Civilization in twilight

How each of these men uses the wisdom of Sophia to respond to their different, though equally terrifying, circumstances provides the intellectual axis that runs through the novel. But each story also revolves around a delicate romance rendered impossible by the crisis of the day. Sophia, for instance, is too removed from this world to give her heart to Manlius, and in any case, his political expediency repels her. In the 14th century, as the plague dissolves bodies and morals, Olivier falls in love with a servant girl, and in the 20th century, Julien is captivated by a Jewish painter. Pears handles these relationships – like everything in this novel – with extraordinary delicacy, capturing the full tragedy and beauty of thwarted affection.

Each era is unimaginably different from the other, and yet in each, virtue is tested in remarkably similar ways. Again and again, anti-Semitism serves as the dry timber for a resulting holocaust. Manlius, Olivier, and Julien, so unlike in position and knowledge, must choose between their responsibility to those around them and their duty to those who will come after them – even in the twilight of civilization, when it seems likely that no one will come after them at all.

As the barbarians threaten to invade, Manlius reassures a nervous friend: "We are the civilized world, you and I. As long as we continue to stroll through my garden arm in arm, civilization will continue." But 1500 years later, as German tanks grind toward the same spot, Julien takes a much more proactive view: "Civilization needs to be nurtured, cosseted, and protected from those who would damage it.... It needs constant attention."

By the end of this remarkable novel, all three men find the problem of preserving the best of their worlds vastly more complicated than they ever imagined. What keeps this cerebral story from pixelating into abstraction, though, is Pears's bifocal vision, an ability to perceive the precise details of ordinary life and the broad sweep of history with equal clarity.

There's something sad and fascinating about his God's-eye view of how documents survive or don't, how history is recorded or lost, how truth is preserved or perverted. Each of these three story lines is so compelling that every break inspires a little regret that you have to leave one and a little thrill that you get to rejoin another.

Civilization survives or revives in every case, but the hideous cost detailed here leaves little solace. This is a novel for our time about all time. Those who ignore Iain Pears are doomed to repeat the past.

• Ron Charles is the Monitor's book editor. Send e-mail comments tocharlesr@csmonitor.com.

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