Twilight redux
Dec. 7th, 2008 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seabird78I've slept too much to be tired again for a long, long, time, and now I'm bored and restless. Trouble is, I'm housebound until my chest clears up, and so I figure I'll kill a little time doing a post-mortem on my experience reading Twilight.
In the interest of not spoiling anything for those who still intend to read it, I think the best way to go about this is to do a list of pros and cons.
Pros:
1. The story was simple and easy to tear through. I didn't get through it in a night or two like a lot of people, but I easily could have if I wasn't only reading this on the train to and from work.
2. The author didn't confine herself to tried-and-true vampire myths, creating her own rules instead.
3. The scenes where Bella and Edward were alone together, fighting to resist their mutual feelings of attraction and desire, were filled with delicious tension and left me embarrasingly riveted. I knew it was a big tease, but I couldn't help but hope that all the innuendo would pay off at some point.
Cons:
1. Bella. I know a lot of her appeal is supposed to lie in her everywomanness, but when I'm reading a novel, I don't want to see a mirror of my own insecurities in my heroine. Every time she said something about how there was no way she was worthy of Edward's love, how she didn't understand his attraction to someone so ordinary, I wanted to shake her. Hard. And I hated, hated, hated how she turned the reigns over to Edward so easily in so many instances. She let him dictate when and how they could share intimacies, when they could see each other, and her preparations for seeing him next. Sure you could argue it has to be this way because he's dangerous to her, but all too often she came across as simpering and helpless. I know she grows a set towards the end, and tries to take charge of her own destiny, but even that involves taking control by relinquishing control, and it felt like too little, too late.
2. Edward. Can you say stalker? Can you say control freak? Can you say bad boyfriend material? That's what I found myself saying about a lot of his behavior, and it really disturbed me that this is what passes for romantic. Pretty early on in the story, he insists upon driving Bella home, and when she refuses he GRABS HER ARM AND ROUGHLY DRAGS HER TO HIS CAR! And we're supposed to overlook this why? Because he's the most beautiful boy we've ever seen? Because he's madly in love with Bella and wants nothing more than to keep her safe? Sorry folks, but those excuses don't cut it for this reader.
3. Dialogue. I knew going in that this novel would be oozing with cheesy dialogue, and I was prepared to accept that, because I knew this was a teenage melodrama, and because I normally love anything that's so bad it's good. This, though, this was too much even for me at points...all the gushing proclamations of love, the lines that were clearly expositional, and the mwah hah hah monologue from the villain. Come to think of it, maybe I should blame this book for all the gunk I'm coughing up these last few days, maybe it's stuff I swallowed every time this story made me want to gag. ;)
4. Plot. I mentioned in the pro section that this story moved quickly and easily, but I felt like the central conflict was tacked on just to provide yet another reason for Bella to be rescued. I didn't need it. I was happy as could be with the conflict over whether or not Bella and Edward could be together, and I feel like she jumped to the other plot point because she needed a distraction, a way to stall them from getting it on. I don't know if this was sold as a multiple-book deal, and she knew she'd have to drag out the foreplay in order to justify additional novels, but regardless, the drastic shift in tone and direction didn't do it for me.
So I think that's everything I wanted to address. It could have been a lot worse, but it also could have been much, much, much better. If you take it at face value and read it as nothing more than a simple, sweet love story it works. But if you're like me, unable to shut off your internal feminist even when you know you should, you'll probably want to look elsewhere.
In the interest of not spoiling anything for those who still intend to read it, I think the best way to go about this is to do a list of pros and cons.
Pros:
1. The story was simple and easy to tear through. I didn't get through it in a night or two like a lot of people, but I easily could have if I wasn't only reading this on the train to and from work.
2. The author didn't confine herself to tried-and-true vampire myths, creating her own rules instead.
3. The scenes where Bella and Edward were alone together, fighting to resist their mutual feelings of attraction and desire, were filled with delicious tension and left me embarrasingly riveted. I knew it was a big tease, but I couldn't help but hope that all the innuendo would pay off at some point.
Cons:
1. Bella. I know a lot of her appeal is supposed to lie in her everywomanness, but when I'm reading a novel, I don't want to see a mirror of my own insecurities in my heroine. Every time she said something about how there was no way she was worthy of Edward's love, how she didn't understand his attraction to someone so ordinary, I wanted to shake her. Hard. And I hated, hated, hated how she turned the reigns over to Edward so easily in so many instances. She let him dictate when and how they could share intimacies, when they could see each other, and her preparations for seeing him next. Sure you could argue it has to be this way because he's dangerous to her, but all too often she came across as simpering and helpless. I know she grows a set towards the end, and tries to take charge of her own destiny, but even that involves taking control by relinquishing control, and it felt like too little, too late.
2. Edward. Can you say stalker? Can you say control freak? Can you say bad boyfriend material? That's what I found myself saying about a lot of his behavior, and it really disturbed me that this is what passes for romantic. Pretty early on in the story, he insists upon driving Bella home, and when she refuses he GRABS HER ARM AND ROUGHLY DRAGS HER TO HIS CAR! And we're supposed to overlook this why? Because he's the most beautiful boy we've ever seen? Because he's madly in love with Bella and wants nothing more than to keep her safe? Sorry folks, but those excuses don't cut it for this reader.
3. Dialogue. I knew going in that this novel would be oozing with cheesy dialogue, and I was prepared to accept that, because I knew this was a teenage melodrama, and because I normally love anything that's so bad it's good. This, though, this was too much even for me at points...all the gushing proclamations of love, the lines that were clearly expositional, and the mwah hah hah monologue from the villain. Come to think of it, maybe I should blame this book for all the gunk I'm coughing up these last few days, maybe it's stuff I swallowed every time this story made me want to gag. ;)
4. Plot. I mentioned in the pro section that this story moved quickly and easily, but I felt like the central conflict was tacked on just to provide yet another reason for Bella to be rescued. I didn't need it. I was happy as could be with the conflict over whether or not Bella and Edward could be together, and I feel like she jumped to the other plot point because she needed a distraction, a way to stall them from getting it on. I don't know if this was sold as a multiple-book deal, and she knew she'd have to drag out the foreplay in order to justify additional novels, but regardless, the drastic shift in tone and direction didn't do it for me.
So I think that's everything I wanted to address. It could have been a lot worse, but it also could have been much, much, much better. If you take it at face value and read it as nothing more than a simple, sweet love story it works. But if you're like me, unable to shut off your internal feminist even when you know you should, you'll probably want to look elsewhere.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 10:39 pm (UTC)http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/dec/04/twilight-film-vampire
i haven't seen it but i don't know if i will,.. i can't turn my feminism off, either! x