Cathedral of the Sea

By: Ildefonso Falcones

Narrated by: Paul Michael

Length: 22 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

At last: The international best seller - which has already sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide - comes to America!

Cathedral of the Sea follows the fortunes of the Estanyol family, from their peasant roots to a son, Arnau, who flees the land only to realize spectacular wealth and devastating problems. During Arnau's lifetime Barcelona becomes a city of light and darkness, dominated by the construction of the city's great pride - the cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar - and by its shame, the deadly Inquisition. As a young man, Arnau joins the powerful guild of stone-workers and helps to build the church with his own hands, while his best friend and adopted brother Joan studies to become a priest. When Arnau, who secretly loves a forbidden Jewish woman named Mar, is betrayed and hauled before the Inquisitor, he finds himself faceto-face with his own brother. Will he lose his life just as his beloved Cathedral of the Sea is finally completed?

©2008 Ildefonso Falcones (P)2008 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“The passion and heartache, as well as the grit and grime, of medieval Spain come alive.... This epic novel...twists and turns through war, women and the Spanish Inquisition...[A] saga filled with colorful characters...[A] fantastic 14th-century fresco.” (USA Today)

“[It’s] soap opera on a grand scale, made believable and enthralling by the inclusion of the commonplace brutalities and small compassions of life in medieval Barcelona. Watching Arnau’s rise from literal rags to riches is frequently like watching a series of train wrecks; you’re horrified but can’t look away...[The] plot...is so beautifully structured that the last sixty pages detonate like a string of firecrackers...[The] prose is powerful...Falcones has an eye for the singular, telling detail, and…his characters are...believable...[A] riveting story.” (The Washington Post)

"[An] absorbing epic...Falcones’s rich portrait of medieval society is fascinating.” (Publishers Weekly)

Excellent book to listen

The narrator does an excellent job. And the book itself is very good. I enjoyed it from begining to end.
A recomend this book to anyone

Excellent!

A touching story, full of intrigue and drama - beautifully told. It brought to life the beautiful cathedral in Barcelona.

A nice change of venue

I have not ventured into Spain with my audiobook choices and am pleased I did so with this book. I enjoyed the story and learned a little about Spain's history.

An epic read

This compelling book grabbed my imagination from the first chapter and never let go. The story was told both by the author and narrator with such pathos that I could feel every experience as if it were my own.

Spain of the 1300's was a mystery to me. This book told a majestic tale of the tenderness of human dignity and the forces that would try to undermine and destroy it. This is a rich, engaging story of courage, submission, resistance and love. Most of all love against all odds, love that demands the reader as an accomplice. Highly recommended.

Excellent, well worth the time and money!

Very entertaining. Easy to follow the plot, educational. Well done! Well worth the purchase! Highly recommended!

outstanding book

One of my all time favorites. This is not necessarily a happy story, or a sad really, but a realistic story of how hard life can, and used to be. I have listened to this book twice and will probably do so again, even though I shouldn't as the dark parts seriously change my mood. Paul Michael is my favorite narrator, and performs flawlessly.

Read about Santa Maria Del Mar first

The cathedral is a continuous theme around a standard soap opera tale and am glad I looked it up finally. It’s beautiful and truly worthy of having it’s story told.

A glimpse into life in medieval Spain

Though a long story, it is very well written and read. I highly recommend this book.
Hearing about the Inquisition was interesting and sad as was the treatment of women, jewish people and the poor.

Very good historical novel.

The point of the novel is the historical setting as much as the characters, so if you don't like historical detail, there's not a lot of reason to read it, or complain about the detail if you do. If you don't like cheese, don't order a pizza.

This is good historical novel, with a strong setting and enough detail to make the characters and their actions make sense. The story takes place over two generations in 14th century Barcelona, and is about class, wealth, political intrigue, trade, and of course social conditions in a time of great change. While there is plenty of romance, revenge, abuse, family, and all the elements of mainstream novels, the central story is still the historical setting. Women are horribly abused, Jews are persecuted, serfs are treated like dogs, and all is taken for granted because that was the history of the era.

Throughout, though, the writer deliberately demonstrates these horrors as, well, horrible, and that is much of the point of the book--the strife to overcome these issues and live as well as possible. It is well done.

There are some shortcomings. The writer is a bit unsophisticated at working the historical lessons into the scenes, so at times he describes too much without enough action. And the construction of the novel is a little simplistic at times--most mysteries are wrapped up quickly, before new scenes are begun. Doesn't quite earn the label "eposidic," but close. Also, some scenes don't ring true--characters do things that are way out of character at times.

The novel is easily compared to Follet's two medieval novels, rightfully so, but there are differences. Falcones is less melodramatic, less manipulative, and less cheesy (mostly), but he's not as good at the larger setting as Follet, and the story isn't quite as layered. It's also not nearly as long.

Overall, I loved it, but it was a bit weak on development, though the setting made up for it. Follet fans will probably like it.

Engrossing Read

Very interesting read. The setting is loosely related around "Santa Maria, Barcelona"(**google it:Read wiki and view church pictures).

The majority of the book is somewhat dark (i.e. Bad things happen to good people).

The narration is done very well.

Overall this is a very good historical fiction read, but I would say "Pillars of the Earth" and "World without End" by Ken Follett are must reads that are beyond compare.