Audio book, 17hrs, long story. Well written but subject matter of no real interest ( )

Meh, certainly not on the level of The Last Kingdom series. ( )

Very good speculative novel about the building of Stonehenge. Built by real people who had day to day real problems and not by mysterious Druids.

Stonehenge
Bernard Cornwell
Publicado: 1999 | 429 páginas
Novela Histórico

Hace unos cuatro mil años, una tribu del suroeste de Gran Bretaña llevó a cabo una de las mayores hazañas arquitectónicas de todos los tiempos: Stonehenge, un santuario construido a base de inmensos bloques de piedra traídos de tierras lejanas.La grandiosidad de la obra ha mantenido perplejos a los investigadores a lo largo de los siglos, hasta ahora, pues ¿qué llevó a aquellos hombres a acometer semejante empresa?, y ¿cuáles eran sus nombres, sus motivaciones o sus dioses?El gran maestro de la novela histórica, Bernard Cornwell, toma a Stonehenge como principal protagonista de esta novela y da respuesta a esas y otras muchas preguntas.Es esta la historia de las luchas de poder entre los tres hijos de Hengall, jefe de la tribu de Ratharryn: Lengar, el guerrero, Camaban, el visionario, y Saban, el constructor; estos tres hermanos, muy diferentes entre ellos, cada uno a su modo, osaron desafiar al mismísimo dios del Sol.Y el resultado es una novela magistral, un relato intenso y emocionante que nos descubre la oscura belleza de la cultura megalítica.

I find myself torn over this one. At one level, it tells a deeply dramatic tale of the construction of Stonehenge, all within one man's lifetime. At another it is so intensely male that you can almost feel the testosterone and misogyny oozing out of the pages. Until beyond page 50 no women feature in person. There is one instance where 2 women meet (at about page 550), all the rest of the interactions are with men. Women are slaves, wives (and usually invisible wives at that), sorceresses or beautiful goddesses/sacrificial victims. It all get very wearing. I find it hard to believe that work was all done by men with the women singing encouraging songs. If you can get over the overt sexism, then it's not too bad, but it kept annoying me too much to ignore. He does finish with a historical note that some of his incidents are supported by archeological evidence, but that doesn't make up for the rest. I finished it, I can't say I thought it terribly good, I will not be reading it again, this one is heading to the charity shop. ( )