Is it okay for a prologue to be a little confusing?

I poked around my library to see which prologs worked for me just to give you an idea of what may work: Good as Gone, Sleeping Giants, Gentleman in Moscow. In my opinion, all these books had well-done prologs, just enough to introduce you to the story, but not an overly obnoxious info dump. I know I have more books with prologs somewhere on the shelves, but they appear to be hiding from me.

A confusing prologue wouldn't hook me into reading more. I think one of the reasons prologues are so looked down upon by a lot of people is because of that reason. It's either a shameless info dump or just a confusing mess.

I've always had the view that a prologue, IF needed, should only be written after the story is finished, or at least well along. Starting your writing with the prologue strikes me as a temptation to wallow in the deep, soggy infodump swamp. I've had this opinion reinforced just this week, by reading Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. No prologue. He starts right into a key scene, and provides the necessary back story as he proceeds.

caw