The World Is Not Enough (Paperback)

by Zoe Oldenbourg (Author), Willard R. Trask (Translator) "THERE HAD BEEN RED WAX CANDLES..." (more)
Key Phrases: fair niece, fair cousin, fair son, Count Henry, Holy Sepulchre, Lady Adela (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"The finest historical novel that has come my way." - New York Times

Product Description
With striking realism and powerful narrative, "The World Is Not Enough" brilliantly recreates medieval life. This first of Oldenbourg's acclaimed historical novels chronicles the lives of nobles in 12th-century France and the catastrophic upheavals of the Second and Third Crusades.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 509 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786704896
• ISBN-13: 978-0786704897
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #621,740 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Historical Fiction, January 10, 2000

By	Paul McGrath (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is a fine novel about a French baron and his family in the late 12th century. We follow him as he fueds with his fellow estate owners, lusts after various comely damsels, plans for his legacy, and travels to the Holy Land in the Crusades. Equally importantly, we learn about his wife and her daily travails, and his children and relatives.

It was not an easy life. The castle, for example, had one normal bed with cloth sheets. Everybody else slept on straw, flea-ridden pallets. In the winter they were cold, in the summer they were hot. Mosquitos were unbearable. The streets of the town were muddy; yellowish mud with the dung of oxen mixed in. Death, sickness and disease were commonplace. The baron picks up his first child one day and is delighted by his beauty--marred only by the flea bites on his cheeks.

The church has an enormous influence. The years, months, weeks and even hours of the day are marked by religious holidays, or events. Yet they are all ignorant, and superstition plays a role almost equal in importance. The baron, for example, promises a church elder that he will donate a silver plate he can't afford, if only a daughter (illegitimate) will survive her sickness. She does, and he frets over how he will pay his debt, fearing that if he doesn't, she will be stricken again.

We get a sense of what war is, and how, inevitably, it mostly effects the poorest among us. During a feud with another baron, for example, the two barons get revenge on each other by burning houses in either's village. When they meet each other, their encounters are brutally violent. The stories of the women are no less compelling, with their eternal burdens of childbirth, and their philandering husbands, which they were powerless to do anything about. They work from dawn to dark, are mostly cold and uncomfortable, often lonely, and age quickly.

This is a fine, fine novel, which only one blemish. Unfortunately, there is much too much character summary, which sometimes goes on for pages, and which detracts greatly from the narrative. For example, we learn how a daughter cried when she didn't get her way, and never smiled when put into bed, and treated the other children disdainfully . . . that sort of thing. We don't want to be told it, we want to be shown it.

This is a bit of a distraction, but other than that, this is a fine read.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Count Your Blessings, February 24, 2001

By	Joe "Bagga" (Overseas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: World Is Not Enough (Hardcover)

It's pretty easy to sit in the comfort of a 21st Century easy chair and comment that a work of fiction depicts life in 12th Century France as depressing. Love is very much a commodity in our media-drenched culture--Oldenbourg is able to give romance much more value in The World is Not Enough. What a fine work of art for depicting love amid the chaos! And there are many romances throughout its pages-some successful, many are not. But romance gives these characters hope, and in describing the many relationships throughout the novel, Oldenbourg succeeds in telling us much more about how people during the time of the Crusades viewed life, death, family, money, marriage, hate, and love. When I finished the book, I felt very moved. Lucky to be born 50 or so generations after these characters, for sure, but nevertheless grateful that I was able to see how they endured (and overcame) hardship. This book is mostly about passion for life amidst a world/time/place where death was all too common. Here's the bottom line on what a romantic semi-intellect such as myself looks for in great historical fiction: if a novel can make you feel more passionate about love and your own life in the present (and this one does, admirably), then by all means recommend it to others who seek similar enlightenment. So, pick it up and find out the value of love during the tough times when Europe began to make its way out of the Dark Ages. And see if it doesn't teach you anything about the present.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creditable, but oh so depressing, December 22, 2000

By	Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"At Christmas time their parents had settled the amount of the dowry and the other details. The bridegroom's father was old and he wished to see grandchildren of his race and lineage. That was why tonight Alis of Puiseaux would have to go to bed with a boy."

Thus begins THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, when 14 year-old Alis marries Ansiau of Linnieres, himself only 16. Ansiau is the son and heir of a minor baron whose fiefdom is centered on a dreary, inconsequential castle in the countryside southwest of Troyes in central France. Once the Old Man dies, Ansiau becomes Lord of the Castle, and Alis his Lady.

This historical novel is about the relationship between Ansiau and Alis from the day of their marriage in the Year of Our Lord 1171, to well into the first quarter of the 13th century. The book's strengths and weaknesses derive from the details about their lives, and their kinships within an extended family, as they grow old together. It's an epic of multiple pregnancies, miscarriages, births, diseases, wounds, deaths, infidelities, debts, superstitions, treacheries, feuds, battles, flea-ridden castles, mud, cold, mold, damp, dust, heat, flies, mosquitoes, and other assorted attractions of the good ol' days.

The two defining incidents of their marriage are arguably the Crusades that Ansiau embarks upon in 1179 and 1190. During his first absence from home, the storyline focuses on Alis as she learns to be a strong, self-reliant mistress of her domain. During his second adventure, we follow Ansiau and his adult sons to the Holy Land as they fight Saladin alongside England's Richard the Lionheart. Upon the baron's return to Linnieres, the couple is followed through ever increasing marital difficulties to final old age and infirmity, but still loyally together as the book's last lines indicate. (There's a lot to be said for togetherness in old age.)

"She (Alis) shook her head and rested her cheek on the baron's shoulder. A huge red sun set behind the forest."

The author, Zoé Oldenbourg, took a great liberty with the dating of the Crusades in which Ansiau participated - a liberty that seemed unnecessarily cavalier. The Third Crusade certainly took place around 1190, but none whatsoever occurred in 1179. Rather, Oldenbourg seems to have altered the date of the Second Crusade (?) of around 1148 to fit the plot. For some reason, that really annoyed me.

Despite my pique over the dating, I rate this as a creditable, maybe exceptional, piece of historical fiction. But, it certainly isn't an uplifting one. Moreover, I found it way too long at 490 pages in a large paperback format. (That doesn't sound like much, but the print is really small.) If you want to read a novel about roughly the same time period, and which also depicts a Crusader's experience, I would suggest the much more focused A BOOKE OF DAYS, also rated by me on this website.