Centuries-old desire for power, wealth given new life
THE EVENING AND THE MORNING
Ken Follett MacMillan
Review: Sheila Chisholm
THE Evening and The Morning is Welsh author Ken Follett’s epic prequel to his “classic historical masterpiece” Pillars of the Earth – a work on my “to read” list. In fact, The Evening and The Morning is my first venture into one of Follett’s 30 works.
What delayed me turning The Evening and The Morning’s first page concerned how my arthritic hands would manage holding a 6cm-thick paperback without continually dropping it or breaking it in half for easier handling … a Kindle could solve that problem for others in a similar position.
However, once I found a sitting/ reading technique and was drawn into Follett’s Old English writing rhythm, I actually thanked lockdown. Now I had an honest excuse to stay home to read this gripping, though complex, tale. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The time span stretches between June 997CE until January 1007CE. The settings are Normandy’s Cherbourg and areas around England’s Shiring Abbey’s countryside. Yes!
The wheel had been invented. Yes! Ale and cider proved a happy substitute for clean drinking water – although overindulgence often brought not such happy consequences to an unsuspecting head.
Yes! Life without electricity, sanitisation, decent roads and housing, easy transport, banks, proper business practices, minimal farming equipment and virtually no communication was tough.
Typically, social class distinctions formed a chess-boardlike game – except the games played were deadly. Greatest power lay with the King Ethelred (Queen). Followed by Bishops, Knights (nobles).
Rooks kowtowed to those upper classes, and pawns represented the remaining populace, including slaves.
It’s a story of intrigue, manipulation, physical and mental abuse and cold-blooded murder. Follett demonstrates how quick-wittedness and determination can overcome all adversity.
His website testifies to a sad fact that millennia may come and millennia may go but, built into human psyche, is a deep-rooted desire for power and wealth, regardless of the cost to other lives.
I am off to read The Pillars of The Earth.