Blue Angel more than held my interest and Prose is a good writer with an edge to her, but the plot was fairly predictable and this book didn't finish strong.

What I liked:

- Commentary on writing (and reading); the main character is a teacher of a creative writing class at a small college which allows for this.
"Isn't that what he told the class yesterday, that good writing can make you see your fellow humans? It doesn't make you a better person. It just sort of ... opens your pores."

- Humor; particularly in the inner thoughts interspersed with the dialog.
"Marmite! Is there no end to the Benthams' sadism? What will they be serving next - wobbly slabs of jellied calves feet? Steak and kidney pie? If Marjorie knows that most Americans - most humans - don't like Marmite, why is it the only hors d'eouevre? Swenson gobbles his Triscuit in one brave bite and tries not to make a face at the sharp wheaty splinters glued together with vile salty paste. Attentive as baby birds, the other guests wait for him to gulp it down."

"Most of the students are still reading, giving Swenson a moment to think of something to say, some way to improve this heartbreaking, subliterate piece of shit, heartbreaking because, for all he knows, it represents Courtney's personal best."

- Theme and commentary on what amounts to a mid-life crisis; the unbreakable obsession and the guilt in the relationship that devlopes between teacher and manipulative student.
"No one knows that Angela's poems are in his office at home, locked in his filing cabinet. Or that her filthy free verse has traveled here in his head, lilke some malarial mosquito sneaking across the ocean in an airplane's passenger cabin."

What I disliked:

- The ending. Awful. Especially the last couple of pages.

- The crassness. The repeated references to increst and bestality are unnecessary and over-the-top. My first thought: as much of the bestiality references are meant as humor, make the joke once! Second thought: while these do set an overall tone, it's hard not to feel like they're included for shock value only.

A few more quotes for the road:
"Swenson's spirt used to soar on the updraft of transcendence that the library's valuted arches were designed to produce. Every so often he still gets a buzz in the presence of two thousand years of poetry, art, history, science - the whispery proximity of all those dear dead voices. But lately, he's more likely to feel the dizzying chasm between what Elijah Euston dreamed and what his dream has become, between the lofty heights of Western culture and the everyday grubbiness of education at Euston."

"Is this some kind of gay bar? Len would never do that. Besides, too many heads are swiveling to follow the round, gray-suited rear end of the woman leading Sweson to his table."

"'How's school?' It's not as if Sweson hasn't asked forty times this weekend. But that's one privilege of family life - the right to ignore good manners and the fear of boring others, to repeat things and get the same answers." ( )

This is a wonderful recounting of how a slightly befuddled creative writing professor is hoodwinked by his more savvy, very talented student. What he thinks of as a bittersweet romance between the old guard and the up-and-coming talent she sees as merely a business transaction on her way to getting published. The novel is enthralling and well written with intriguing, very real characters. Anyone who has sat through a college creative writing workshop will wince and grin as they read those scenes in particular. ( )

At the beginning, this book was a bit of a page turner. While the characters are very well written, the plot left me asking, "What now?" The story line always kept me guessing but it didn't live up to expectations.
The protaganist, Ted, comes off as slightly narcissitic but you end up rooting for him. Ted's relationship with his writing student Angela shows how complex and well rounded this simple college professor is. Even the seemingly minor characters play a part in Ted's realization and unraveling. This books should be read for the characters, not for the plot. ( )

The accolades on the back and the "Notable Book" by the New York Times gave me high hopes for this book. And, in fact, it started out well. There were some nice details about human-ness that I enjoyed, but I walk away feeling completely unresolved and let down. The ending took a quick turn to not quite the expected and then just stopped. This is one that's going back to the used book store. ( )

By all appearances, Theodore "Ted" Swenson is living the sweet life. He's a tenured professor at Euston, a bucolic New England college; he's published a well-received novel; and his beautiful wife is smart, warm, and humorous. Ted's even managed to craftily pare down his teaching schedule and office hours to a bare minimum of acceptability. What more could a man wish for?

Of course, small irritations have a way of slowly rubbing the good life raw. Swenson's creative writing students are painfully mediocre. How, for instance, can Swenson have any reasonable chance of improving Danny Liebman's tortured short story in which a teenager, drunk and spurned by his girlfriend, indulges in sexual congress with a raw chicken by the light of the family fridge? In addition, Swenson's new novel, "The Black and the Black," seems to be permanently consigned to creative purgatory, and the campus administration's recent obsession with political correctness has been whipped into a frenzy by the Faculty-Student Women's Alliance, a group headed by Swenson's arch enemy, Lauren Healy, who is perpetually offended by Swenson's crime of owning a penis.

When Swenson finally stumbles upon a student with true talent, he can't believe his good fortune. Angela Argo is writing a novel, and it's good -- really good. Angela (an avid fan of Stendahl, by the way) is effusive in her praise of Swenson's first novel, and a series of office visits ensue. Thank heaven she's so physically unappealing. Swenson's avoided any scintilla of scandal for twenty years, and this skinny, scab-kneed waif with dirty hair, nose rings, and multiple lip piercings is about as far from a ripe freshman Lolita as he can imagine.

Well, life is full of surprises. I highly recommend this book. The fatuous rationalizations that Swenson manufactures with each escalating step of his inappropriate behavior, the predictable reaction of Swenson's "friends" and foes, and the haplessness of the human condition are all exposed with humor and pathos by Ms. Prose. Enjoy. ( )