See what happened was, I had something like a 19 hour day yesterday. So gilgrim e-mailed the attached comic around midnight, which was about 30 minutes after I got home, and also 29 minutes after I fell asleep. In any event, it’s up now.
And I’m going to take this opportunity to mention a few of the opinions I have formed regarding this newest of nerd crazes known as the “Twilight.”
First, though, an admission. I have not, in fact, read any of the novels in their entirety.
In the interests of fairness, I have opened up book one on several occasions and read portions of it.
1. It is not well written.
Look, the vapid, banal, mormon inspired pg-lust (itself an odd contradiction, no?) of a retarded teen girl and her terribly underwhelming vampire boyfriend aren’t, to begin with, something I’m likely to enjoy. I get this. I said as much to my wife and her response (though she hasn’t read the books either) is that they weren’t written for me. Fair enough, except that Narnia wasn’t written for me either, and that series still holds some resonance for an adult audience. Same with The Hobbit. Technically, the first couple Harry Potter books were written directly with children in mind, but they appealed to many adults because the prose was good. I haven’t opened up Meyer’s “adult” book, so I suppose the level of writing craft might be improved from the YA books, but for some reason I doubt it. Might seem a bit nit-picky, but I take personal offense at bad writing that is held up as good, especially when there are hundreds of other good writers out there who have to work for even a small audience, and then people like this have rabid fans. It’s frustrating.
2. The series appears to discount the entire literary tradition surrounding vampires.
Again, haven’t read them, but from what I gather from online reviews and the pages I have read, these vampires act nothing like vampires. I mean, I’m all for helping evolve literary tradition, but it sickens me to have someone (seemingly from a place of moral certainty, I’ll get to that…) essentially try and rewrite the way some segment of literary tradition has been dealt with for centuries. Has Meyer even read Dracula? Seriously? I FUCKING DOUBT IT! Dracula (regardless of what Coppola might have one believe) was interested in, essentially, two things; living forever and seducing women, not necessarily in that order. He wasn’t in love with anyone, particularly women, and if you want to get down to it, there are serious homo-erotic overtones in a lot of vampire literature (including Dracula) that Meyer’s worldview would obviously not allow her to consider. Look, go read some Samuel Taylor Coleridge if you want to see how far back the idea of homo-erotic vampirism goes back. And while I’m on the topic of Meyer’s worldview, it seems pretty obvious that the entire plot of the four books is a mere facade by which she wants to trumpet her own moral/religious convictions concerning hetero-normative (fuck yeah, I used it!) relationships. Especially considering the way in which book four pans out in relation to how mormons view marriage…that shit’s forever, bitch! You know what, feministing does a better job of breaking down book four, so just read this.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Kilian, these books have gotten more kids reading, like Harry Potter, isn’t that a good thing? Well, the Potter series showed us real characters, who made real choices with real consequences (people died, remember). Even Dumbledore made mistakes and had to live with the consequences. That’s a damn important lesson for teenagers to learn. What the hell is the lesson in this drivel? If you enter into an eternal marriage with your first boyfriend then you can live happily ever after forever?
Fuck, that’s even more fantastical then Lord of the Rings!
I have read the first two books and personally couldn’t stand them. I read Twilight because I’m on a bunch of rpg boards full of the target audience who can’t get enough, so I availed. I read the second in hopes it would be better than the first due to her newfound experience in writing. No such luck.
Bella is a selfish, pompous, inconsiderate, slightly delusional girl who has the bad luck of being very clumsy. Clumsy enough that she never hurts herself very badly, has any noticeable scars, but manages to put herself in many awkward scenes that call for her galant rescue or for some boy she doesn’t like but doesn’t mind using to ‘help’ her. Example: in gym class in the first book, there’s a guy who lets her ‘sit out’ during volleyball so she doesn’t hurt herself or anyone else. The teacher is also cool with it. Her parents have never (or so it’s not mentioned) had her inner ear tested nor have they brought her in for balance problems.
Edward Cullen was probably a very thoughtful and nicely mysterious presence at the school until Bella came and apparently stole away all his self-control, dignity, and added a great deal of OCD and general obsessiveness. Classic case of boy meets girl, boy immediatly turns to big vat of mush that was way out of line with his former personality. Case in point, in the second book someone tells him Bella has died, so woe-is-me-Edward goes off to kill himself. I can hear the tiny violins.
The series reads like very bad fic that happens to have enough of the right elements for its target audience to keep the fangirls squeeing. Vampires, forbidden love, a heroine ‘I can totally identify with her! OMG!’, a broody, impossibly handsome male lead, super powers, rescues, nursing back to health, the enviable convenience of a single-parent household without siblings, and guilt, guilt, guilt, I can’t LIVE WITHOUT YOU.
I’m seriously considering throwing out my copies. It hurts to have them so near Lone Wolf and Cub and the Belgariad. To prove how far into bad fic it goes, later on Bella manages to have Edward’s baby.
I read that in the wiki and couldn’t believe this had gotten published. I’m quite disgusted. It’s such trash!
And to prove Kristen Stewart was a match for Bella, during filming she refused to say ‘cheesy’ lines and had the writers rewrite her dialogue till she could bring herself to say it. I don’t think it mattered since every little snippet of the movie I see has her mumbling her lines into incoherency.
Just… very disappointed this generation of girls will remember these books as ‘high literature’ and think Meyer is the greatest writer ever. I didn’t personally catch the Mormon influence because I didn’t know, but the books are overall so bad it doesn’t matter.
hahaha, great comic, great post!
Until they start making porn for women, let us have our trashy novels dammit. I don’t pretend that they’re good, but we need some low brow entertainment too.
@ Shalyn:
So is this to say, that female porn (as in porn for women) is reduced to stories of sexual tension, without real sexual tension, or actual sex?
I’m just saying I think there is better porn for women, is all. I mean, if this is the height of women porn, then you ladies have a long way to go. Shalyn, I am convinced you could write a better “teen, vampire, romance with terribly obvious religious undertones” in a coma.
I’d hesitate to call it entertainment. It was entertainment the way a multi-car crash needing an ambulance, the jaws of life, and three fire trucks is entertainment…
I’ve always wanted to make a romance novel mad lib. Then you only have to buy one.
I’m guilty of reading the first book and I’m reading the second one now. Mostly I wanted to know what the big screaming deal was since all four of my cousins of high school age are in love with these books. To the point where I’m sure that Thanksgiving dinner this week is going to consist of at least six arguements between Team Edward and Team Jacob.
I’m with you guys, this is drivel. I’ve been skipping passages of the book just to get to any relavent point. I do actually like some of the supporting characters but the two main ones, Edward and Bella, I wanna smack them. Especially the girl. Who puts up with that much emotional abuse, really? It’s like, “Oh he treats me like crap but I loooooooooooooove him!”
I read ALL FOUR books, and yes, I’m still alive and no, I don’t know what all the fuss is about…
Shalyn convinced me to read them, and I’m glad. Carly has read them too ;p
Katherine, Doug’s girlfriend is reading them now, and she describes them as nostalgic and I totally agree. They are angsty, and not really original, and all about this unrealistic sappy version of true love.
Just like WE were at 15.
I actually liked Jacob, but it was pretty obvious he never had a chance.
I also went to the Meyers website to read the released chapters of Edward’s book, to see if she could write him with any more dignity and… nope. The first chapter is okay, but then it goes downhill from there.
wow. i think this is the best comic ever. no wait, i lie, all the bacon ones are, but still , this one cuts it pretty close, and i like Twilight, haha.
I have been reading twilight bashing all night preparing for an epic speech final i will be having. I am going to do a sarcastic tribute to the novel. i have not read any of the books nor seen the garbage they have polluted the theaters with and i never plan to. most of what is written here has given me some sweet ideas on how i am going to go about my speech. Does it not seem in New Moon like a queer-vampire version of romeo and juliet with some things switched around but the same end result? i agree with whoever it was that mentioned the series’ unoriginality. thank you all for your similar bashing of the novel/film.
I agree with Killian! I read one of the books and it put me to sleep! I found Bella Swan (I love how her name implies she is doubly beautiful Bella means beautiful in Italian and Swans are typically beautiful too) to be shallow, irritating and the infantile girl who portrays the character is even more so. I saw the movies and I regret doing so. On my list of books on Goodreads.com, they are all tied for first place in my list of “Books I Regret Reading”.
I was also wondering if anyone could recommend a list of Vampire novels that are generally considered to be masterpieces?
p.s. I’ve read Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Other than Dracula…you’ve got me stumped. The Anne Rice stuff isn’t bad…I’m actually teaching Tale of the Body Thief this semester in my 441 course. The recent Guillermo Del Toro one is pretty good as well.