Ken Follett

[pensmama87]

I was lent his “Century Trilogy” and while I like historical fiction, I feel like there’s an awful lot of sex in his books. He does seem like a skilled writer and I am interested in his characters, but I don’t like explicit sex (especially in a series like this, where the adults in a subsequent book were babies and toddlers in the previous, and now they’re being discussed doing things their parents were doing in the last book. Sets my creep meter off.)

Are all of his books so explicit?

 

[pensmama87]

I’ll add too that it’s pretty obvious that he thinks Catholics are backwards (in fact I was reading up on him and it seems like he signed a letter opposing a visit from Pope Benedict XVI to the UK on the basis that it was wrong for His Holiness to oppose contraceptives, abortion, and gay “marriage.”)

 

[Jeanne_S]

I’ll add too that it’s pretty obvious that he thinks Catholics are backwards (in fact I was reading up on him and it seems like he signed a letter opposing a visit from Pope Benedict XVI to the UK on the basis that it was wrong for His Holiness to oppose contraceptives, abortion, and gay “marriage.”)

I have read many of Follett’s books,including the Century Triliogy.I enjoy his writing style,however I don’t appreciate his opinions on the Catholic Church,I wasn’t aware that he held these opinions.:

 

[OurLadysServant]

I have read many of Follett’s books,including the Century Triliogy.I enjoy his writing style,however I don’t appreciate his opinions on the Catholic Church,I wasn’t aware that he held these opinions.:

Catholics should not be reading books with explicit intercouse scenes.

Even written pornography is a sin.

 

[Lion_of_Narnia]

Not only is Mr. Follet secular, I believe he’s British, hence he’s got a double-dose of anti-Catholic baggage

 

[Pat_Payne]

Back in college or even high school, I remember reading “Eye of the Needle”, which was a potboiler WW2 espionage thriller by him. It had way more sex and violence than I’d want to read today.

 

[Jeanne_S]

Catholics should not be reading books with explicit intercouse scenes.

Even written pornography is a sin.

I agree,however,I don’t recall any such scenes.!Maybe they didn’t impress me!

 

[7_Sorrows]

I agree,however,I don’t recall any such scenes.!Maybe they didn’t impress me!

I read the first 2 books of the Century trilogy and I don’t remember many sex scenes depicted either. I enjoyed the books and am waiting for the 3rd to be available at the library.

I do remember some sex scenes depicted in the other trilogy I read. I am in my 60’s so I am not interested in those parts of the story. They usually are only a few paragraphs if that.

I do not know much about Ken Follett. I did not know he was anti-Catholic.

 

[UnumCorpus]

I was lent his “Century Trilogy” and while I like historical fiction, I feel like there’s an awful lot of sex in his books. He does seem like a skilled writer and I am interested in his characters, but I don’t like explicit sex (especially in a series like this, where the adults in a subsequent book were babies and toddlers in the previous, and now they’re being discussed doing things their parents were doing in the last book. Sets my creep meter off.)

Are all of his books so explicit?

All of the Ken Follett books I’ve read have, unfortunately, very explicit sex scenes. It’s a shame really because he is a talented writer.

I loved his* Pillars of the Earth* (which had a strong, faith-driven character as one of its protagonists), but I thought its sequel *World Without End *was atrocious in its portrayal of the Church and its graphic descriptions of homosexual sex.

I also read the first book of his Century trilogy, and after that unfortunate experience, I could no longer stomach his books. The characters and situations he writes about are interesting, but the sheer amount of explicit sex scenes was too much…even when I tried to skip over them. His anti-faith bias also comes through in his books, with perhaps the exception of Pillars. I really wish I could like his books as I love historical fiction, but for me, most of his books are now unreadable.

 

[St_Francis]

I read the first 2 books of the Century trilogy and I don’t remember many sex scenes depicted either. I enjoyed the books and am waiting for the 3rd to be available at the library.

I do remember some sex scenes depicted in the other trilogy I read. I am in my 60’s so I am not interested in those parts of the story. They usually are only a few paragraphs if that.

I do not know much about Ken Follett. I did not know he was anti-Catholic.

I am [or was] somewhat confused about his attitude towards the Church. I really liked Pillars of the Earth, which was set in the Middle Ages. I learned a lot and felt that the Church was portrayed very even-handedly–there were good people and bad people. What I really appreciated was that the social framework of the time was portrayed as having been developed by a Catholic society and as having been, overall, a good system. (Of course, I was looking at it through Catholic eyes, maybe someone else would have reacted differently.)

I was very disappointed by his sequel to PotE, tho, for a couple of reasons, one of which was that the Catholics were portrayed in a much worse light–many being the “bad guys.” It wasn’t even-handed like before.

But I just now looked ip the dates of the two books: 1989 and 2007, so the later book may well have been influenced by the scandal.

 

[Jeanne_S]

I read the first 2 books of the Century trilogy and I don’t remember many sex scenes depicted either. I enjoyed the books and am waiting for the 3rd to be available at the library.

I do remember some sex scenes depicted in the other trilogy I read. I am in my 60’s so I am not interested in those parts of the story. They usually are only a few paragraphs if that.

I do not know much about Ken Follett. I did not know he was anti-Catholic.

You and I are the same age,maybe that’s it,we are beyond that sort of thing now!

 

[pensmama87]

I read the first 2 books of the Century trilogy and I don’t remember many sex scenes depicted either. I enjoyed the books and am waiting for the 3rd to be available at the library.

I do remember some sex scenes depicted in the other trilogy I read. I am in my 60’s so I am not interested in those parts of the story. They usually are only a few paragraphs if that.

I do not know much about Ken Follett. I did not know he was anti-Catholic.

The sex scenes are brief but rather explicit (IMO). I think actually what may bother me more about them is that, despite all his claims to historical exactness in other aspects, many of his characters think and act, especially with regards to sexuality, the way secular people *today *think and act. It strikes me as false and forced.

The anti-Catholic stuff I suspected from his writing style (there is one good Catholic character, a priest, and even he starts out as stuffy and unlikeable, then he is tortured to death by the Nazis within a chapter of meeting him.) All the good characters are liberals and the bad/stupid/selfish kind are conservatives (exceptions for a few corrupt Communists). The ones who are devoutly Christian of any stripe are presented with their religion as a liability.

 

[7_Sorrows]

You and I are the same age,maybe that’s it,we are beyond that sort of thing now!

Yes. I believe you are right.

 

[7_Sorrows]

The sex scenes are brief but rather explicit (IMO). I think actually what may bother me more about them is that, despite all his claims to historical exactness in other aspects, many of his characters think and act, especially with regards to sexuality, the way secular people *today *think and act. It strikes me as false and forced.

The anti-Catholic stuff I suspected from his writing style (there is one good Catholic character, a priest, and even he starts out as stuffy and unlikeable, then he is tortured to death by the Nazis within a chapter of meeting him.) All the good characters are liberals and the bad/stupid/selfish kind are conservatives (exceptions for a few corrupt Communists). The ones who are devoutly Christian of any stripe are presented with their religion as a liability.

All the same I find him a good story teller who weaves the characters with their defects of humaness into interesting plot lines. As I get older, I don’t waste my time reading a lot of secular fiction or going to the movies much. I haven’t felt I was wasting my time reading Pillars of the Earth trilogy or this one. Most of the reading I do pertains to Catholicism. I learned a lot in Pillars of the Earth about architecture and the Church in that period of history. I love history!