Poet & Dancer is a short novel focusing on the relationship between a young woman (Angel - the 'poet' of the title) and her beautiful, manipulative cousin Lara (the 'dancer'). The relationship is convincingly described, as we watch Angel fall increasingly under Lara's spell, and become distant from the other people around her. Yet somehow, it isn't easy to care: Lara is too obviously a self-centred little trollop, and Angel too much of a dumpling, to evoke real sympathy. Jhabvala has deliberately decided to use simple language (apart from one small passage which describes Angel's feelings about the part of the city where she lives) - this gives the book a sense of being a morality tale (as do the lightly sketched other characters), but it limits the insight into the characters' psyches. ( )