The problem is that as hard as it would be to watch a more likable character get taken down by forces outside his control, it’s even harder to find a good reason to watch a clash between two unpleasant and unlikable characters. Swenson is a self-centered douche and Angela seems like a sociopath, and I’d rather not spend any time with either of them.

My other problem with the book is that Eggs, the novel that Angela is writing that is supposedly so brilliant, is clearly a terrible book. And I’m pretty sure I remember Francine Prose saying at that book signing that Eggs was a book she had started writing years before, and that she had shoved in a drawer because it wasn’t working. So it’s not good enough for Francine Prose to try to finish, but give it to a college girl and it’s suddenly a mark of genius? Again, it’s the snobbery that bugs me.

Oo. I have never articulated your rule to myself but you are completely right. That is an excellent rule and I am adding it to my definition of good satire right now.

Hahahah, I love your description of this book. It was dull, in addition to its other sins. I think I haven’t read enough university novels to have that perspective — any recommendations? I really liked the May Sarton book I read a while back, about plagiarism?

Yes! The thing of the girl being “savvy and worldly” was one of the things that bugged me so much. Not that she was artful — college girls aren’t innocents — but that she was artful in a way that felt so unreal; and he was innocent in a way that felt equally unreal.

Aha! Solved it! The article where Francine Prose makes those extremely annoying remarks about sexual harassment accusations being a witch hunt was from 1995. And I must have looked at the date and assumed it was associated with the publication of her book. Derp.

There are funny parts in it, I agree. The creative writing class had some extremely funny moments, especially the part you mention. It’s good to know that I don’t need to write off Francine Prose for good! I’ll try one of her earlier books and see how I get on.

*blush* Thanks! I’m glad you did too!

It is awful to satirize a group that already has a very hard time being taken seriously. As if there aren’t enough reasons already for college girls not to file complaints about the sexual stuff that goes on.

Truth. Did you see that thing — this isn’t sexual harassment of students, but it speaks to the point of how seriously this kind of thing gets taken — the girl who was raped at a party or something at Amherst, and the administration ignored her and was awful?

Nobody is Nabokov but Nabokov, I’m afraid. And this wasn’t the least bit artful or convincing.

It was icky! I’m glad I gained a jaundiced view of it pretty quickly, because I would have found it even ickier if I had been in any way engaged with the characters. But yeah, the protagonist was completely unsympathetic and I found his angst about the possibility of accidentally being sexually harassy completely overblown and silly.

You know, I want to agree with your point about the author’s gender not being relevant, but I think it is actually, in a case like this. Where a book deals with patterns of power, and taps into a history of disenfranchisement, it does make a difference whether the writer belongs to the disenfranchised class or not. It’s not the only thing that matters, by any means, but I do think there are stories that a member of a historically disenfranchised class can tell without drawing the same level of scrutiny as that story would draw if written by a member of the historically disenfranchising. When you’re writing about an experience that doesn’t live in your own history, you have — I think — a greater responsibility to get it right, because you’re telling someone else’s story.

That said, the book is sexist. The gender of the author does not, in this case, matter at all.