Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Jul. 3rd, 2009 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephbg[Usual review disclaimer, plus spoiler alert, plus I'm tired alert and may edit this for clarity tomorrow]
The same impulse that led to me to read The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) led me to read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Commercially popular, the subject of interesting commentary, and the object of frightening levels of obsession in Middle Niece, I gave it a go.
In some ways it's much much better than The Da Vinci Code: it's far more readable prose, and the initial chunk of narrative is hardly annoying at all.
In many ways it's much much worse, and frankly dangerous for impressionable minds who seem to find it the height of romance. I'm going to have to have a Little Chat with my niece to check on the lessons I fear she might have learned from this thing.
I've read very little YA, very little paranormal romance, and don't tend to read with a feminist filter so I'm either perfectly qualified to comment, or should be strung up by my thumbs right now. I found the heroine's age of 17 a difficult to place in the developmental spectrum; it felt like a bit of a cheat. Old enough to give her a measure of independence, but young enough for young teens to relate to vis a vis school, friends and crushes. She eats very badly and only seems to drink coke.
I'm worried about girl readers' self esteem. Yes, Bella is special, and enjoyed the advantages of sudden popularity without the tainting influence of growing up popular. By the end of the book she is utterly without any sense of self and exists only as Edward's shadow. I wouldn't have minded the "I'm a bit of a clutz/He's amazingly attractive" dichotomy if it hadn't gone on and on to "I only live for him/He's godlike in the purity of his shiny perfection". A bit of perspective, please.
I'm worried about education. Bella is bright and early on we establish that she's probably already done all of the curriculum at her new school, so there's nothing for her to lose by skipping classes and talking about boys with her friends in the back row. Clearly we are not supposed to worry about her new friends who are not getting their education at all, although I appreciate that this is an insight into a classroom attitude to which I myself did not subscribe. Still, bad message.
None of them have jobs, but all seem to have cars and disposable cash. No-one drinks, smokes, does drugs (except once - get to that later), parties, diets, dances, or kisses (without a great deal of windup). Certainly no-one has sex, and there's not a hint of anything other than hetero attraction in text or subtext. I'm not saying I'd like to encourage this behaviour in teens, but it makes for thin background.
Back to the sex; I'm not complaining per se that our 17-year-old heroine didn't get it on with a 100-year-old vampire. What annoyed me was that most of the heavy breathing, delicate caresses etc that looked just like lust to me were written off as a combination of pure love and vampire zinginess. The possibility that it was lust was discarded in a coy sentence or two. But what amused me most was the idea that two perfectly matched and mature vampires wouldn't have sex unless they were married.
Back to the sex: one of the main messages seemed to be that if you had sex you would die. Specifically, suffer three days of torment, die, then become an inhuman monster, and we wouldn't want that, would we children? And wasn't Bella wicked because she parted her lips during a kiss (TWICE!) and was thus an evil temptress and it was only the fortitude of the male that saved them both from eternal damnation. It was his restraint all along that saved her, because she was a weak-willed female who must be saved from everything: cars, muggers, tree roots, windows, rain, dismemberment... I was really hoping her charatcer would get a chance to improve in that department but it just got worse and worse.
Back to the drugs: we're told it's something she would NEVER EVER do, but Bella once takes a cold tablet to help her sleep, and later refers to this as "gratuitous drug use". Drugs are bad, kids, but doing this once is just fine. Again it's only a couple of sentences crowbarred into the narrative, so it jolts in many ways.
As for the stalking (thanks for the reminder![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
purrdence). What stalking? I wondered as the book went along. By the time it comes up their relationship is consensual and she seems happy to have him around at night so there's no stalking. But then they backdated the surveillance to when he was merely curious about her, so ew, yes, creepy stalking.
Back to the narrative:
Girl meets Boy Vampire
Boy Vampire hates Girl/snack/temptation
Boy Vampire likes Girl
Boy Vampire hates Girl/snack/temptation
Boy Vampire swings psychotically back and forth for a while.
Boy Vampire and Girl become friends, not so much a snack
Boy Vampire swings psychotically back and forth for a while.
Boy Vampire and Girl become friends who hold hands.
Nothing else happens
We all twiddle our thumbs
We all consult our watches.
Bad vampires appear! What a relief!
All the Good Vampires decide to help the Girl
People and Vampires run in all directions (possibly to the sound of Yakkity Sax).
There's some very dull subterfuge in a hotel room.
Potentially interesting things happen elswhere, but that's politely out of shot.
The Bad Vampire traps the Girl and breaks her a bit.
The Good Vampires dispatch the Bad Vampire, but that's politely out of shot.
Girl wants to have sex/become a vampire with Boy Vampire
Boy Vampire remains steadfast against the Girl/Whore of Phoenix.
I think that about covers it. Without Bad Vampires suddenly turning up there's not a lot else for them to do except go for long walks in the rain and pick daisies, and she'd just fall over.
I'm sure I've forgotten bits but it's time to wind up for the night. This post might get some tweaks tomorrow.
The same impulse that led to me to read The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) led me to read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Commercially popular, the subject of interesting commentary, and the object of frightening levels of obsession in Middle Niece, I gave it a go.
In some ways it's much much better than The Da Vinci Code: it's far more readable prose, and the initial chunk of narrative is hardly annoying at all.
In many ways it's much much worse, and frankly dangerous for impressionable minds who seem to find it the height of romance. I'm going to have to have a Little Chat with my niece to check on the lessons I fear she might have learned from this thing.
I've read very little YA, very little paranormal romance, and don't tend to read with a feminist filter so I'm either perfectly qualified to comment, or should be strung up by my thumbs right now. I found the heroine's age of 17 a difficult to place in the developmental spectrum; it felt like a bit of a cheat. Old enough to give her a measure of independence, but young enough for young teens to relate to vis a vis school, friends and crushes. She eats very badly and only seems to drink coke.
I'm worried about girl readers' self esteem. Yes, Bella is special, and enjoyed the advantages of sudden popularity without the tainting influence of growing up popular. By the end of the book she is utterly without any sense of self and exists only as Edward's shadow. I wouldn't have minded the "I'm a bit of a clutz/He's amazingly attractive" dichotomy if it hadn't gone on and on to "I only live for him/He's godlike in the purity of his shiny perfection". A bit of perspective, please.
I'm worried about education. Bella is bright and early on we establish that she's probably already done all of the curriculum at her new school, so there's nothing for her to lose by skipping classes and talking about boys with her friends in the back row. Clearly we are not supposed to worry about her new friends who are not getting their education at all, although I appreciate that this is an insight into a classroom attitude to which I myself did not subscribe. Still, bad message.
None of them have jobs, but all seem to have cars and disposable cash. No-one drinks, smokes, does drugs (except once - get to that later), parties, diets, dances, or kisses (without a great deal of windup). Certainly no-one has sex, and there's not a hint of anything other than hetero attraction in text or subtext. I'm not saying I'd like to encourage this behaviour in teens, but it makes for thin background.
Back to the sex; I'm not complaining per se that our 17-year-old heroine didn't get it on with a 100-year-old vampire. What annoyed me was that most of the heavy breathing, delicate caresses etc that looked just like lust to me were written off as a combination of pure love and vampire zinginess. The possibility that it was lust was discarded in a coy sentence or two. But what amused me most was the idea that two perfectly matched and mature vampires wouldn't have sex unless they were married.
Back to the sex: one of the main messages seemed to be that if you had sex you would die. Specifically, suffer three days of torment, die, then become an inhuman monster, and we wouldn't want that, would we children? And wasn't Bella wicked because she parted her lips during a kiss (TWICE!) and was thus an evil temptress and it was only the fortitude of the male that saved them both from eternal damnation. It was his restraint all along that saved her, because she was a weak-willed female who must be saved from everything: cars, muggers, tree roots, windows, rain, dismemberment... I was really hoping her charatcer would get a chance to improve in that department but it just got worse and worse.
Back to the drugs: we're told it's something she would NEVER EVER do, but Bella once takes a cold tablet to help her sleep, and later refers to this as "gratuitous drug use". Drugs are bad, kids, but doing this once is just fine. Again it's only a couple of sentences crowbarred into the narrative, so it jolts in many ways.
As for the stalking (thanks for the reminder
purrdence). What stalking? I wondered as the book went along. By the time it comes up their relationship is consensual and she seems happy to have him around at night so there's no stalking. But then they backdated the surveillance to when he was merely curious about her, so ew, yes, creepy stalking.Back to the narrative:
Girl meets Boy Vampire
Boy Vampire hates Girl/snack/temptation
Boy Vampire likes Girl
Boy Vampire hates Girl/snack/temptation
Boy Vampire swings psychotically back and forth for a while.
Boy Vampire and Girl become friends, not so much a snack
Boy Vampire swings psychotically back and forth for a while.
Boy Vampire and Girl become friends who hold hands.
Nothing else happens
We all twiddle our thumbs
We all consult our watches.
Bad vampires appear! What a relief!
All the Good Vampires decide to help the Girl
People and Vampires run in all directions (possibly to the sound of Yakkity Sax).
There's some very dull subterfuge in a hotel room.
Potentially interesting things happen elswhere, but that's politely out of shot.
The Bad Vampire traps the Girl and breaks her a bit.
The Good Vampires dispatch the Bad Vampire, but that's politely out of shot.
Girl wants to have sex/become a vampire with Boy Vampire
Boy Vampire remains steadfast against the Girl/Whore of Phoenix.
I think that about covers it. Without Bad Vampires suddenly turning up there's not a lot else for them to do except go for long walks in the rain and pick daisies, and she'd just fall over.
I'm sure I've forgotten bits but it's time to wind up for the night. This post might get some tweaks tomorrow.
