Content area
Full text
Antoine Audouard. Adieu, mon unique Paris. Gallimard. 2000. 393 pages 120 F. ISBN 2-07-075877-x
A HISTORICAL NOVEL about Abelard and Heloise seems redundant, given the enormous bibliography about this couple. Certainly, there have been fictional works by women sympathetic with the plight of Heloise, such as Jeanne Bourin, Regine Pernoud, and Marion Meade. The authenticity of the letters between the two lovers is also the subject of many a study of epistolary fiction and historical studies of twelfth-century Europe.
Antoine Audouard's version of the lovers' tale reincarnates a reputedly forgotten Anglo-Norman disciple of Abelard, Guillaume d'Oxford, as the narrator who triangulates the story into a secular version of the divine Trinity. Guillaume, named after the victor in the Battle of Hastings, is the unrequited lover of Heloise....