The Evening and the Morning: The Prequel to The Pillars of the Earth, A Kingsbridge Novel (The Kingsbridge Novels, 4)

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This reviewer is of the view that the difference between a good and a bad historical novel is often the quality of the background research which the writer undertakes. On that score, Ken Follett is amongst the top grade of contemporary novelists who seek to penetrate and present history as a subject for a novel. Having read, been immersed in, and thoroughly enjoyed Follett’s Kingsbridge series (The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and A Column of Fire) it was with great expectations that I began the fourth book in the series, The Evening and the Morning. This book is a prequel to the first three novels in the series.As with the previous three books, the fourth was meticulously researched. The conditions of life for Anglo-Saxon people living in the west of England is described in detail. There are various plot lines in this novel, concerning royalty, landowners, men and women in religious orders, grafters, young women who are subjected to physical abuse, young men who are easily led, corrupt local government and church leaders, and the odd heroic person. Each character type is meticulously described, with their role in the story followed through in detail, their relationships explored, and their personal strengths and weaknesses displayed.Several characters hold the various narrative strands together; these include Edgar, a local man who suffers early personal loss, but who gradually rises in stature and employment to become a reputable builder of boats, bridges, and buildings. Then there is Ragna, the noblewoman from Normandy and the object of Edgar’s adoration, but who is married to Wilwulf, an important district Elderman. Perhaps the leading villain of the entire novel is the despicable, sacrilegious Bishop Wynstan. There are many other persons who fill important roles in the story, including the kindly Monk Alfred who has a life-long wish that his community will become a centre of learning and pilgrimage. All the characters are part of the Kingdom of England that, at the end of the 1st Millenium A.D. was ruled by King Ethelred, a monarch who seeks to protect the western sector of his kingdom from the Welsh and its eastern sector from the marauding Vikings.The stories of the individuals, their interaction with each other, the religious and political intrigues, the cruelty in the actions of one character to another, the prevailing threat of Viking invasion, slavery, the dominating position of the Church and those who are meant to serve it, the poverty of the ordinary person as well as the general cheapness of life, are all ingredients which provide a feast for the appreciative reader.Several of the story lines take time to develop, indeed, it could be said that the same story lines are over-indulged with occasions of cruelty, discrimination, and drawn-out personal histories. Several of themajor characters seem to suffer disproportionately, and the reader is sometimes left to wonder where the misrepresentation and suffering will end, especially where this applies in a gross and obvious manner to the several people least deserving of it. It comes as a comforting relief, however, when the threads of the various major narratives are drawn together, in a relatively short number of pages, to provide the book with a satisfying climax and conclusion to the story - one that paves the way for the first of the Kingsbridge novels, The Pillars of the Earth.Ken Follett’s book, The Evening and the Morning, is a welcome prequel to his Kingsbridge series of three novels. It is about life that is hard and dark at the end of the Dark Ages in southern England. It is, indeed, an epic tale of ambition and rivalry, death and birth, and love and hate. The inclusion of this novel as the fourth published book in the Kingsbridge series makes the aficionado of Ken Follett’s writing eagerly await the release of the fifth book in the series, The Armour of Light.

Ken Follett est passé maître dans l’art de raconter une énorme saga historique sans jamais lasser ses lecteurs tant ses personnages sont vivants, les émotions intenses, l’amour, la haine, les trahisons, l’espoir et le désespoir. Les nombreux coups de théâtre font aussi partie du plaisir de la lecture.Il est difficile de ne pas sacrifier ses occupations quotidiennes à cette fascinante lecture. C’est vraiment un ouvrage remarquable (évidemment, très bien documenté).

　The Pillars of the Earth で始まった Kingsbridge シリーズの４昨目。『大聖堂』の題名で出版された The Pillars of the Earth は日本でも大ベストセラーとなったが、それに続く World Without End と Column of Fire はちょっと期待はずれだったと思われた読者も多いのではあるまいか。しかし今度こそは――期待を上回るとは云わないものの――期待を裏切らない作品に仕上がっている。　先行する方々のリヴューを読んでいただければ作品の内容・面白さは御理解いただけると思うので、ここではケン・フォレットの英語を中心に述べる。　The Evening and the Morninng の文体は、他のケン・フォレットの作品同様、簡潔・明晰である。また、知らない単語があっても前後関係から意味が推測できるものが多いから、速読の練習にはもってこいの本だろう。（勿論、意味が推測できない単語は辞書を引かなくてはいけません。それが外国語学習の鉄則です。）全817ページに及ぶ英語を読み切れば、この先英語を読んでいく上での大いなる自信となるだろう。　１つだけ厄介なのは、登場人物たちの名前に現在の英語圏ではお目に掛からないものが多く、どう発音するのか分からないことだ。おそらく英国人に訊いても分からないのではあるまいかと思われるものもある。この本を翻訳する人はそこで苦労するだろう。例えば Ragna の２番目の夫 Wigelmは「ウィゲルム」なのか「ワイゲルム」なのか「ウィーゲル」なのか、はたまた別の発音になるのか。まあ私達一般読者は、ローマ字読みでもいいから、自分なりに決めてしまうことだろう。　これまでにも申し上げてきたことだが、ケン・フォレットに文学を期待してはいけない。文学は速読できるものではない。じっくり時間を掛け、辞書と格闘しながら読み進めなければその真の価値は摑めないものだ。しかし、とにかく面白い本を英語の原文で読んでみたいと思っている人には、ケン・フォレットはジェフリー・アーチャーと並んでお勧めの作家である。誠実な人柄と己の才覚で、数多の困難を克服し、道を切り開いてゆく物語は、大衆小説の王道の一つだが、ケン・フォレットの Kingsbridge シリーズをを手短に表すれば、その王道を進んでいる作品と云えよう。（裏返せば、そうした人柄も才覚も持ち合わせず、人生に苦しんでいる人の姿を描くのが文学と云うことになろうか。また、詳しくは述べないが、文学では文体がきわめて大切な要素となるのだが、ケン・フォレットは、文学に欠かせない、深みを感じさせる文体は残念ながら持ち合わせていない。どこまでも表面的である。まあ、それ故に読みやすいのだが。）　未だ The Pillars of the Earth をお読みでない方は是が非でもそれも読まなくてはいけないし、読まなければ随分と勿体ない。だから、もし試しにどちらか１つだけ読んでみたいと云うなら The Pillars of the Earth をお勧めするが、２つとも読みたい人は、順序として、先に The Evening and the Morninng を読んだら如何かと思う。理由は２つ。１つ、時代順であること（Kingsbridge という地名の由来はこの作品で判る）。１つ、これら２つの作品を比較すれば The Pillars of the Earth の方が断然面白いのは間違いないから、そちらを後の楽しみにとっておいた方がいいだろうと云うこと。

This book takes place around the year 1000. Like the other 3 in the series, it's set in the same location, a (probably fictional) small town on a river, inland, but the river is navigable for small craft. Like the others, it takes place over several years. Characters die, give birth, grow up, and quickly are established as good or bad, except for one character who is more genuinely human with both good and bad qualities. The town of Shiring is the seat of local government and the ealdorman of shiring is the ambiguous character. He and his two half brothers all have similar sounding names beginning with W so that it's hard to keep them straight. Note that the terminology changes later, after the Norman Conquest, with the lord of Shiring styled an earl. I'm sure that's correct. For readers who enjoyed Mr. Cornwell's Saxon Tales, it might help to imagine the world of Kingsbridge, er, Dreng's Ferry, being the same as that of Wessex and Bebbanburg.The strengths of the other volumes continue here. Main characters are a Norman princess who marries the ealdorman of Shiring, Ragna, and Edgar, a boatbuilder from Combe who is made homeless and fatherless in a viking raid. He flees inland with his two brothers, whose names also begin with E and sound a little similar. I'm not sure if that actually was a custom at the time. Edgar's mother farmed before she married his father, the master boatbuilder, and at Dreng's Ferry they manage to lease a farm and return to the land. Edgar still feels a consuming desire to build things, in common with the characters who build the cathedral in the first volume. So, people are powered by simliar drives to those we deal with today, as they should be. It's not hard to get into the story. The relatively loose control of the king (Ethelred, who I think is "The Unready" from my schoolboy days) and the church results in priests and abbots having affairs and divorce and polygamy (polyandry, too) being tolerated. If you remember the Lord Uhtred, you'll be aware that Britain has been recently challenged by the pagan Vikings and Christianity has a rather precarious hold. So, I easily swallowed that situation and read on. This short a time before William the Conqueror, I suppose having commerce between the French and English coasts is not surprsiing. The period atmosphere seems authentic and in accord with what I know about the period's history. An additional praiseworthy element is that since the previous volume I read, the size of the book and the readability of the text has been dramatically upgraded. There's no difficulty reading the text even if your eyes are not quite so good as they used to be.Things I didn't like? The rather black-and-white portrayal of the characters seemed a little overdrawn, especially 2 of the half brothers to the ealdorman of Shiring and Dreng, the owner of the ferry. My naval architect's conscience says I also need to reiterate that Mr. Follett is a landlubber and even in a riverine environment he plays fast and loose with Archimedes's Law. It is hardly likely that a raft narrow enough to fit in the canal Edgar builds could hold up a load of building stone just with the buoyancy of the trees it was made of -- it would have to be a watertight boat, and Edgar could certainly build such a boat. He has the necesary skills. I don't understand why Mr. Follett wanted the vessel to be a mere raft.It took me a while to realize that Dreng's Ferry was Kingsbridge, and of course when Edgar starts talking about building a bridge there I'd already realized that would happen. That this was a fitting engine to power Kingsbridge's economy into high gear is clear from the story although it is implicit rather than obvious. Altogether, it gives the reader a very good idea what the start of England must have been like before the Normans came.

Ok, I'll let you in on a little secret, that statement isn't quite as impressive as it might seem (if it does indeed seem that way). The reason being, now having been an avid reader for nine and a half years, I just haven't really ever been a series kind of guy. I did manage to make it through some of the fourth book of King's The Dark Tower series, but stalled. I've owned all seven (eight if you include Odd Interlude) of the Odd Thomas novels for years. I loved the first book, and really loved the film adaptation (R.I.P. Anton Yelchin), and I love Koontz, and yet, I've not cracked the second book. I have read five of the Foundation novels, but them, like the Kingsbridge series, aren't exactly one continuous story.Still, I've managed a little bit of series reading, and overall have knocked off almost three hundred books from the time I got really into reading in mid 2011. And, despite being one of the first books I read, Pillars of the Earth has always stood head and shoulders above 99.9% of the books I've devoured. It always will. It simply is one of the greatest novels I'll ever read. Ironically enough, had my Dad not hand me a beautiful gold-colored trade paperback, I may not have become the utter bookworm I am today."In a broad valley, at the foot of a sloping hillside, beside a clear bubbling stream, Tom was building a house." With this simple yet captivating sentence, I was unknowingly falling into a loving relationship with historical fiction.Pillars of the Earth was such a good book, such an incredible experience, that I would have given anything to have read it again for the first time, to recapture that magic. Well, thankfully for me, years before I got back into reading, Ken Follet wrote the astounding World Without End, and, my God, it may have even outdone Pillars. I was HOOKED, and loving every single one of its massive 1100 pages. It was heaven, every single page, a dramatic, blood-soaked, historical heaven. I still give Pillars the slight, slight nod as my favorite only because it came first.In between I knocked off other Follet novels, almost every one an excellent reading experience.But wow, I was the luckiest guy in the world when, a few years ago, A Column of Fire was announced. I bought it brand new, devoured it, and now finally, we have The Evening and the Morning, another installment in the greatest series I've ever read, and this time we are taking a step back in time to before the characters of Pillars existed.this book is simultaneously amazing and also disappointing. It's amazing because everything in the Kingsbridge series is, but more specifically, it's amazing because when Ken Follet writes historical fiction, he does it with such richly imagined details and such smooth prose that you may be physically reading the book in 2020, but you're mind and soul is living over a millennia prior. He's a great world builder, and you can almost taste the rain that falls, and the winds that blow can almost transpire through the page and make you shiver.I don't really want to get into each of the characters and stories. Some of the book is formulaic, which isn't a bad thing. You should be expecting drama, conflict, war, religion, sex, and other similar themes found in the other books in this series. Follet will most certainly deliver on that. But the book also differs from the others, as it takes place over just one decade as opposed to several. Initially I was bummed about this, but it's still a terrific novel, and I can appreciate it for being different in that regard.My other complaint is that the book is too short. Yes, it's over 900 pages (although the words are big and blocky and you can knock off 50 pages an hour), and I'm complaining that it's too short. It seems edited down to keep the pace fast, and thus the reader more engaged, and I found myself reluctant to keep reading (which of course isn't so easy with this series) because I don't want it to end. I would love a complete and uncut edition of this, like King's The Stand. I don't care if the publisher, or even Follet himself thinks it was extra, unnecessary fluff, I'll gladly read hundreds of pages of Kingsbridge fluff all day and all night before I'd crack open a million other books.I think, for someone to complain that your 900 page novel wasn't nearly long, that you'd be hard-pressed to find a bigger compliment than that.I love this series, particularly Pillars and World Without End, but The Evening and the Morning can proudly be the bridge (pun intended) that a reader must cross to get into the rest of the series.Yes, it's more of the same in a sense, and yet, it's still not enough, not by a long shot.Thank you Ken, for blessing me with roughly FOUR THOUSAND pages of incredible storytelling, that I not only can learn from, but can be transported from the stresses of everyday life to a world that, while it did exist, seems to be a place so perfectly crafted I couldn't personally imagine anything better.*January 2024 review*I didn't plan it this way, but in August I picked up WWE, then followed it with Pillars in September. The Armor of Light came out around then, which was finished by November. December was A Column of Fire, which I can now say is probably my least favorite in the series. It has too many plotlines and very little architecture, and almost feels more like a spin-off than a true Kingsbridge novel. It's still great, but after reading The Evening and the Morning again, I feel the first three novels chronologically are the best of the series. This feels truly like a return to form after Column, and it's a fantastic read. It's more formulaic than Column perhaps, with the evil bishop and ambitious monk, the challenged noblewoman, but when the formula is so engrossing, it's a welcome return.Although I think we could have made it through this book without a certain scene (of which Pillars is littered with), the ultimate story of a builder, a noblewoman, and a monk all defying the odds and surviving in a near lawless world is riveting. Characters turn out to be not as expected, people get their comeuppance in the end, and even if things are tidied up a tad too neatly, the journey through the tumultuous decade of this book, with such tough living conditions, feels like a victory in the end, perhaps even more so than the rest of the series. Except for The Armor of Light, I've now read each Kingsbridge novel twice, and though all five are fantastic reads, the first three are truly a notch above, and safely rest near the top of my list of favorite books of all time. Ken Follet is the reason I love historical fiction, and re-reading these novels only reaffirm this.