Finally finished it

Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett

This book is massive and took me quite a while to finish it. It was almost 1000 pages. I was curious about this book for a while and didn't really know why I decided to read it. It is a former Oprah book club book. The main story line is about the building of a cathedral in England in the middle ages. It follows several different characters whose lives become intwined in the cathedral. The story drags on in parts and could have been half as long and would have told the story just as effectively. For a book about the building of a cathedral, it is very violent and has a lot of sexual content in it. One of the main characters is very evil. He rapes one of the other main characters after she refuses to marry him, and continues to rape girls throughout the book. He also likes to murder people who defy his authority as Earl. Even with all this going on the book is pretty good which is probably why Oprah chose to endorse it, and why I continued reading it, but it could have been shorter and done with half the sex and violence. I don't think I would recommend this book to anybody I know because of those reasons. I had a lady return this book one day before I read it. She said she just couldn't read past the first chapter. The first chapter is the scene of a hanging where the hangman's wife cuts the head off a rooster lays a curse on the accusers. This wasn't even that bad compared to the rest of the book. I was talking to a girl at work about it and she said she got yelled at by a lady who was also returning the book saying she couldn't believe that Oprah would endorse such a book. Someone who constantly talks about their "va-jay jay" on national television is probably not very conservative.

I forgot to talk about the field trip we had come to the store last week. We had about 60 1st graders come to the store on a field trip. I was in charge of taking the kids around on a store tour. The kids would not stop talking and whenever I introduced someone to them they would say "Her name is Courtney too" or "His name is Chris too". I would have to constantly try to get them to be quiet so I could talk. In receiving I asked them if they had any questions and one of them said "Why is there a bird house up there". There was a wooden birdhouse in the rafters of receiving that nobody at the store knew about. I told them I didn't know it was up there and of course they kept asking questions about it. I told them "Does anybody have any questions that are not about the birdhouse?" They proceeded with, "How did it get up there?", "Who put it up there?", "Are there any birds in there?", "How long has it been up there?" Oh and when I asked them if they had any questions for Chris our receiving manager one asked "How old is Chris?" Such relevant questions. I was glad when it was over and told my boss that it was the best birth control ever trying to control that many kids. AHHH! Probably more effective than getting hit in the head by a ball being kicked by a little kid at Chris' family reunion. I then understood why people say a primary class could reduce them to tears of frustration. I don't know how people can be elementary school teachers.