description Blue Angel Overview
Blue Angel is a 2000 novel by Francine Prose about Ted Swenson, a creative-writing professor at a small college in Vermont. Dissatisfied with his career and family life, Swenson becomes professionally and sexually entangled with an ambitious student, producing consequences that threaten his marriage, employment, and reputation. The novel is both a campus satire and a study of power, vanity, artistic ambition, and self-deception, with a premise that deliberately recalls the story associated with The Blue Angel.
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What is Blue Angel by Francine Prose about?
Blue Angel follows Ted Swenson, a creative-writing professor at a small Vermont college. His dissatisfaction with his career and family life deepens when he becomes professionally and sexually entangled with an ambitious student.
Why is the title Blue Angel significant?
The title echoes The Blue Angel, the 1930 film starring Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings. Francine Prose uses the reference to frame the novel's themes of desire, power, humiliation, and academic self-deception.
What kind of campus does Blue Angel depict?
The novel is set at a small college in Vermont rather than a famous university. Its academic world includes creative-writing workshops, faculty politics, professional ambition, and blurred boundaries between teacher and student.
When was Blue Angel published?
Francine Prose's Blue Angel was published in 2000. The novel uses Ted Swenson's collapse as a dark examination of literary culture and institutional power.
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