Circle of Days

Working from hundreds of hours of eye-witness reports, contemporary documents and interviews with those who helped in its construction, Ken Follett has fashioned a riveting non-fiction narrative about the building of Stonehenge. Every one of its 600 pages vibrates with authenticity. At last we have the true, unvarnished account.

Well, okay, no. 

But what he has done is bring a prehistoric existence to life in a way that doesn’t seem forced or affected. I’ll be the first to admit that the dialogue is wildly anachronistic. But the way the characters speak, while it’s far too 21st century, does make you see them as people. Not waxworks inhabiting a stilted tale of a distant past. Or something as silly as the film One Million Years B.C., with all its grunts and groans and snazzy fur bikinis.

The three tribes living on the plain in Wiltshire - the Woodlanders, the Herders and the Farmers – have recognisably human needs and desires, loves and dislikes and even hatreds. 

When the leader of the Farmers digs up a thoroughfare in woods used by the Herders for more growing land – because his tribe is growing and needs more food –  you understand his motive. But you also understand that it forces the Herders to take a long diversion to water their flocks, which will in turn affect their livelihood. And why they fight back. So one action provokes another and the path to – inevitable – conflict is begun.

There’s more than conflict though. As he did with the construction of a cathedral in The Pillars of the Earth, Circle of Days makes the planning and building of Stonehenge into a fascinating, gripping sub-plot. The original, wooden, circles; the discovery of suitable stones to replace them with something permanent; how to lift massive stones; followed by the working out of how to transport them; and finally, how to set them upright and top them with other slabs. It’s all clearly, painstakingly – and excitingly – described.

I could go on. I won't. If you like Ken Follett’s historical sagas, I don’t think this will disappoint.