Sarum by Edward RutherfurdMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Imagine a grand mural in a grand, several-storeyed palace. Imagine that palace has secret chambers, a humble attic or two. And the mural travels from space to space, beginning at the entrance. The mural is a story within many stories, a giant narrative of people and their descendants through time. Their stories spring from Salisbury, medieval Sarum. Watching over the lives of these people is one constant...Salisbury Cathedral. It too grows and changes and grows through time. Edward Rutherfurd's Sarum is a masterpiece, first chronicling one man's emergence from the world's darker place to the Salisbury Plain, then the interaction of many families and their descendants, all the way to World War II encampments. In between, the Black Death, colonisation, markets, cathedral challenges, loves and heartaches, social tensions and visions intercept the flow of many family lives. Here is time on a grand scale, but the intimacy of characters and emotions is not neglected. We feel Jane Shockley's yearning for Jethro Wilson. But that cannot be. They come from different worlds. We feel Jane's stoic dignity in accepting this fate. We feel many stories and we learn so much about the colours and the mores of many times passing. Indeed, this novel is a vivid mural painted with words.
View all my reviews
old worlds
many
old lifetimes
sometimes
the eyes of yesteryear
seem to watch
sadly
on new worlds
and wonder
why
