Why Lost May Lose Me

Given the choice of moving forward in my current read, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, and watching the newest episode of Lost, I chose Pillars. This decision was made easier for me because the network has been preceding each new episode of Lost with the episode from the previous week. If I catch up next week, I'll continue with the show; if not, it will lose me. As to this week's Project Runway and American Idol. I put Pillars away long enough to watch both of them.

The Pillars of the Earth is more action driven and its characters are less well developed than the type of book that I usually enjoy. At this point, on page 743 of the 983 page book, I am thoroughly immersed in it and ready to move on to the sequel. The setting is England in the early 1100's, a time in which two factions were at war for a disputed monarchical succession. The point of intersection for the many sub-plots involves the building of a grand cathedral on the grounds of a once neglected monastery. Love, jealousy, violence, corruption, depravity, naked ambition, and godly reverence abound. So far, I've needed to skip only two pages because of the way in which they dealt with "bear baiting," one of the many ways that humans have found to amuse themselves at the expense of other animals. (Not the greatest way to end this post, but I'm done.)