John Knowles has written a beautiful, funny, moving novel about a young man in trouble. If "The Paragon" is flawed—and I think it is—the cracks may shorten its life but they won't seriously impair the pleasure of reading it. Knowles, who got his medals for "A Separate Peace," is an intelligent man telling us things we need to know about ourselves. He tells them well.

The title is important. It's not "A Paragon." It's "The Paragon." And Knowles's model or pattern of perfection for youth and manhood is a seeking, nonconforming, erratically brilliant and socially maladjusted college student. For Knowles the perfect model must be less than perfect. Not an irony. A moral position.

"I think readers should work more … a novel should be an experience," Knowles once said in the pages of this review. Experiencing the character of Lou Colfax, Knowles's paragon human being, is...