So I have just about 250 pages to go in Breaking Dawn, the last installment in the Twilight series from Stephenie Meyer. While reading the books, I got an earful of criticisms that I was reading 'crap', and that the books (and subsequent movies) were 'gay crap' (for a lot of people their vocabulary sure isn't filled with variety!). I heard what they had to say, but continued reading and watching the movies, because I have become a fan to some extent, of both book and films. I guess I got sucked into the Twilight zone you could say... LOL
With pursuing a major in Literature, we read A LOT of books, both by force and by willful choice. It was while I was coming to the end of my last semester in my last year of university, that I started to hear faint talk of this Twilight book, and more so about the author- Meyer. Mind you, the first set of reviews I heard of her work were reeking with negativity, I believe I heard somewhere that she was marked as 'an insult to Literature'. OUCH. I paid no attention to it, thought 'well I mean if it's that horrible I really should not even bother with it'. Eventually though curiosity got the better of me, I saw the first film, and I was hooked, and then before you knew it I was watching the second movie. Then I thought I'd actually like to give this woman's books a read, see what it's all about, see if she really is that horrible. So I went out and bought (against a lot of people's advice not to waste my money on it) the last two installments in Meyer's series- Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.
After Eclipse, I was a fan, sort of. I liked the story, and the characters interested me.
I immediately was taken with Eward Cullen, I mean for a 104 year old vampire stuck in a 17 year old's body, he was dreamy (for lack of a better adjective). He was a total gentleman, and it was just...somehow appealing.
As for Bella's character, I developed a love/hate/more hate relationship toward her; but I was always interested in what she would do next, which therefore kept me interested in the book! ha!
It's a romance teen novel; and call me a hopeless romantic or a sap but I always like those kind of books! I was intrigued by the relationship between the characters of Edward and Bella; and later Meyer steps it up by introducing a love triangle involving the two lovers and Bella's best friend Jacob- I mean teenagers are going to get hooked onto that!
Finishing up Breaking Dawn now though, and I have to say, ALL I like in the book are the characters (and not all the time even), and the love story. In terms of how she develops her plot, Meyer's approach is piss poor; taking multitudes of pages to set up, explore and resolve a conflict that can easily be done in about two chapters. She draws things out, until you lose interest of the outcome, it comes 'Oh I don't care what happens! I've been reading for way to long and this isn't resolved yet!'. It's like pulling literary teeth, sad to say.
Plus I don't know whether this is a fault of the editors, or Meyer herself, but there are quite a few grammatical and spelling errors, I find it hard to believe that a New York Best Selling novel has spelling errors in it! Say what, she succeeded on some level, because she's making millions from her books and the movies.
People tell me this Twilight saga is stupid and 'gay' mostly because she has distorted to some, and destroyed to others the entire concept/image of what a vampire should be. Apparently, we've been taught that vampires are death inflicting creatures, who are ugly, scary, and prey on human beings only to devour them in the most beastly ways possible. Meyer's blasphemy shows them in a different light; as flawless, totally handsome/beautiful people, who sparkle like diamonds in sunlight, rather than burn. I mean I will be the first to admit that sparkling, glittering vampires is a tad bit weird and stupid, but it works well with the breed of vampires she's presenting in her books. So while Twilight's Cullen family differs greatly from what we all know, who said there has to be one generic image of a vampire?
I mean yes, Anne Rice has scary beasts who brutally murder their prey, and the vampires in movies like Blade, Queen of the Damned, Underworld and Bram Stoker's Vampire were nowhere similar to Meyer's attempts. BUT- the one thing all of these books and movies have in common with their different concepts of vampires is that they were crafted to grasp and capture a specific kind of demographic/audience! Teenagers won't all go to watch ugly, violent vampires who gruesomely kill people- I won't even choose that. Hence Meyer is very smart to have molded her new generation of vampires to captivate, and even seduce the teeny boppers into loving the books.
The Twilight saga has, in my opinion few similarities to other vampire images, they're mostly always portrayed as really handsome/beautiful, and this helps them because they have to seduce/memorize their preys well enough to distract them from the fact that they're going to be eaten like a well prepared five course meal eventually. So she thought outside, but somewhat near to the box. LOL
Meyer has said that each of the installments in the Twilight saga was loosely based on some literary work; and honestly if you look closely and peer through the never ending conflicts, and the spelling and grammar errors, you'll see them. Twilight takes from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice,New Moon from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet ( i really did see this one), Eclipse from Wurthering Heights and Breaking Dawn from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. See she did a good job with loosely applying inspiration from those sources, but her method of doing so SUCKS.
Anyway, after reading half her collection, I'm glad the curiosity got the better of me because I actually read it, and formed my own opinion, although some what similar to the both sides of the debate I often hear. Rumor has it that Meyer's is planning to attempt another installment of Twilight, Midnight Sun- which is basically the entire story of what happens in the four novels but told from Edward Cullen's p.o.v. (See, she's banking on her character's appeal... but essentially giving us literary regurgitation of what we've already read)..... lol.
So arguments aside,books sales and movie sales, and the millions of screaming little girls will tell us that Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga has become a full fledged craze, people have gotten bitten by the vampire concept, and they're loving it!
