Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or in Canada) for the last
year or so, you’ve heard of Twilight. References to it are everywhere;
Team Edward shirts, Team Jacob shirts, tween girls wrapping a line
around the San Diego Convention Center that would make George Lucas
jealous. Inevitably anyone familiar with the basic laws of physics
knows that for every action, there is an equal or opposite reaction,
and react vampire and Gothic lore fans did. For every dozen twilight
fans there was another dozen self-proclaimed nerds shouting that the
way vampires were portrayed in the books (probably more the movies but
I’ll get to that) was “wrong”. I never personally understood this
myself as vampires have been shown many different ways in many
different forms of media. The Nosferatu of the original black and white
classic film is about as far from Angel and Spike portrayed in Buffy
the Vampire Slayer as the vampires from 30 Days of Night are from
Edward Cullen of Twilight. Personally defending the books myself with
arguments like this.
The one thing I seemed to share with self-proclaimed haters of the
Twilight series was that neither of us had actually read the books or
seen the movies. The books MUST be horrible, they HAVE to be for
vampires to sparkle and be dreamboats who every girl aged ten to twelve
seems to have fallen in love with. Wait though, aren’t Angel (and to a
lesser extent Spike) complete dreamboats in the Buffy and Angel series?
That’s when it struck me that not only was I being a hypocrite, but I
was doing so while being completely ignorant to what I was bashing.
That isn’t like me at all. When I attended the funeral services for a
friend of mine who passed away recently, his girlfriend told an amusing
anecdote about how Dan had read all the Twilight books just so he could
make fun of the girls in Team Edward shirts from a more knowledgeable
standpoint. That settled it.
I had to read Twilight and review it for myself.
Sure, it might be terrible, but it couldn’t be worse than other
books I’ve read. The Silmarillion comes to mind. Heck, I’ve even read
the Bible three times just so when people would ask me why I was an
atheist in Temecula (the California bible belt) I could at least
explain my point of view from a stance that wasn’t ignorant. Twilight
couldn’t be much harder than those.
So here we go;
Told from the point of view of Isabella (Bella from now on) Swan.
The book begins by following Bella from her move from Phoenix, Arizona
to a perpetually rainy Forks Washington. Bella, for your money, could
not, even with all the combined efforts of NASA, the US Military, and
MIT, be more ordinary if she tried. The efforts Stephanie Meyer went to
to make Bella the perfect character for any female human to identify
with were so perfect it made me laugh out loud every time her
exceptional levels of plainness slapped me in the face. She’s tall, but
not too tall, has straight brown hair, is clumsy, poor at sports,
becomes overwhelmed to the point of tears over almost any occasion, is
a little smarter than everyone else in her class due to Phoenix’s
superior school system in comparison to that of the one ruling over her
Forks high school, and spends the entire book questioning why anyone
would love or even be interested in her. Bella’s character for these
reasons, as I’ve heard from male friends of mine, is a big reason why
the entire series should be written off. What’s so exceptional about
her that anyone should care what happens to her, most of all the
exceptional Edward (we’ll get to him in a bit). Though this is how the
book identifies itself as being strictly for women (and gay men to a
certain extent). There ISN’T anything exceptional about her, and
somehow beyond ALL odds she manages to attract the attention of not
only every boy in her school, but of the dreamiest male since Brad Pitt
swaggered his way onto the set of Thelma and Louise.
Edward is introduced as a member of a family (the Cullens) who are
beyond any regular measure of attractiveness and athleticism. Edward
somehow can NOT keep his eyes off of her, and reacts ALMOST violently
to Bella’s presence in his class. Bella can not understand the hatred
this beautiful Edward has towards her with almost no excuse
what-so-ever. Edward is the first archetype of the dime store romance
novel introduced. Tall, chiseled from white stone, with high cheekbones
and eyes that “smoulder” so often I thought about making “smouldering
eyes” a drinking game (every time you read it, take a drink). Edward at
one point saves Bella from being crushed by a car with his supernatural
vampire abilities leaving Bella with a ton of questions about this
superhero roman god in finely tailored clothing who attends high
school. I also enjoyed the almost Superman/Clark Kent obvious secret
identity thing here. No one notices of course when he stops a full
sized van from crushing the perpetual Louis Lane that is Bella.
Eventually Edward’s malice towards Bella fades into an attraction, and
from there develops into a deep and intense love. A love so deep and
pure I couldn’t help but laugh and laugh and laugh at it’s
ridiculousness. Again though, this is where the book shows that it
isn’t written for me, it’s written for my girlfriend (oh dear god is
this book ever written for my girlfriend).
While Edward and Bella’s relationship begins to blossom and they
talk more often, Bella meets a young boy named Jacob Black who
unravels all the questions that Bella has of Edward with his tales of
Native American folklore. Jacob Black would be the second dime store
romance novel archetype. Why else would there be a well built Native
American boy in the story? They don’t cover it in this story, but I can
smell romantic tension from a few books away. Evidently what happened
is the Cullens came to Washington long ago to hide from the sun, which
comes out in Forks a total of seven days a year, and made a deal that
they would not ever enter the Native’s reservation land in exchange for
the natives not ever selling them out as being vampires (as harmless as
they promised to be towards humans). Of course Bella is already far too
in love with her picturesque Edward to even care that he’s a vampire.
Then Edward takes Bella to a meadow and reveals much about himself, how
and when he became a vampire, and to the chagrin of vampire fans
everywhere that vampires don’t burst into flames when in contact with
direct sunlight, but instead sparkle.
The translation via myth of course is that they hid from the
sunlight because of bursting into flames, but evidently it was just
that they would be highlighted because of their sparkly weakness.
Actually the vampires in this story don’t really have ANY weaknesses.
They’re unbelievably strong, much stronger than any vampire I’ve read
about or seen previously. They play baseball with each other only
during thunderstorms to hide the boom of the bat [yes I know vampires
playing baseball, I laughed too]. Edward is the fastest of of his
family, which is saying a lot because at times they run fast enough to
keep pace with a full speed Mercedes. Some of them even carry over
minor mental abilities that are exaggerated in the process of being
turned into a vampire. Edward can read minds, has a “sister” Alice that
is prescient, and another “sibling” Jasper who has the ability to calm
or excite people as he wishes. According to Edward the only way to
kill one of their kind is to tear them into pieces and burn the remains.
I use quotes around sibling and sister because this isn’t Edwards
family per se, just his coven. A group of vampires that has sworn off
human blood in favor of hunting only animals. That is where you also,
though, discover Edward’s almost impossible attraction to the plain and
hapless Bella. Evidently her blood is too tempting. It’s used to
explain the avoidance when they first met after his almost outburst of
violence at their first encounter. It’s Edward’s heroin if you will.
Having been a vampire that has sworn off the blood of humans for so
long, being around Bella is the ultimate temptation, like an alcoholic
that eventually has to start attending New Years parties where
champagne is served I guess. He’s always on the edge of giving into his
animal instincts, but is unable to resist being near Bella, who always
appears as a vision of beauty to him and smells irresistible.
It’s also revealed in the story that Bella is the only person Edward
has ever met who has a mind that is completely unreadable. So while
Edward can pry information from the mind of anyone around him, Bella
gets to keep her thoughts a mystery from him. Why any woman would find
this to be desirable is completely beyond me (it’s true, there really
does need to be a sarcasm font). The real action of the story is
pretty anticlimactic. It happens when, while playing baseball, the
Cullens run across a trio of vampires. One of the new vampires decides
he’s going to hunt Bella and the family instigates him by protecting
her. She flies back to Phoenix to hide but he follows her there and
supposedly kidnaps her mother. Bella is lured away from Alice and
Jasper (her protectors), just before Edward arrives, by the hostage
scenario. Of course just as Bella is about to be killed the Cullens
sweep in and save the day. At one point Bella is almost turned into a
vampire, but with some careful blood consumption, Edward saves Bella,
and proves his love for her by not drinking her bone dry, in one fell
moment.
Bella admits to Edward during her recovery process that she wants
badly to be a vampire so she can spend all of eternity with him (not
for men), and he refuses because “oh boo hoo I’m a monster, I can’t
damn you forever”. It’s pretty typical vampire fare to be honest. Then
Edward takes Bella to prom, against her wishes, because of her
aforementioned inherent clumsiness. Bella thinks she’s being turned
into a vampire and disappointed to find out that it’s just Edward’s
efforts to make sure that, in spite of his condition, she experiences
as much of a normal human life as possible.
There you have it, the story of Twilight. Now for my impressions.
This book is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. Though
I had hoped that it would be written poorly, it’s actually well put
together. It drags on in sections much in the same fashion as a Stephen
King novel (though being fair I can NOT stand Stephen King because of
this fact). Twilight is saccharine sweet, and is in no way shape or
form meant for your average man, but couldn’t possibly be in any way
shape or form be MORE for your average woman. It panders to the awkward
teenage girl inside every woman which hopes that in spite of one’s
overwhelming averageness, an extraordinary man will sweep in and add an
element of excitement to their lives. I’ve read studies saying that
every single demographic of women loses self confidence when hitting
the age of puberty, and when you take this fact into account with how
the character of Bella is structured, it’s almost nigh impossible to
believe that this book could ever NOT be insanely popular. If this
series continues in the vein that was started here with this first
book, as I’ve said to friends and family before, this couldn’t be a
larger boon to Buffy fans.
The parallels between Edward and Angel are almost too many to count.
Yes, I understand Buffy is a much cooler character than Bella, but the
steamy forbidden relationship between a high school girl and an ancient
creature of the night who broods and is sexy can not be ignored here.
I’m sorry to all my Buffy fan friends who have latched on to hating
this book. No, I didn’t personally enjoy the book myself, but it’s
already too similar with the Joss Whedon series for you to be able to
complain. A lot of people will escape into the sparkling vampires
argument, but anyone who watched the Angel series knows they did away
with the no sunlight at all thing pretty quickly there, which leaves
Angel and Edward sort of in the same boat.
If there’s any reason to not like this book as a man, it’s because
the romance of the situation is over the top and described from a
female point of view that a lot of us will never understand. We’ve
never been awkward teenage girls longing to be loved by someone who is
completely above our station in life, but that didn’t stop a lot of us
from enjoying Pretty in Pink. I’ve been arguing since comic-con that
the vehicle that all of nerdkind has been waiting for to get girls into
our culture has finally arrived and read this book in hope that I could
maybe prove myself wrong, but as someone who considers himself a pretty
big fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel series I can say without
a doubt, you may not LIKE Twilight, but we certainly have no room at
all to bash it.
Geek Out!
Wesley Strawther
