QUESTION: Is it possible to cram into a novel every joke the theme and plot will allow, then add a couple of hundred more for good measure, and still maintain, from first page to last, a graceful, elegant and, above all, seemingly effortless prose style? ANSWER: Absolutely—but probably only if you're Peter De Vries. And in his latest comedy ["Consenting Adults: Peter De Vries 1910– © Kelly WiseOr, The Duchess Will Be Furious"] Mr. De Vries once again demonstrates his unique ability to blend a motley array of absurd aphorisms, one-sentence character sketches, running gags, cosmological musings and inspired word games into a coherent—well, almost coherent—and hugely enjoyable book.

The narrator of "Consenting Adults" is Ted Peachum, the youthful product of a Pocock, Ill., furniture-moving family who, in his ambition to rise above his station, studies nihilist philosophy, discovers that everything he's "been so glibly spouting...