Book Review: The PIllars Of The Earth

I chose to read a novel by Ken Follet based solely on his reputation for writing critically acclaimed novels. I chose The Pillars Of The Earth because it is a historical novel about a period that I knew little about, 12th century England, and a subject I even knew less about, cathedral building and how English life centered around it.

This is not a fast-paced novel. It is 943 pages rich in details and language that takes you on a journey through a time where might was right, religion played an enormous part in everyone’s lives for good and bad, and showed a modern reader how tenuous one’s hold on life could be during that time.

My favorite chapter was the prologue. I had not read a chapter written in an entirely omnipresent point of view in a long time, and even longer for one done well. I actually read it twice, and even read it again to my son to show him how using details effectively can truly paint pictures in someone’s mind. Here is the opening line and first paragraph:

The small boys came early to the hanging.

It was still dark when the first three or four of them sidled out of the hovels, quiet as cats in their felt boots. A thin layer of fresh snow covered the little town like a new coat of paint, and theirs were the first footprints to blemish its perfect surface. They picked their way through the huddled wooden huts and along the streets of frozen mud to the silent marketplace, where the gallows stood waiting.

While I praise Follet’s writing for his use of details and language, be forewarned these details are used in every aspect of the book, whether it’s the building of the church, character descriptions, sex, murder, and rape.

While the first chapter is written in omnipresent, the rest is written in third person with alternating perspectives.

I enjoyed The Pillars Of The Earth, but it is very long and at times felt like it.

Movie Review: Transformers 3--For Kids?

My first inclination is to say, no. However, I went with 6 kids from 8 to 10 years old and they all said they liked it.

One ten-year-old said he liked it, but it was a little violent. This was the boy who had no problems with the first Transformers movie when he was 6 or the second one when he was 8. See my post from two years ago.

The problem with Transformers 3 was with was the way in which they depicted the violence.

I never knew one of the criticisms of the first two movies was that the violence needed to be more graphic, more visceral, because these two elements were definitely heightened.

There was no torture this time, and the first half of the movie was clean enough - actually I enjoyed it and the premise; it was the second half of the movie that ruined it for kids' parents:

-Suddenly, the robots bled red lubricant. If one got shot, lubricant went flying. When one got punched in the face, red lubricant poured out of its mouth. In the previous movies, it would be a few machine parts.
-Humans were literally blown apart. As in, let's watch one leg go this way and the other go that way. And when I say humans, it wasn’t just soldiers, but civilians (lots of them).
-There were a couple of graphic scenes of human corpses.
-Also, in the first movie, when Megaton ripped Jazz apart depicting how ruthless he was as the bad guy, it was shocking. Here the Autobots do it with relish to the Decepticons. Don’t get me wrong, the bad guys deserved bad things to happen to them, but suddenly there was no difference in the way either side fought-without remorse, hesitation, or mercy. Tearing an enemy limb from limb is tough to watch, and still wrong, whether it’s the good guys or bad guys doing it.

When I walked out of the theater and saw a little kid, no older than 6, in an Optimus Prime costume, and all the other young kids in line, I felt bad for their parents as they had no idea what they were about to have their children watch.

And before you say, “Hey, come on, it was rated PG-13, parents should know better,” walk into any Toys R Us or Target, and their shelves are filled with Transformers toys and clothing. Are you really saying all this merchandise is targeted to 13 year olds? The other two movies were also PG-13 and neither rose to quite this level of graphic violence.

Really, flying red lubricant? Come on.

Would I take my boys to see the movie again knowing what I know now? My ten year old yes, and probably my eight, because what 8- or 10-year-old boy isn’t dying to see it.

For some reason sequels tend to be darker, look at Harry Potter, it’s just a real bummer that Transformers 3 had to be like this.

(As an aside, the editing for THE BATTLE, basically the entire second half of the movie was horrible, with people, Autobots, and Decepticons popping up out of nowhere, then disappearing, and then finding themselves in unexplained situations. It seemed liked the editors had so much footage, they didn’t know what to stick in and cut out, and then stayed on some scenes way too long and others way too little. Really annoying. In my opinion this was the worst Transformers’ movie by far for even more reasons than I've explained already, but I can’t say more without being a spoiler.)