Michel Tournier's Gaspard, Melchior & Balthazar [classified as a novel] … emerges rather as a series of short stories, linked, albeit tenuously, by their several relations to the iconography and legends of the Christian Nativity. The various adventures of Gaspard, Melchior, and Balthazar are recounted separately, leading up to the meeting of the three kings just prior to their encounter with Herod. Tournier handles the transitions with such technical perfection that the lack of any essential connection between the stories poses no problem and, in fact, passes virtually unnoticed. Each of the kings functions more as a medium for the author's ideas, or as an excuse for his (sometimes too-great) cleverness, than as a genuine multidimensional character….

The book's final, and longest, story is that of Taor, prince of Mangalore, who sets out ostensibly to find the recipe for pistachio Turkish delight … and ultimately becomes, at the end of his...