*Spoiler Alert* Greatest Love Story I Know About

Jack and Aliena

Jack was an eccentric being, born of the union between a master mason and a witch of the woods. He was highly intelligent and emotionally stunted at first, until he fell in love with Aliena, which allowed his emotional side to begin to develop. Their love is perhaps the most tragic and ultimately gratifying love story I have ever read. It goes through the struggles of England during a very bad depression leaving many people out of work or leaving for Europe just to survive.

Aliena herself was an amazing individual, centuries ahead of her time (well, she would have fit right in at home in the Hellenic world, but for Catholic England she was a light blazing in the darkness). It is no wonder why Jack fell in love with her.

The saddest thing about the entire tale is that the only real barrier between her and Jack's union was her own presuppositions. Time and time again she reacted to the man she assumed Jack would be instead of taking the time to understand who he really was. Because of this they spent years apart in heartache when all either of them really wanted was to be together. It did give Jack the time to become a masterful Gothic Cathedral mason, which would probably have never happened had he remained in England with Aliena, but if they had just made room for each other in their lives, they could have been spared much misery.

World Without End (the second book in the series) also covers the outbreak of the black death in Europe, so between the two you have a tragic love story, an era of recession and an era of population loss and plague, which echoes the hysteria we are experiencing over Ebola and the economic recession many developed countries are facing today. If you have a long weekend and nothing much else to do, I would strongly recommend taking the time out to read these books. Author: Ken Follet.

I never read the books, but I did see the miniseries for both of these, and I found it very interesting from a historical perspective. Follet seemed to have done an absolute crapton of research into the era to get things right.

a reply to: DragonsDemesne

Yeah, they criticized him for making something like a dozen incredibly minor errors, and from a literary standpoint were really non-issues. Unlike watching a show recently where someone dialed 911 on a rotary telephone in a historic scene. Ugh. ;p

a reply to: Nechash

Lol thats great did they have 911 when there were dial phones ?