Okay, so, I have about a million things to say about this new book we’re tackling, many of them involving the phrase “fucked up”. Bear with me.

First thing I’ve noticed: the first four chapters seem to have a dreamlike quality – David knows somewhere in his subconscious that what he’s doing is fucked up (“No matter what passes between them now, they will have to meet again as teacher and pupil. Is he prepared for that?”, p. 12), but it isn’t until the cold, harsh language of the notification he receives that reality seems to set in. David thinks he’s happy but his life has become so twisted…why else would he pursue students so damn persistently, unless there was something really wrong with him? It’s kind of scary how skewed his visions of right and wrong have become.

Also, David says Melanie is too innocent to have taken the step toward getting him fired, but the page before, he says, “Melanie…takes things to heart. He would not have guessed it. What else has he not guessed about her?” (37) The man has got another thing coming, I think. He’s in way over his head – with a girl he knows NOTHING ABOUT – and he doesn’t quite grasp that.

Next, I find the whole scene on pages 26-27 to be one of the creepiest and disturbing, if not THE most creepiest and disturbing, thing I have ever read. David is trying to convince himself that all he wants is satisfaction in his sex life. But there are clearly other things the man needs. Like a psychological evaluation. The last line of page 26 is just so fucked up! I don’t even want to type it. It makes me shudder.

Moving on: “What, in her heart, is she trying to be?” (27) I honestly believe that no woman – even a young, “innocent” woman such as Melanie, would open up the can of worms that is sleeping with your professor in an effort to be a daughter figure to him. Highly doubt that would any sane person’s motivation. Also, the fact that he and Melanie have sex on his daughter’s bed creeped me out enough to want to toss the book across the room in disgust.

However, I don’t hate this book, at all. I’m fascinated by the fact that even though I’m repulsed, I’m interested in this character. Plus the writing is incredible (which is probably why I’m still reading – the author is handling a tough issue in a way that’s kept me interested in what happens). My favorite quote of the chapters we’ve read so far has got to be on page 13, before things get really bizarre: “Do the young still fall in love, or is that mechanism obsolete by now, unnecessary, quaint, like steam locomotion?” This is beautiful, to me – one perfect sentence encapsulating the idea of a sad, wistful man drifting through life, jaded, knowing his prime years are past, lonely and unsure of the things he was once so positive about.

David reminds me of Oscar a little, on page 18: “…he ought to let her go. But he is in the grip of something. Beauty’s rose: the poem drives straight as an arrow.” He gets crazy-stalkerish but is blinded by an impulse more powerful than his sense of logic.

So. What I want to know is: what the hell happened in his relationship with his daughter? That started his slow decline into looniness? That made him so fucked up?! I want to know more!