Thoughts on Twilight, or, A Mid-Twenties Professional Enters the Realm of the Tween.

Thoughts on Twilight, or, A Mid-Twenties Professional Enters the Realm of the Tween.


Argument

I stood by powerless and watched my wife be quickly and surreptitiously consumed by a series of books by a graduate of Brigham Young dealing with a young, bratty, “people just don’t understand me,” girl, Bella, fall in love with a much too attractive, much too charming, and much too old vampire named Edward. Her friends didn’t help with my wife’s obsession, either. I can recall a great unnamed friend warn her, “It will take over your soul.” Even my wife resisted at first, but to no avail.

This is the story of how and why I allowed myself to be sucked into the hype, and how I emerged.

So what would compel a person with a Y chromosome, a professional in his mid-twenties, to pick up “Twilight” and begin reading? Simple, I ran out of other things to read. The “O” magazine my wife seems to never finish didn’t look to appealing, and once I finished the Vonnegut novel I was reading, I needed something to read before I went to sleep at night, so I peered under the bed and found the paperback book, complete with Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart on the cover, and began to read.

First Thoughts

Twenty pages into the book, my first impression was simply how unabashedly juvenile this novel was. I hadn’t read anything with such a childish voice since R.L. Stein in junior high. This book had all the right elements to attract tween-age girls: a girl from a broken home who never thought she was pretty in a new school, a way-too-cute and mysterious boy that seems to want to avoid her at first, and a new school where “nobody understands me!”

Bella, for having such a poor self-image, sure does not lack attention from other high school boys. A couple of throwaway male (unfortunately human) characters vie for her attention, however, she is too preoccupied with her “no one gets me, I am depressed, sorrow fills my soul” psyche to give any of them a chance. Even a line from our buddy Edward Cullen later reaffirms this: “You didn’t hear the thoughts of every other guy at school the first day you were here…”

So we have the proverbial powder-keg of a situation: a low self-esteemed girl finds herself in biology lab with nothing but a fucking Bunsen burner between here and a fucking vampire (to be referred to as “EC” throughout the rest of the study…)



Plot, or Lack Thereof

One thing leads to another, and now our Bella and EC are slammin’ (not really, but don’t you wish they would get it the eff over with already?), and the plot spirals into the “I love you more,” “No, I love you more” love obsession between Bells and Easy-C. This isn’t just love obsession, it’s mad teenage love. Pay no mind to the fact that our E-to-the-C is one-hundred and fucking nine years old, he speaks with all the maturity of his 17 year old body. I honestly was expecting a little more polish and refinement from our friendly “vegetarian” vampire, but no such luck. He matches Bella for the maturity award, “tomorrow, it’s my turn to ask the questions!” Honestly, I was hoping he could leverage his earthly experience into some good pick up lines or something. “You’re the opposite of ordinary” just doesn’t do it for me…

Even more frustrating, every kiss our main characters shared was followed with Bella’s “I’m dreaming,” or “I shivered with pleasure,” or “I just came,” etc… This was tiresome, and I found myself skipping whole paragraphs at a time simply because nothing was actually happening. Honestly, how many “sleepover” scenes do we need? Not to mention, Bella continues to act like a spoiled brat. And who is the real loser in all of this? Her dad, Charlie, who has to deal with this shit on a daily basis.

Why would Edward put up with her bullshit? Oh yeah, she smells nice…. I’m sure Bella takes comfort in the fact that Edward can overlook her being a complete bitch because she smells nice. But this does call something into question, where would Edward be if he wasn’t drawn to her blood? I can’t say for sure, but I would have to assume it wouldn’t be at her house all night watching her sleep. (Not to mention, her quick latching onto Jacob in the second book reminds me of that famous line from Wedding Crashers, “We’ve got a stage-five clinger!”) No, without E-Cizzle, Bella Swan would be Bella that emo bitch that no one likes at school.

Now We’re Getting Somewhere

Three hundred pages without a plot finally gave way to a surprisingly interesting history and suspenseful turn of events. Vegetarian vampires don’t fit well into the classic vampire ethos, but Meyer redeems herself by introducing new, carnivorous vampires that aren’t at all pleased with the way the Cullen clan likes to do things. This is where the novel finally breaks itself out of R.L. Stein-land, and actually becomes intriguing due to the plot, not the love story.

I found the history of each of the vampires compelling and interesting to read about. The idea of a coven of vampires living together is an old idea, but compelling nonetheless. At first their vegetarianism seemed silly, but learning about the patriarch’s (Carlisle) struggle against who he was actually lent some credibility to the concept. Not to mention, each of the Cullen family members has a history, and their having to deal with their nature causes you to truly root for them. What Carlisle has built is actually pretty fascinating – reminiscent of Louis (Brad Pitt’s character) in The Interview with the Vampire. In the second book, we get to hear the most intelligent line in the whole series. Bella asks the Cullen family to “vote” on whether or not to make her a vampire. One of the Cullen children, Rosalie votes no, but offers her explanation:

“Let me explain," she pleaded. "I don't mean that I have any aversion to you as a sister. It's just that… this is not the life I would have chosen for myself. I wish there had been someone there to vote no for me.”

This is what we need more of in this series.

Eventually, we find our characters in a predicament of having to deal with a carnivorous vampire, James, who obviously is overcompensating for something and must prove his manhood (vampirehood?) by eating EC’s woman (by woman I mean 17-year old). For some reason, some strange decisions are made that that put our Bella in an overly complex and stupid situation. I felt like the vampires should have just rotated watch outside of Bella’s house for a month or so until they were able to find James and kill him, instead, for some reason, Bella is in Phoenix with Exta-C nowhere to be found. I am reminded by the famous line by Dr. Evil, “I have an even better idea. I'm going to place him in an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.”

Jokes aside, I was really rooting for Bella on this one. Our antagonist, James, pulls the trickeroo on our vampire that can apparently see the future and lures Bella away. He goes into the classic “Let me explain my plot before killing you” villain diatribe, and Edward busts in and kills him. Unfortunately, Stephanie Meyer doesn’t let us revel in this vampire-vampire combat, opting to not describe a single thing. I would have enjoyed a nice “Edward clutched James’s throat and ripped his head off” or “Edward caught his swinging arm and fucking bit if off with his vampire teeth!” verbiage…

Endgame

The book was good. The characters were compelling, and I finished the entire thing in about four sittings. Typically, the only reason you would ever read that fast is when you actually care about what’s happening to the book’s characters. For all of it’s R.L. Stein-ness, I still was rooting for Bella and Edward to make it through. All I wish is that we could have had more vampire history and less meaningless love dialogue between the characters. I can’t even remember what was going on for the middle 200 pages, but what I do remember is the Cullen family history and the fight with the “bad” vampires. I wish Meyer would have opted to make a more action-driven, rather than mad-teenage-love-driven novel, because some of the main pieces were in place to make this novel really good. Seriously, wouldn’t it be awesome to read about EC going completely vampire ape-shit and cutting some bitches up? In the end, though, it was weighed down by the swooning of its too main characters.

Far be it for me to criticize Meyer on this. The book is obviously directed at the tweens of America, not the mid-twenty power professionals like me.

Final Grade: B-
Final Thought: Much better than I anticipated, but I am not holding my breath for the Pulitzer on this one…