Sameer Gudhate Presents the Book Review of Circle of Days by Ken Follett
- Sameer Gudhate
- 24 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Some books don’t wait politely for your attention — they kick the door open and sweep you into another world before you even realize you’ve crossed a threshold. Circle of Days by Ken Follett did that to me. I wasn’t prepared. One moment I was sinking into my sofa after a long day, absently flipping pages just to unwind, and the next, I was standing barefoot on the Great Plain of prehistoric Britain, tasting dust in the air and feeling the raw ache of ambition and conflict pressing against my chest.
It wasn’t the story alone that pulled me under — it was that electric, unsettling question that lives beneath every page: What does it take to build something that outlives you?
Ken Follett is no stranger to impossibility. The man who gave us The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and the sweeping Kingsbridge legacy has a rare talent: he makes history breathe. His stories smell of wet stone and burning timber; his characters laugh, bleed, and dream so vividly you swear you’ve met them somewhere before. This time, he walks farther back than ever — into the silences of 2500 BCE, where no written records guide us, only stones standing like guardians in the English plain. And into that silence, he plants a story.
At the center is Stonehenge, that ancient ring of monoliths we stare at today like pilgrims before a riddle carved in eternity. Every year millions ask the same question: Who built it? And why? Follett answers not with academic precision, but with human possibility — ambition, faith, conflict, jealousy, love. The story begins with Seft, a flint miner with an engineer’s mind and a heart that refuses to be chained by the brutality of his father. And then there is Joia, a priestess whose dreams burn brighter than bonfires and who sees a monument rising from earth and sky to command time itself. Between them, a vision forms: a circle of stones that will outlive them all.
But nothing in this world comes gently. Three factions — herders, farmers, woodlanders — share land but not trust. The rains stop. Crops wither. Families starve. Old loyalties fracture like shale. Love is dangerous. Vision is treason. And when violence erupts, the earth itself seems to mourn. This is where Follett thrives: in the collision between hope and survival, between what is and what could be. He reminds us that every great monument is built not just by muscle, but by conviction.
The writing is straightforward, spare even, like the tools of the age — flint and bone and raw determination. At first, I resisted it. I wanted lush language, lyrical immersion, poetic density. But then I realized: perhaps that’s the point. These people did not have words for everything. Their vocabulary was shaped by hunger, weather, danger, desire. Their speech is blunt, their expressions unpolished, their truths unfiltered. After a while, it worked on me — like the steady rhythm of stone on stone — until simplicity itself became immersive.
What stayed with me most was not the grandeur of the monument, but a smaller moment: a child who hears her uncle has been killed by an arrow and cries, “That must have hurt!” I paused, smiled sadly, and thought — yes, of course. Pain is universal. Across centuries, across languages, across civilizations, grief sounds the same.
The book’s pacing ebbs and flows like seasons. Some stretches burn with tension — battles, betrayals, catastrophe — while others move slower, like the dragging weight of a stone across miles of earth. Were there moments where I wished for more depth, more interiority, more poetry? Yes. But then again, how much nuance do we expect from a world where survival leaves little space for introspection? Follett chooses movement over meditation, action over philosophy. That choice will thrill some readers and frustrate others. I found myself somewhere in the middle — sometimes rolling my eyes at clunky dialogue, moments later turning pages breathlessly.
But there is a deeper magic here: Follett reminds us that history is not shaped by heroes carved in marble, but by ordinary hands refusing to surrender. People who quarrel and break and rebuild. People who dream beyond their lifespan. People who carry stones not just with muscle, but with meaning.
When I finished Circle of Days, I sat in silence for a long time. Not because it shattered me emotionally — it’s not that kind of book — but because it awakened a quiet reverence. I thought about the monuments we build now, about our restless desire to leave something behind that says we were here, we mattered. Maybe Stonehenge isn’t a mystery after all. Maybe it is simply a love letter across time.
If you crave a story that carries you thousands of years back, if you love historical fiction that feels raw and elemental, if you believe ordinary people can change the shape of the world — this book belongs in your hands. And when you next stand before Stonehenge, or any impossible human creation, maybe you too will whisper into the wind:
Nothing impossible is truly impossible. Not when enough hearts believe.
Go read Circle of Days. Let its stones speak to you. Then tell me — what will you build that outlives you?
Comments