Books: Medieval Tapestry

THE WORLD Is NOT ENOUGH (500 pp.) — Zoe Oldenbourg — Pantheon ($3.75).

In 1171, “when King Louis the Young reigned in France and Henry the Open-handed held Champagne,” Alis of Puiseaux, a 14-year-old who knew “all the things a girl of noble blood must know,” was married off. Her groom was musclebound, thick-skulled, 16-year-old Ansiau of Linnieres. In the smoky manor of Linnieres, the two families gorged themselves on staggering quantities of meat and wine.

When the sunlight ebbed from the courtyard, “the old master of the house decided that it was time to conduct the bridal pair to the nuptial chamber” — the bathhouse where “a long, wide couch” was strewn with dried lavender, violets and lilies of the valley.

This plodding historical novel may possibly go like wildfire in the lending libraries, or even in Hollywood. The married life of long-suffering Alis and oafish Ansiau is described in great, sometimes tedious detail. Miss Oldenbourg’s canvas is wide but her stitches are painstakingly small. Heroine Alis settles down to yearly pregnancies, frequent miscarriages, and incessant worries about the financial decline of the manor, the fruits of which her self-indulgent husband squanders on pomp, tournaments and the Crusades. Before old age, each has one fierce extramarital fling —and two bastards are added to the brood of infants at gloomy Linnieres.

For its details of a rough and cruel period of history, The World Is Not Enough is impressive. Miss Oldenbourg seems to know a lot about the Middle Ages. As a novel, the book wobbles from sheer weight of overpopulated subplots. The author meanders along on the theory that an unselective detailing of life histories is a satisfactory substitute for dramatic construction.