Isn't It Romantic?: An Entertainment

This short (under 200p) little romance by Ron Hansen is the story of a pair of French lovers on a bus trip across America. As they bicker their way into the Heartland, they plop down in Nebraska and talk on and on, trying to decide if they should marry. It's silly, witty, brainless, irreverent, and laugh-out-loud funny. Of course it's not serious literature, but it's great, great, great. Just have a cup of hot chocolate and a few chocolate chip cookies, settle down in a cozy spot, and enjoy yourself. But be careful not to spill the hot chocolate: guffaws will spring up unannounced.

I've really enjoyed Ron Hansen's novels and non-fiction. A Stay Against Confusion was particularly meaningful to me. Then he writes one of the funniest novels I've read in a long time. Truly you will laugh out loud as others have said. The people in this novel are true stock characters and yet they seem real; the reader will want everyone to be happy at the end of all the comedy.I really don't want a movie made of this: the descriptions suffice. What a talent is Professor Hansen!

Ron Hansen's latest novel is a departure from his previous historical novels, but Hansen never ceases to entertain. The characters are extraordinary and hilarious. I found myself laughing out loud and wishing there were someone in the room to whom I could read several sections aloud. I can picture this novel as a movie. The slamming doors of the boarding house on the night of the "Revels" seems right out of Moliere. I've always enjoyed Ron Hansen's writing, and this comic novel does not disappoint.

After re-inventing the western in Desperadoes, the religious novel in Mariette in Ecstasy, the mystery story in Atticus and the historical novel in Hitler's Neice, Ron Hansen this time extends the boundaries of the so-called light entertainment. It's as if Shakespeare, after exporing the depths in Macbeth and Hamlet and Othello, had decided to try some lighter fare a la Babette's Feast and give now his own As You Like It and The Tempest rolled in one. It's a wonderful clash of cultures--a young French couple stranded in Nebraska in a sort of Midsummer Night's Dream, a world where fantasy and farce interweave in this sophisticated comedy of errors. What do you do with the age-old, ever-new theme of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again (or vice versa), when you mix this in with French opera bouffe and a variety of French wine stock replanted (like the book's protagonists) in the new world, but reinvent America in a comic mode, with Hansen's characteristically understated, graceful (in all senses of that word) and finely-tuned American prose. Here's light, here's grace, here's a special Valentine's bouquet for lovers of all ages--lovers of life, lovers of good wine, lovers of laughter, lovers of fine prose. Here's Hansen in yet another dimension, tapdancing across the stage this time round. And don't be fooled by the book's subtitle "An Entertainment." This is a read you will want to come back to for all those delicious little surprises under the wrappers.

What a delightful book! I bought it on the strength of the great review I read yesterday in the New York Times. Hansen is a master storyteller and does a wonderful job with this lighthearted and terrific read. I've loved all of the rest of his books (especially "Mariette in Ecstacy") and while this one is a departure for him (that is, romantic comedy) it's a winner.