Joyce Carol Oates's 12th novel, Bellefleur, is stuffed with … joyous, breathless nonsense. It is the great gift here. One begins this overlong, voluptuously written book by resisting the Gothic winds; but then, because Hugh Walpole, the Brontes, and Mary Shelley really did invent something magical, one surrenders. Joyce Carol Oates has a huge, hilarious heart, her sense of humor and satire rivaling Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Monty Python. One has previously been informed that she is prosaic and pretentious. Slander. In Bellefleur, she clowns, mesmerizes, takes off. This novel is for the beach, sidewalk cafe lunches, airplane rides. It has some very serious themes, such as time, justice, true religion; but its most serious—you'd hardly know it from the current reviews—accomplishment is that it is funny….

[The] most startling and important fact one learns from this lovely conceit, Bellefleur, is that Oates knows that comedy is more...