The Pillars of the Earth is Folletts intrepretation of how the magnificent cathederals and castles were built in England and Europe. He delves into the politics of communities and the Catholic church in a way to help the readers guess at what it must have been like to live during this era. There were two things I found irritating: One of the main characters was killed off, I thought too soon (Tom Builder); and Follett wrote in a manner that was slightly insulting to the reader, in that he continually retold events numerous times, maybe from a different characters view, but still, the repetative information where parts of the story were explained over and over were not necessary. I believe that with a better editor the book had the potential of losing a couple hundred pages and potentially reach a larger audience. A 900+ page novel could put some readers off.