After being a fan of Ken Follett for decades and enamored with his Kingsbridge series which explored England’s development from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century I couldn’t wait to read a historical novel that offered a story of the neolithic British Isles and the creation of the Stonehenge monument.  Follett’s latest effort, CIRCLE OF DAYS is per his usual rather long, about 700 pages, and it appears very inviting.  However, I must say I am a little disappointed in the novel.  It is well written, it reflects a tremendous amount of research, and has a number of defined plot lines, but at times it seems simplistic, formulaic, and created doubts whether I should have continued reading it.

Overall, I am glad I stuck with the book, but it should not have taken almost halfway through to really foster my interest.  Perhaps it is the names that Follett chooses as you must write them down to remember them from Pia, to Joia, to Han, to Stam, to Troon, to Bez, to Gida, to Dee etc. etc., you get my drift.  To make sense of these characters I had to create a chart in order to keep everything sensible.  Perhaps a list of characters with a brief bio of each in the front of the novel is called for.   Further, the dichotomy of herders vs. farmers is clear, with farmers being misogynistic believing they own their women who have few rights, and herders who treat their women with respect and allow them to freely make decisions.  Farmers are presented as controlling and manipulative, and herders are communal, exhibiting a great deal of empathy, I found this dichotomy difficult to digest.  To say the least the novel is a mixed bag with a storyline that appears artificial at times as we witness a plan to turn a wooden monument into one of stone, but to Follett’s credit around page 350 he begins to pull the story together with a more in depth plotline and stronger character development.

(Straightening a leaning stone at Stonehenge in 1901) –

The story has a number of storylines, but at first, Follett presents his version of what life was like in England during the Neolithic period by inviting the reader into a primitive society and culture and delving into the trials and tribulations that people of that period dealt with on a daily basis.  Follett explores how people survived either as farmers, herders, flint  miners, woodsmen, and priestesses.  We witness the hatred and eventual violence due to the inherent differences between approaches to life that people take.  A useful example is how Yana, who is a part of the farmer society faces the death of her husband Olin, leaving only her daughter and herself to work their farm during an intense drought.  According to custom she must take a new husband within a year, but because of the “Main Man” Troon she is ordered to find a new husband within seven days.  Troon demands she marry his son Stam who is half Yana’s age.  As the story develops Pia, who is in love with a herder named Han, and upon learning she is pregnant escapes the farmer compound and runs away with Han.  Eventually she is recaptured, and Han is murdered by Stam who in the end will be burned alive by the woodlanders led by a man named Bez.  You can see that this is difficult to follow, but it works in the end.

The key storylines revolve around the following.  First, an endless drought affects everyone with food rationing, famine, death, and conflict as its by present throughout most of the novel.  Second, the role of the priestesses focusing on a character named Joia who joined the priesthood at a young age and became a rival of the head priestess, Ello.  It is her goal to replace the wooden monument that is the center of  faith with a stone monument that would withstand whatever the elements would bring.  Her ally in this effort is a carpenter/builder named Seft who is the key to the engineering problem that confronts those who want a stone monument.  Third, there is the constant conflict between farmers and herders and their allies that emerges.   Lastly, the personality conflicts and belief issues among major characters that drive the novel.

(1906)

In terms of being specific the novel comes down to a conflict between Joia, the head priestess, and Troon who is head of the farmers and sees himself as the “Main Man.”  Joia pulls out all stops in trying to move humongous stones across the Great Valley in order to rebuild the wooden monument.  Troon and his “thugs” do all they can to prevent this.  Follett turns to a detailed approach in the last third of the book in describing this conflict.  For Joia it is a means of recovering from the drought and the losses as the Midsummer rites attendance and trade declines.  For Troon, his own Farmer’s Summer Rites attraction has declined as the popularity of a stone monument takes off.  Fearing the loss of revenue and his attempt to be the leader of all in the Great Valley he does his utmost to sabotage Joia’s plans.  In addition to Troon’s machinations, Joia faces internal opposition from certain elders led by Scagga, a jealous individual who resents the power of a woman.

(Experts believe Stonehenge was originally a circle of bluestone pillars)

The key to enjoying this somewhat simplified tale is to surrender to it as soon as possible because the story will mature and eventually keep your interest.  Action dominates each page as conflict is riff, and characters have their own agenda.  Their key is Joia, the priestess who is obsessed with replacing the wooden monument with one made of stone that eventually becomes Stonehenge.  She and the other priestesses believe that the monument is the key to date-keeping, the Midsummer fair, and religious rites.  The problem is how to transport the gigantic stones in a time before wagons and harnesses to the monument site.  This conundrum dominates the third of the novel.

Follett does a workmanlike job creating a society from the 2500 BC period.  He provides useful insights on a regular basis and as a fan of the author, though not his best work, I would recommend his work to others who have the same loyalty as I do.  Relax, and immerse yourself into another world, long forgotten and a story that has a fairytale ending.