ANOUK IN LOVE

Anouk, a guileless twenty, is from a family worth thirty billion francs, the fortune having been acquired by her tightfisted grandfather who now gives her a little extra for her honeymoon in Washington with Robert whom she has married lovelessly. Christine Arnothy, no newcomer, learned her breathless style of narration from Sagan, only she exhales much more deliberately. This goes on for far too long, full of ""the small talk"" as the young couple hits the capital where Robert quickly gets tonsillitis and leaves her alone on the first day to get help (in the strangest places) while Anouk goes to a museum where she meets Steve, a beautiful American who ""looks like Peter Fonda or perhaps Jesus Christ."" They fall in love and at the end--with some of her earlier experiences such as a premarital abortion interspersed, as well as some Barbie poupee homiletics (""Intellectual passion is the indulgence of humanists"")--she stays behind at the last minute with Steve while Robert flies back to France. . . . Parlez-vous ennui?