In this charming paean to Louis XIV's gardener André Le Nôtre and his gardens, Orsenna, a novelist and head of the National School of Landscaping at Versailles, guides us graciously through Le Nôtre's quintessentially French landscapes, combating perceptions that they are austere, rigid or calculated. The cultivated audience the book is likely to attract will appreciate the brief, impressionistic chapters on the grand siècle's twin passions for order and surprise, method and illusion that interplay in these grounds. Orsenna unveils for readers the subtle and mischievous optical fantasies (dependent on the emergent science of perspective) hidden from unsuspecting visitors. He warms the "icy silence" that now cloaks Versailles by evoking the fountains' murmuring music, orchestrated to greet the king as each came within his view, and conjures the mellifluous music once performed here. The author discloses subtle departures from the gardens' prevailing order that only those in conscious thrall of their controlled beauty can fully relish. Among the greatest secrets harbored by these studied collages of water, stone and vegetation is their construction: Le Nôtre left no written account of his plans or activities, nor of his conversations with his boss. But readers learn that Versailles, 35 years in the making, involved a daunting mental prowess and dizzying engineering feats, sometimes with 35,000 men simultaneously at work. Driven by the king's ferocious ego and Le Nôtre's determination to have the last word with nature, this unrestrained extravagance vitalizes Versailles, belying its cool surface restraint. Orsenna, enamored by his surroundings and beguiled by the man who so many years ago devoted his life to them, offers an engaging tour. Photos and illus. (Aug.)
