’s development trails behind right now—he should have been at the Battle of Lincoln with William of Hamleigh and King Stephen. Instead, Stephen finds out about the battle while he’s at Kingsbridge. (Finding out about the defeat of his forces also leads to his fit at the end of the episode.)

My dominant impression? I am enjoying this production of one of the most successful historical novels of the last two decades. But I also find myself hoping they don’t go too much farther off the book.

See you next week!

***** 

(Synopsis of The Pillars of the Earth novel.)

The Pillars of the Earth (paperback)

The Pillars of the Earth (deluxe edition/Oprah’s Book Club)

The Pillars of the Earth (hardcover)

The Pillars of the Earth – Comments on Episode One July 24, 2010

(Richard Warren Field wrote the award-winning novel,
The Swords of Faith. Read why this book will make a great movie.)

Viewers of “The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series: consider that the lines have been drawn—the good versus the bad—immediately, sharply, and more quickly and decisively than in The Pillars of the Earth novel. Prior Philip, Tom Builder, Ellen, Jack, Aliena and her brother Richard all line up on the good side of the ledger. Waleran Bigod, William Hamleigh and his parents, Remigius, and Alfred (Tom Builder’s son) line up on the bad side. Also, put Maud/Matilda and her faction on the good side of that ledger, and Stephen on the bad one. The lines are drawn for the remaining episodes, with conflict and subconflicts bubbling among and between these characters. The stage is set for six more hours of rollicking entertainment. 

The first episode appears to be largely faithful to the novel (see my synopsis of The Pillars of the Earth at my website), with some notable exceptions which I will discuss below. It appeared to me that the changes were made for the obvious aims of either sharpening conflicts, heightening suspense, and/or increasing visual interest. (In my opinion, most of these changes worked well.)

 Notes on changes to the novel:

• The old prior of Kingsbridge confesses his complicity in the death of an innocent man to Philip instead of Remigius. I suspect this will have significant implications for the story down the line. Philip does not have this information in the novel.
• Agnes gives birth to her son in the forest at the same time Maud/Matilda gives birth to her son Henry at or close to the court of Henry I, with vivid cross-cutting between the birth scenes. (In fact, Henry was born in France in 1133, five years before this scene is set.)
• The scene with Tom Builder abandoning his just-born son has some slight differences which I found very effective. Tom Builder appears to believe the boy will join his mother in Heaven, and figures that the cold night will be an easier death than slow starvation with his destitute family; Tom figures the baby boy will drift off to sleep, and off to Heaven. This emphasizes how religious faith dominated lives during this period of history, and makes Tom a little more sympathetic for what seems to be a callous, heinous act.
• Ellen seems drawn to Tom Builder, and seeks him out, because he is a master builder, and she believes her son could excel in that discipline with the right tutelage.
• Ellen and Jack also do not jump into a quick marriage (as they do in the novel), right after Agnes dies giving birth. This is another good choice, since Tom is supposed to be a sympathetic character, and marrying another woman twenty-four hours after his wife dies seems a cold deed, though in the novel it is understandable, given the desperate circumstances.
• Waleran Bigod presents a problem. He is supposed to be just a little older than Philip. But a much older actor, the great Ian McShane, plays him. This makes Bigod seem to be an aging figure, already close to power.
• In the novel, Waleran Bigod starts off almost as if he might be an ally of Philip’s, and we see him as a schemer, but aren’t sure on which side of the good/bad ledger he will settle. In the mini-series, his basic nature is apparent immediately. There is a clear implication that he poisons the presiding bishop, clearing the way for his succession to the bishop’s post, showing his nature clearly and immediately.
• The biggest departure from the plot in the first episode, and the one that I think works the least effectively, is the accusation that Ellen is a witch. She seems to delight in this, antagonizing the powers-that-be, even when on the verge of execution. She stabs Waleran Bigod with a smuggled weapon and flees the priory, all in apparent collaboration with Prior Philip (which is at odds with his pious nature). This line of plot development tracks roughly, and could provide problems later in the mini-series. Peeing in front of the bishop, then stabbing him, are not actions that can be easily excused. This will make it difficult for Ellen to return to the priory with any credibility. It is not realistic that such actions will be forgiven.
• There is also more dramatic information given about the secret surrounding Jack’s father’s death, with flashbacks dramatizing the circumstances and bringing in this element in more quickly and with more intensity than in the novel. Also, the curse Ellen delivers at Jack’s father’s execution, to “a knight, a monk and a priest,”—unidentified in the mini-series, as well as in the novel, heightening the mystery—is more specific for each one, making the curse more dramatic and intriguing. There is nothing like a secret, and an ominous devastating prophecy for the future for unknown parties, to drive interest. I found this deviation to be perhaps the most effective adjustment to the story.
• In a brief scene, there is a weird implication of some sort of incestuous obsession between William Hamleigh and his mother. This is downright creepy, and not necessary. William and his parents are evil enough without this weirdness thrown in.

On the history, the mini-series is clearly unsympathetic to Stephen, more sympathetic to Maud/Matilda. Stephen is depicted as an insincere conniver, usurping a position he has previously promised not to claim. Follette’s handling of the history, it seems to me, was more balanced between these two contenders. There is also an implication in the mini-series that the birth Maud/Matilda’s son Henry motivated Henry I to name Maud/Matilda as his heir. In fact, he had obtained a commitment to Maud from his barons a decade earlier, before she even married her son Henry’s father, Geoffrey Plantagenet.

I welcome comments from any readers more familiar with the history (an on anything else on “The Pillars of the Earth” mini-series).

I’ll be back commenting on Episode Two next Saturday.

The Pillars of the Earth (paperback)

The Pillars of the Earth (deluxe edition/Oprah’s Book Club)

The Pillars of the Earth (hardcover)