World Without End question

Didn't notice it. Rape was certainly common in the time period when women were little more than chattel, so I think its inclusion reflects the period well and isn't overboard.

I loved Pillars and I HATED this one. It's obvious he wrote it more for the current times. I recommend Pillars all the time and I would never recommend World.

The earliest known Ladies Magazine?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_La...

"The Ladies Mercury, printed in London, was a subsequent spin-off from the monthly lady's topics of the Athenian Mercury. It printed an advice column starting February 27, 1693. The Ladies Mercury was a weekly publication promising to respond to "all the most nice and curious questions concerning love, marriage, behaviour, dress and humour of the female sex, whether virgins, wives, or widows.""

if you have the patience, curiosity

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle...

which, as long as it is, is only a starting point.

I remember when I read this, the thought, 'Hmm. Follett is a breast man", is the ONLY thing which struck me on reading the sex scenes. Too much sex? No, I did not think that at all.

In the middle ages there was a lot of rape, forced marriages, child marriages, forced child bearing. Plus people lived with their farm animals in real life, literally, in their houses, they then not knowing anything about germs and thinking poop was useful besides being everywhere underfoot like the air we breathe, often saw sex and birth and death and dead bodies, particularly since everybody needed to kill and butcher for dinner.

Non-church books, passed among the reading aristocratic class (most could not read or write) which may have been mostly hand-made (depending on if this is before or after Gutenberg's press) were mostly love/sex/gossip/insult poetry and proto-novels of fantasy about chivalry/war/magic/heaven/hell etc. written in the Middle Ages that have survived the centuries and that have ended up in Literature classes (college, anyway) are VERY explicit and are full of what the high-minded call 'ribold', meaning fart and ass wiggle jokes, the cuckholding of husbands by nymphomaniac wives, and 'triangle' hair being mistaken for beards in the dark, penis gags/jokes.

The Middle Ages were explicit because their lives were explicit. Laws were whatever the powerful aristocrats said they were. The early Church was explicit, too. It was in the middle Middle Ages when propriety as WE know it began to take hold. The development of cities (towns to us) with people living close had a lot to do with the necessity of being more behaved, polite and mannered, aping court aristocrats, who were pretty raw too by today's mores, until the later Middle Ages. More people learning to read had a lot to do with more common people adopting what we recognize as being mannered and proper. (Ladies magazines/books changed everything when they came along.)

Movies do not show how filthy and smelly everyone really was. People drank beer and wine, not water, all day, even giving it to babies, because the water made people sick. Baths were rare. Everybody had lice, dirty hair. I read the average age of a Middle Ages person was 19, part of the reason for early marriages and passionate impulsive murdering and general raping. If people survived to 40, they were old.

I felt Pillars of the earth had more sex in it to be honest. Does anyone notice how there is at least one rape scene in every Ken Follett book?

To be honest, I really didn't think this book had too much sex. It seemed to flow with the rest of the story. Without it, I think it would have been a boring read.

But I think it also depends on what your expectations of the book were.

I think it added to the story, a lot due to the forbidden nature of sex between a Nun Caris and Merthen.

I agree. If there's too much sex in a book, I feel that it slows the plot down. I don't mind sex, but I don't like reading about it in explicit detail either.

Not only too much sex, too much swearing, and too much of everything. It was actually ridiculous in my opinion and certainly no representation of medieval life. Its a pity he did so well with Pillars, but instead of keeping to the historical parts, just focused on all the abnormal and deviant parts. It was tedious and stupid.

I had to laugh every time I read his description of women's pubic hair. "The triangle of soft hair between her legs". I thought to myself "the author seems obsessed with pubic hair!"

Like most of you here, I can't say I really noticed any gratuitous sex. I have read many other books when I would have said yes there was too much sex, but not this one!

I did not notice this but my husband did when he read it. I guess I just feel that this was a part of the time period. Possession of the people of the kingdom was the norm.

I didn't think there was too much sex but that they were badly written, very gratuitous and juvenile and the author's teenage-like obsession with breasts is very obvious. It's all a bit cringey.

Hey! I think this book does a great job of taking the reader through the medieval England. I guess I must laud the style of writing. Maybe this overshadows the unwanted number of rape scenes sponsored by Ralph. Those mushy scenes could have been avoided anyway. It also takes a lot of talent to sit through umpteen number of mushy scenes and you would just end up saying "To hell with it".
So Simone, you're not the only one! Maybe you could have skipped those pages and gone about with the rest of the book.

It's been a while since I read it, but I don't recall a lot of sex in it. I do remember the rape perpetrator, which was disturbing, but certainly not unrealistic. You give a horrible person any semblance of power, and they can do a myriad of awful, violent things.

I didn't feel that way either.

Can't say I noticed either

Like Mary I didn't really notice it. What did bother me though was the amount of rape depicted in the book.