Ionesco has always been such a master of the banal that he has run the risk of seeming either trivial or merely satirical. In his early absurdist plays "The Bald Soprano," "The Lesson" or "The Chairs," he pushed the polite conventionalities of middle-class life to the point of madness—mad refusals to deal with failure, danger, old age, suffering or anything else that good manners are compelled to ignore. The object of his contempt appeared to be the smug bourgeoisie, and since ridiculing the bourgeoisie is a venerable national sport, as insipid and familiar a French pastime as one could hope to find, after a while Ionesco came off as a bit of a bore himself.

In recent years, however, he has revealed himself to be far more complex and anguished, and his first novel, "The Hermit" … forces us to revise our old impression of Ionesco's work altogether...