An exuberant and joyous novel.

This is because Helen DeWitt's exuberant first novel is largely about translation.

Readers of Matt Ruff's exuberant, population-packed earlier novels will be surprised to hear that his third has a relatively tiny cast, at least on the surface.

But written as it is, and proportioned as it is, "Foreplay" makes better sense as a youthful, exuberant and daring novel.

This is the setting for Shashi Tharoor's exuberant and clever second novel.

Ingraham seemed to love Remi, but not Bedford, "the sympathetic, witty narrator and the issues her story raises recommend this flawed but pleasing, exuberant novel..."

This is a "massive, exuberant first novel," James Wilcox said here last year.

IN "Tending to Virginia," Jill McCorkle's exuberant third novel, three generations of Southern women are talking.

In "Coming First," his exuberant novel, Paul Bryers, a British television writer and director, updates this plot to account for feminism and equal opportunity.

Whatever the answer to this not very profound question may be, Mr. Jennings has captured both the spangle and the sparkle in his charmingly exuberant novel.