I will preface this post by explaining WHY I am reading Twilight.
A few years ago, the big rage was Harry Potter. And at the same time, there was some controversy over those books, because of elements of "witchcraft" that some people found objectionable. I am not one of those people, despite being a Christian. I quite enjoyed those books, and it annoyed me greatly that so many people condemned them without ever once reading the novels for themselves.
So now Twilight is the big thing. And I am so vastly annoyed by it that I tend to rant on the subject to anyone who will listen. But I haven't read any of the novels, or seen any of the movies.
The word for that, children, is hypocrite.
So, I am biting the bullet and READING the first Twilight novel. I am honestly trying to keep an open mind. I mean, I like vampire novels. Dracula was fun to read, if hard to get through. Tanya Huff's Blood novels are wonderful. So what if these vampires sparkle? They're still vampires.
Yeah.
As of this post, I've read the first, oh, two hundred some odd pages.
My opinion... has not vastly changed. But I'm trying to be fair. So I'm going to record my first impressions, pretending that I had never heard about Twilight or Stephenie Meyers.
First off, I have to say I do not like Bella. She's... boring. As a writer, I spend a lot of time forming my characters. I think characters, not events, are what drive a story. I know things about my characters that will never be read in a story, simply because they are inconsequential. I know how their grandparents met. I know their favorite flavor of ice cream. I know their dreams, their ambitions, their secret fears. These character traits may only be mentioned in passing, if at all, but they are there. Bella has very few definable tastes. Her favorite color? Who knows? Her dreams? Apparently they involve a sullen, rude vampire. She is shown to be an advanced, intelligent student. Yet only ONCE in two hundred pages is there any mention of her future plans. She mentions possibly being offered a scholarship to a college someplace sunny, somewhere around page 70 of my copy.
Why does that bother me? I mean, college doesn't have to be the focus of her life just because she's smart, right?
It's because it is passive. She doesn't talk about applying for colleges, she talks about being offered a scholarship. So if no one offers her one, she won't go? I suppose she might have trouble affording school if she doesn't get a scholarship, but then her family is not shown to be especially poor. In point of fact her father is well enough off that he can purchase a truck, albeit an older one, for her. Surely he can manage a parent loan.
She has no hobbies beyond reading and mooning over Edward. She has no job, no close friends, nothing that might distract her from the very, very slowly building... is this supposed to be a romance?
Now, I'm not a fan of romance, in general. But there is a certain satisfaction in seeing two characters who have fought hard to be together finally get the chance to rest in each other's arms and enjoy the sunset. Anne Bishop, Patricia Briggs, Mercedes Lackey and Tanya Huff all include romantic elements in their stories and I always love reading the resolution. But then, those authors make their characters EARN their happily ever after. Anne Bishop's Daemon survived over a thousand years as a slave waiting to MEET his beloved Queen. Patricia Brigg's Ward of Hurog survived a war and a rebellion and laid his secret heart bare to earn Tisala. I can go on.
What, exactly, has either Bella or Edward done? They sit together in Biology... Edward did save Bella's life once or twice. And yet there was no excitement, no tension. Perhaps that comes later? I admit I haven't read the entire thing. So far the only thing they've done together is eat and talk. Bella pesters Edward for the truth... and is oddly accepting of that truth when she gets it. Edward is openly rude to Bella, and then... kind of cold, in my opinion.
Okay, I'm not being fair. I've listed the negatives. I should list the positives. The book does have some.
It reads very quickly. I got the book from the library yesterday and I'm already 200 pages in. The descriptions of the town, school and surrounding environment are vivid and enjoyable. I could do with a few less descriptions of Edward's eyes. I get it. He's pretty. Anyway.
I'll admit, so far it isn't a terrible book. It's just that I still don't understand the hype. And I honestly think I never will.
I wonder if I would have liked Twilight when I was younger. I'm not a romance girl myself, although I don't mind a touch of it here and there. I think for me, Twilight is just brain candy. It was, as you said, an easy read. So no real *thinking* was involved. I enjoyed the texture of the story more than the story itself. And, maybe there's some very basic, primal urge in some of us to have a happy ending. Which, if you can make it all the way through the 4 books, does eventually establish itself. Not as neatly as you might expect, though.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I'm enjoying JP Wards Brotherhood of the Black Dagger series, although it's way more romancy than I like...even more than Twilight. IT's grown up romance, though, so some rather explicit sex scenes. Maybe I'm just going through a new phase durring menopause. Or maybe I just needed something light with all the heavyness that goes on in my reality. I don't expect it to last, though, as I'm enjoying *The Strain*, and there's nothing romancy about this vampire. Not in the slightest.
Considering it's mostly teens who seem to like this, I'd say the big deal about Twilight is that it's easy to get into. You don't have to think too hard to read it; and since Bella lacks depth and has no real goals, it's easy to see yourself as Bella.(Most teens lack hobbies and goals, that's at least what I remember from high school.)
ReplyDeleteOn a separate note, hypocrisy is easy to spot if you look hard enough. Humans think and say a great many things, but our memory is fallible and our paradigms ever changing. We're never the same person we were moments ago.
You've done better than I when it comes to reading Twilight. I, too, thought I should read it before I 'passed judgement' on it. Sadly, I never could get past the first chapter. I was bored with it. I would have been bored with it as a teenager. But back then I was reading stories like 'Jane Eyre', 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', 'The Broken Arrow' etc. Ah, well. maybe one day my grandchildren will explain Twilight to me.
ReplyDelete