Louis de Bernières helped broaden the canvas of British fiction in the 1990s, gaining a considerable popular appeal with his use of Latin American and continental European settings, his willingness to allow history and politics to be constituents of the novelistic canvas, and his ability to create recognizable yet individual characters. Without being deliberately experimental, he breaks out of novelistic forms as they have been traditionally conceived. At times de Bernières's work deals with themes--such as the brutality of war and political oppression--that might be soft-pedaled by more genteel or formalistic writers. Yet, part of his appeal is a strong comic sensibility. De Bernières is unafraid to laugh, or to encourage the reader to laugh, at situations with respect to which the only permissible literary attitude might be deemed one of dead seriousness. Although his books are ambitious in scope, their sense...