500 Pages of Twilight

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I caved and read Twilight. Yes, the book about teenage vampires. Before I go any further, I want to give you a big SPOILER ALERT!!!!
Not only for Twilight, but also Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice (though I have no idea how anyone could not know how that one ends), and Crown Duel.

First, I want to cover the good points about the novel (besides the comment about environmentalism I made earlier). Basic premise: girl and vampire fall in love. Vampire has a problem. Edward has given up human blood, but Bella's blood "calls" to him in a way that he has trouble resisting. Also, vampires possess, among other convenient and inconvenient superpowers, amazing strength. Both these facts make it dangerous for Edward to "lose control" when he's with Bella. he flat out tells her that they will never be able to have sex and draws strict physical lines. So the idea of self-control runs strong through the story. In general, the vampires-who-don't-eat-people plotline emphasizes the power of the will over instincts.

Also, at one point in the story, Edward tells Bella about when he reverted to humans for food. He explains that he only hunted the guilty. This move keeps Edward's character pure enough for readers to continue to like him, but it also provides an interesting moral lesson: he gave up hunting humans, because even taking the lives of the guilty took its toll.

There's the good. Here's the rest:

It took me a chapter or two to figure out why the book was hard for me to read. If I took a red pen to Meyer's pages, I could cut down on about 200 of the 500 pages by slashing out unnecessary adjectives and adverbs, along with repetitive descriptions. After being told the temperature of Edward's skin the first 10 times he touches Bella, I've it figured out. I don't need it again. And it didn't take 10 times for me to be sick of his "crooked smile" and "smoldering eyes." I realize things can smolder for a long time, but I'm fairly certain that after 500 pages, any other fire would either have burst into full flame or died. An author can use glances and smiles very effectively: take Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice, for example. Elizabeth and Darcy have discourses via smiles and looks. But Austen employs them subtly and judiciously.

In fact, I find the comparison between P&P and Twilight insulting to Austen. I would draw a closer parallel with Anne of Green Gables, at least for the Anne-Gilbert storyline. Anne is a ridiculous, over-dramatic girl who can't escape the fact that she and Gilbert are meant for each other. But, unlike Meyer, L.M. Montgomery does this fantastic literary trick through which she gives the hero personality. I didn't expect much from Twilight, but I did expect to fall a little in love with Edward Cullen. Alas, the 11-18 year-old female population has fallen for a man with no personality.

Don't worry though; Meyer has equal problems with her female lead. My apartment-mate last year came home from a creative writing class with a rule: never write from the perspective of the victim. Meyer broke this rule with Bella. Bella has zero agency. She doesn't do anything. In the entire novel she makes 2 decisions, one at the beginning (to move to Forks where she meets Edward) and one at the end (to go to the ballet studio where she nearly dies). Other than that, Edward sweeps her off her feet everywhere and controls everything. Besides the anti-feminist vibes and the dangerous lessons about boundaries, this just isn't interesting to read.

In the "you got it right" category, I hold up Crown Duel, by Sherwood Smith. While not a literary masterpiece, it provides a fun read, because everything that happens directly results from the actions of the teenage heroine. Despite being held prisoner for the majority of the book, she runs the action. In the case of Twilight, Edward calls the shots and has the intriguing internal conflict. A vampire who can't feed on people? A young man who can barely kiss a girl without killing her? A person who thinks he will be the cause of his true love's death? I want to go inside his head! Why are we kept out? That's where the real story resides.

Maybe because I'm not in anyone valuable's head, I have one final critique: I just don't care. Bella values love between her and Edward as the Supreme Good, and frankly I'm not convinced. Call me a cynic (I am) but True Love just doesn't motive me that much. And Meyer never convinced me that Edward + Bella = more than a high school romance. As a result, the whole story comes off as a high school romance thrown out of proportion and Bella as reckless and selfish.

I could have a lot more to say, but I tried to keep this commentary literarily focused; anything else to add would be rant. If you desire cultural literacy, consider Twilight. If not, that's 500 pages of your life you can never get back.