russian roullette is not the same without a gun
and baby when its love if its not rough it isn't fun. stephenie meyer could learn a thing or two from lady gaga, mmhm.
and so a little more than two weeks after beginning the process, i have finished the entirety of the twilight saga, closing breaking dawn late last night, within the first hour of halloween. and kids, really, breaking dawn wasn't that bad. certainly not worse than the epilogue of deathly hallows, like someone in tw_secret claimed. granted, i went into it expecting under shit, and also was not gripped with months of anticipation the way die hard fans had been. so its understandable that my reaction would be more lenient. but really, it was better than eclipse and it was way better than twilight itself. yes, obviously, meyer fails miserably at proper story structure, not just in terms of the incredibly anticlimactic climax, but the book as a whole. the story has two sequential conflicts, but she divides the book into three parts. which was, honestly, really awkward. don't get me wrong, getting jacob's perspective on things was perfect for that section of the book, but once the pregnancy from hell/wolf conflict was resolved, it was like "ok, there are three hundred pages left, now what?" i realize that meyer was trying to create the calm before the storm effect, but really woman, we get that they were happy, you don't have to rub it in. once that lull is rectified, the assemblage of vampires and the anticipation of the meet up with the volturi was kind of cool. it was very reminiscent of queen of the damned, and i always like having a large variety of characters to digest.
but lets get to the biggest problem of this book. there's no fight, there's no battle. pages of tightly wound anticipation get released with a whimper. of course, i expected nothing more than that. that is meyer's style - the running theme of many of the books is that of compromise. what is so irritating about dialogue in her books, is the characters run around eachother until every little bit of absurd logic is used until an argument is whittled down to its tiniest - now insignificant because it was obvious from the beginning - truth. in a very ironic way, meyer seems to be overly in love with logic, despite the fact that much of her books are illogical. there were points even in the story that meyer seems to ignore her own logic in order to get her escapist fantasy to work - why the hell are these vampires so fucking powerful anyway? why is that neccesary? and why do they not only have powers, but some of powers so encompassing that they could annihilate a mass of people with barely a thought? but in respects to conflict, to protecting her precious characters from any harm, the conquests that meyer deem valuable are obviously those of the mind - she's satisfied that the volturi was simply demoralized rather than physically beaten. but that's a hard thing to ask of your readers. we don't care that alec and jane's prides were wounded, we want to see them actually get the shit kicked out of them. its hard to be satisfied when a haphazardly constructed team of idealistic vampires and a totalitarian regime that up until that point has had all the cards stacked in their favor meet up and after threatening and circling around each other for twenty pages simply cut a deal. that's just cruel.
and that is the thing about the twilight saga as a whole. despite being stacked with information, characters and mythology between four books and over 2000 pages....nothing really happens. the truth is the whole story is more of a prologue to what should be the actual story - the overthrowal of the vulturi lead by most likely renesmee and jacob. but i would not by any means look forward to meyer's telling of it, because it would most likely end up the same way the twilight saga did - soulless. you know what's funny? despite the fact that all the conflict of all three books is based entirely around and is a result of the relationship between edward and bella, i found myself forgetting that they are in love. when the two of them are enjoying their second honeymoon, so to speak, i had to remind myself "oh right, they have to do this, because, you know, they're into each other and all that business." its the strangest feeling. even though i have no interest in the pairing of harry/ginny and find it utterly boring, throughout all of deathly hallows, i never forget that harry loves ginny. and in the vampire chronicles, despite the fact that louis serves as only a bookend to tale of the body theif and memnoch the devil you still never forget that lestat loves louis. its part of who they are, part of the thread that holds to the story together. it seems like the simplest thing to do, and yet meyer fails at it. and also, even though meyer sights dozens of bands as her inspiration behind the series, i have a hard time constructing a soundtrack for it because nothing fits it atmospherically. there is not atmosphere in these books, there is no essence, no soul. perhaps, if meyer demanded a little sacrifice from her characters, or if she didn't write in absolutes that leave us with no doubt where things are going to go, maybe these books would close with some sort of vitality. but of course, that was never the intention. the intention was to appease and make everyone happy, never ask the reader to look at things in a new way, or ask them to part with someone or something that they loved. and as a result, it all feels like nothing more than make believe, and doesn't go any further than that.
and so a little more than two weeks after beginning the process, i have finished the entirety of the twilight saga, closing breaking dawn late last night, within the first hour of halloween. and kids, really, breaking dawn wasn't that bad. certainly not worse than the epilogue of deathly hallows, like someone in tw_secret claimed. granted, i went into it expecting under shit, and also was not gripped with months of anticipation the way die hard fans had been. so its understandable that my reaction would be more lenient. but really, it was better than eclipse and it was way better than twilight itself. yes, obviously, meyer fails miserably at proper story structure, not just in terms of the incredibly anticlimactic climax, but the book as a whole. the story has two sequential conflicts, but she divides the book into three parts. which was, honestly, really awkward. don't get me wrong, getting jacob's perspective on things was perfect for that section of the book, but once the pregnancy from hell/wolf conflict was resolved, it was like "ok, there are three hundred pages left, now what?" i realize that meyer was trying to create the calm before the storm effect, but really woman, we get that they were happy, you don't have to rub it in. once that lull is rectified, the assemblage of vampires and the anticipation of the meet up with the volturi was kind of cool. it was very reminiscent of queen of the damned, and i always like having a large variety of characters to digest.
but lets get to the biggest problem of this book. there's no fight, there's no battle. pages of tightly wound anticipation get released with a whimper. of course, i expected nothing more than that. that is meyer's style - the running theme of many of the books is that of compromise. what is so irritating about dialogue in her books, is the characters run around eachother until every little bit of absurd logic is used until an argument is whittled down to its tiniest - now insignificant because it was obvious from the beginning - truth. in a very ironic way, meyer seems to be overly in love with logic, despite the fact that much of her books are illogical. there were points even in the story that meyer seems to ignore her own logic in order to get her escapist fantasy to work - why the hell are these vampires so fucking powerful anyway? why is that neccesary? and why do they not only have powers, but some of powers so encompassing that they could annihilate a mass of people with barely a thought? but in respects to conflict, to protecting her precious characters from any harm, the conquests that meyer deem valuable are obviously those of the mind - she's satisfied that the volturi was simply demoralized rather than physically beaten. but that's a hard thing to ask of your readers. we don't care that alec and jane's prides were wounded, we want to see them actually get the shit kicked out of them. its hard to be satisfied when a haphazardly constructed team of idealistic vampires and a totalitarian regime that up until that point has had all the cards stacked in their favor meet up and after threatening and circling around each other for twenty pages simply cut a deal. that's just cruel.
and that is the thing about the twilight saga as a whole. despite being stacked with information, characters and mythology between four books and over 2000 pages....nothing really happens. the truth is the whole story is more of a prologue to what should be the actual story - the overthrowal of the vulturi lead by most likely renesmee and jacob. but i would not by any means look forward to meyer's telling of it, because it would most likely end up the same way the twilight saga did - soulless. you know what's funny? despite the fact that all the conflict of all three books is based entirely around and is a result of the relationship between edward and bella, i found myself forgetting that they are in love. when the two of them are enjoying their second honeymoon, so to speak, i had to remind myself "oh right, they have to do this, because, you know, they're into each other and all that business." its the strangest feeling. even though i have no interest in the pairing of harry/ginny and find it utterly boring, throughout all of deathly hallows, i never forget that harry loves ginny. and in the vampire chronicles, despite the fact that louis serves as only a bookend to tale of the body theif and memnoch the devil you still never forget that lestat loves louis. its part of who they are, part of the thread that holds to the story together. it seems like the simplest thing to do, and yet meyer fails at it. and also, even though meyer sights dozens of bands as her inspiration behind the series, i have a hard time constructing a soundtrack for it because nothing fits it atmospherically. there is not atmosphere in these books, there is no essence, no soul. perhaps, if meyer demanded a little sacrifice from her characters, or if she didn't write in absolutes that leave us with no doubt where things are going to go, maybe these books would close with some sort of vitality. but of course, that was never the intention. the intention was to appease and make everyone happy, never ask the reader to look at things in a new way, or ask them to part with someone or something that they loved. and as a result, it all feels like nothing more than make believe, and doesn't go any further than that.