Blue Angel
Predictable. The plot had no surprises. Her female characters were strong and fully developed, but her male characters didn't make the grade. Swenson, the novel's main character was convincing in his bumbling paranoia, but totally unconvincing in his repetitious endearments for his wife. And the great novel the student was writing, spare me.
I never felt strongly enough about Swenson for me to be engaged in the book.
My favorite line in the book: ". . .Ruby says, "How's your novel coming, Dad?" . . . "Great," he replies. "It's going great!" And for a moment, he thinks it is. All he needs to do is write it."
I felt the confrontation at the end of the book, exploring language and its ambiguity and its openness to varied interpretations was excellent, although it fell short of what I felt was a genius interpretation of the same theme by David Mamet in OLEANNA.
Oleanna: A Play
