Title: An Archetype of Bad Writing
Product review: I'm a big fan of historical fiction and this book was recommended to me by a friend as being pretty good. His judgment always seems sound. That is until I read "Pillars of the Earth." From the start, I was not at all impressed with Follett's writing (for instance, having a 12th century English peasant refer to his wife as his "soul mate"). I worked through about 200 pages, all with mixed emotions and suspicions about the writing quality, and then I read this: "He had been inflamed by Aliena and now he wanted to slake his lust with this one. She would be lively, he felt sure; she would wriggle and scratch. All the better." For me, this passage pinned the bad writing crap-o-meter. With more than 800 pages to go, I knew I wouldn't be able to take any more of Follett's trite writing and what I think is very poor research. So I dumped the book. Your mileage may vary.
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