Melvyn Bragg’s fictionalised biography of the lives and love story of Abelard and Heloise makes few concessions to modern social norms and political correctness. In his account the past – in this case Twelfth Century Paris – really is a foreign country. How in a post-religious world to make belief and dogma seem convincing? How to reconcile the behaviour of Abelard in his treatment of Heloise without losing historical perspective and modern sympathy? How to present religious and theological debate in a manner comprehensible to an audience which has lost touch with its importance for the people of medieval times? How to avoid the facile and melodramatic, but persuade today’s reader of the reality and enduring quality of their love? To solve these problems, the author has chosen to set his tale in separate time periods: the Paris and France of the philosopher Peter Abelard and his lover, the puella docta, Heloise, unacknowledged daughter of a high ranking cleric; and modern Paris where a scholarly writer is researching their lives for a novel on their enduring love affair. The scholar invites his estranged daughter to stay with him and as the Twelfth Century tale proceeds, they meet, explore and debate Abelard’s apparently exploitative and unprincipled behaviour towards Heloise. The daughter is initially unsympathetic, but the father sets and explains the context and the times. Does this approach work? That’s the big question. It all could seem rather like a literary version of Bragg’s own Radio 4 show, In Our Times. In fact the novel reads initially like one of those lightly dramatized documentaries that used to show on the History Channel. It’s a bit clunky to start with – but stick with it – I, at least, grew into it, despite the frequent breaks from the medieval narrative to allow modern discussion on, say, Abelard’s uncaring and impulsive behaviour, or the desire of both Abelard and Heloise to lock themselves away in monasteries and convents. Of course there is drama. The castration of Abelard is graphically presented. The sensual nature of their love affair is not ignored. But Bragg keeps close to the historical record and through the artifice of his contemporary commentators attempts to make sense of its protagonists to his own readers. His modern pair, father and daughter, have their own story to tell, but it is rather mundane compared with that of Abelard and Heloise. I did not think as highly of this novel as I did of Bragg’s last, Now is the Time, but I did enjoy it and found the explicatory approach interesting. I did feel that Bragg had to work quite hard to make the final chapters of the story compelling, but he succeeds, on an intellectual level, if not quite on an emotive one.

We have two stories within one novel. The fist one in the 12th century, one of the history’s most passionate and enduring love stories of Heloise and Abelard. The second part I’d the present day, a writer trying to recreate this extraordinary love story and coming to terms with his failing marriage and his fragile relationship with his daughter. Melvyn Bragg was able to bring this classic endless love story of Heloise and Abelard to us in this beautifully written thought provoking novel.