Ken Follett's historical novel The Pillars of the Earth provides a personalized view of family life, civil wars, and the power struggle between the monarchy and the church in twelfth-century England. With storytelling skills that focus on suspense, Follett unwinds a captivating tale that follows the failures and successes of several generations of prominent families in the fictional village of Kingsbridge. The leader of Kingsbridge is Philip, abbot of a small monastery that stands at the center of the village. The plot of the novel revolves around Philip's dream of having a large cathedral built for his town, an ambitious vision for an otherwise seemingly humble man. Through prayer and fortunate happenstance, a master builder appears at Philip's doorstep one day. The builder's name is Tom, and he has a vision that mysteriously matches Philip's own. Follett's novel exposes the author's obvious fascination with twelfth-century architecture, especially in reference to the building of cathedrals. The author provides interesting details of the technological aspects of masonry as it evolved from the Romanesque to the Gothic structures of that period. Complications of how to build tall structures with large boulders are fully explored as the builders work out their problems through primitive sketches scratched in chalk. But the architectural discourse in this novel is minimal. It provides a thin skeleton upon which the rest of the story is drawn. The gist of the narrative is more p