Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiesue
I'm with HarryT on Pillars of the Earth......loved it. I could agree that the characters aren't masterfully sketched, but I found them credible and the portrayal of life at the time was fascinating. If the book is at all accurate, people really lived close to the edge with a precarious food supply and capricious, unpredictable "rulers/lords". Who was it who wrote "Life is nasty, brutish and short"? That's what I kept thinking about when I was reading the book. It makes me very grateful for the relative stability of my life today.
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I haven't read
Pillars yet, but I did major in history and specialized in Medieval Studies. Yep, life was nasty, brutish and short. You get all sorts of weird contradictions. Sons would wage war on their fathers for the throne they would inherit in time anyway (Richard the Lion Hearted did this to his father Henry II), and slaughter thousands in the name of God.
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Bill