Isn't It Romantic?: An Entertainment

By Ron Hansen

Book Overview

Once again, acclaimed novelist Ron Hansen demonstrates his masterful versatility as a writer, with Isn't It Romantic?, a screwball comedy in the tradition of filmmaker Preston Sturges. In this charming entertainment, mistaken identities, botched schemes, and hilarious misunderstandings all play a part as Parisian sophistication collides with the affability and simple pleasures of the Great Plains.

Touring America was Natalie's idea. But she had not planned on being accompanied on a cross-country bus by her playboy fianc , Pierre. Nor had they anticipated being stranded in Seldom, Nebraska, population 395.

But that is exactly what happens to this French couple, and they quickly find themselves being taken in by the obliging citizens of Seldom: Natalie by Mrs. Christiansen, a retired high school teacher who runs a rooming house for women, and Pierre by Owen, a gas station owner and ambitious winemaker in an unlikely part of the world.

And here also, the separated couple become enchanted by the locals. Natalie is soon being wooed by Dick Tupper, a handsome and honest rancher with a rambling farmhouse and lots of wide open space. Pierre falls quickly for Iona, a beautiful, no-nonsense waitress in the local diner.

Soon everyone is hatching plots to get what they want: Owen needs help from Pierre's world-class wine business if he is ever going to sell his Nebraska vintage; Pierre wants Iona; Natalie thinks she wants Dick Tupper, but maybe it's Dick who wants Iona, and Natalie who wants Pierre? The fun and surprises are many in this playful romance.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060517662
• ISBN13: 9780060517663
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Harper
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Flows like a classic Lombard-Gable film

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.

Ron Hansen can write in all genres

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!

French Farce Nebraska Style

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.

Lightfooted Prospero

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.

Typically wonderful Ron Hansen writing!

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.