“Under Fishbone Clouds” by Sam Meekings (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 410 pages, $24.99)

In the historical novel “Under Fishbone Clouds,” one character pauses to contemplate the failure of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution and its grandiose plans to change the world. This character, a woman named Yuying, has grown old enough to smile wryly at those objectives.

“Now every little thing she did, from cooking to whispering to washing to holding hands with doctors, she did to try to keep the world from changing,” the book says. “It was an impossible task, she thought, but that is what we Chinese are good at.”

These thoughts about “we Chinese” come from Sam Meekings, an Oxford-educated Englishman now living in China with his wife and two children. He conveys a great fascination with Chinese culture and history. And he writes evocatively about both. But his erudition can turn pedantic in ways that give “Under Fishbone Clouds,” his debut novel, a not-so-light hand.

Meekings has gone to exceptional lengths to incorporate great chunks of Chinese history into the story of one couple’s long, fraught marriage. He has even appropriated the Chinese Kitchen God, Zao Jun, as one of the book’s chattiest, most down-to-earth characters. But a casual tone does not always come easily to him.

Meekings has based “Under Fishbone Clouds” on the story of his wife’s grandparents. And he has used their names, Jinyi and Yuying. Yuying is the daughter of a prosperous restaurateur, and food stories run in the family. Although the family’s status seems advantageous at the start of the book, it becomes a major disadvantage once the Communists begin eradicating China’s bourgeoisie.

Jinyi comes from humbler origins. And Yuying’s father likes the idea of a helpless son-in-law, even persuading Jinyi to come live with the Bian family and take the Bian name. This unusual arrangement is part of what keeps the chatty Kitchen God so interested in the Jinyi-Yuying love story. For reasons too contrived to bear repeating here, the Kitchen God and the Jade Emperor (his celestial boss) have gotten into a discussion about the nature of true love. The Kitchen God decides to spend 50 years tracking Jinyi and Yuying to see what human love is about.

Historical whirlwinds are felt throughout “Under Fishbone Clouds,” as the book tries to balance small, personal events with matters of global importance.

Meekings allows his characters’ convictions to be dissipated by too many family crises and too many pointed references to the yin-yang nature of life’s contrasts. It would take larger-than-life characters to stand out against this book’s busy historical panorama, but Meekings doesn’t manage that. Even his Kitchen God is only life-size at best.