★ “A thoroughly engrossing, beautifully told look at human frailty.”—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
★ “Ambitious and satisfying [ . . . ] Six-hundred pages sounds long, but this deeply human take on a medieval city and its commerce and aspirations, its violent battles and small intimacies, never feels that way. This sweeping work is as impressive as the cathedral at its center.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
★ “Ben Hopkins’s epic historical novel is the riveting story of the lives and motivations of cathedral builders [ . . . ] Rich, moving, and unforgettable, it exposes the vanity inherent in trying to make a mark on history and exalts the power of love, creativity, and truth to leave a meaningful trace on this ephemeral world.”—ForeWord Reviews (Starred Review)
★ “An expansive fictional epic addressing themes of art, religion and power in the mode of Ken Follett or Umberto Eco [ . . . ] Hopkins’s compelling and descriptive tale will leave readers eager for more.”—Shelf Awareness (Starred Review)
“Hopkins weaves together a multitude of voices to examine the relationship between medieval worship and the era’s politics and economics. The resulting epic is both sweeping and human.”—The New Yorker
“Ben Hopkins’s novel has the look of an old-fashioned doorstop of a saga. But when you immerse yourself in the shifting perspectives of Cathedral, what you also discover is a clever (even postmodern?) commentary on the ironies of history.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Cathedral [includes] humor, a huge cast of narrators (15), and a clear fascination with the widest range of human behavior.”—Jane Ciabattari, Literary Hub
“Comparisons are inevitable to Ken Follett’s bestselling book about the building of a cathedral, The Pillars of the Earth. Hopkins’s debut is the superior: beautifully written and profoundly insightful about its very human characters and their yearning for both God and Mammon.”—Antonia Senior, The Times (UK), Book of the Month
“Cathedral is an ambitious epic [ . . . ] A rich, occasionally bewildering array of characters peoples its pages [ . . . ] Their stories interweave to create a memorable tapestry of politics, religion and conflicting human desires.”—The Sunday Times (UK)
“A varied cast of hugely engaging characters jostle for status, rising and falling according to the whims of pirates and Popes. An immersive, old-fashioned read that rattles along at a cracking pace.”—Richard Beard, author of Lazarus is Dead and The Day That Went Missing
“The design and construction of a lofty Medieval cathedral over the course of a century brings together a vast array of characters in a tale of ambition, obsession, desire, vanity and power.”—USA Today
“Hopkins surrounds us with people who share our irresistible attraction to physical beauty and the charisma of power, the often prickly comforts of faith, and greed, lust, hunger, illusion, personal love: all that makes us human, regardless of place and time.”—Jean Huets, The Historical Novel Society
“Superbly crafted, visually and emotionally vibrant, filled with strong, relatable characters, and so engaging that, even at over six hundred pages, I was sorry when it came to an end.”—Kristine Morris, ForeWord Reviews
“Hopkins admits to having enjoyed writing Cathedral immensely, and this is evident in the compassion, humour, pathos and sheer vivacity of a novel which signals the arrival of a bright new talent on the historical fiction stage.”—Sarah Bower, The Historical Novel Society
“I haven’t been able to put it down! It’s such a great read and contains so much! Politics and religion, the birth of an artistic sensibility, the rise of global trade, sassy women, fascinating and original characters.”—Alison Finch, BBC Radio 4
“To a dedicated historical fiction reader, [Cathedral is] heaven [ . . . ] It is a rich tapestry with a satisfying substance full of historical detail, personal insight, individual tragedy and triumph. Any reader of historical fiction should greatly enjoy this book, but anyone who loves a multi-generational saga with plenty of sex and violence will also find it gratifying [ . . . ] a compelling read.”—Eric Boss, MPIBA
★ 2020-05-18
This first novel by screenwriter Hopkins imagines a paean to the glory of God arising from the unholy muck of the Middle Ages.
By the year 1229, a lofty Cathedral—a bishop’s vanity project, always capitalized—is already in the works in Hagenburg, Germany. The Bishop’s treasurer is not enamored of the idea, opining that “a constant river of silver and gold flows into that damned hole, providing the wages of the idle, and paying quarrymen, foresters and glaziers for their so-called labour.” The bishop has just “passed into Glory,” the Lord Treasurer is abroad, the pope is dead, infidel hordes besiege Jerusalem, and “all is in turmoil and flux.” No wonder the Cathedral takes so long to build. Meanwhile, young Rettich Schäffer is an apprentice stonecutter working on the Cathedral, wanting to buy his freedom from the bishop, so he borrows from a Jewish moneylender. The stories of Christians and Jews intertwine over the decades, with piety and decency largely absent from center stage. Surrounding the rising edifice in Hagenburg are degradations of every kind—“the siren calls of Temptation, Debauchery and Vice” and “the Magical World of the Goyyim. Sodom without cataclysm.” Hypocrisy abounds, as when Father Arnold chants over the bodies of dead bandits, because “God listens to what he says….The priest gets an extra sixpence for every Last Rite he gives. He was probably praying for a massacre.” Jews like Yudl ben Yitzhak Rosheimer privately regard the Cathedral as “the Abomination.” To him it is “just a pile of stones and vain idols, an excrescence of the sinful earth.” Well, it’s either that or “the finest Cathedral in the German Lands.” Across the decades, no one character dominates this story of ambition, vanity, and power. In the midst of a plague, a mother and child find cold comfort within the completed empty church as “the Witch of Winter rode the wind.”
A thoroughly engrossing, beautifully told look at human frailty.
