(no subject)
Well, I'm home.
My first act upon waking up today was to con my sister into making fried bread. Then I pelted her with candy. Then we got jambha juice and an electric kettle.
It's all very uninteresting and dull, normal jetlaggy stuff. I got lots of lovely souvenirs. However, as my friends may I have noticed, I haven't been posting much (at all *cough*) in the last few months. Most just incoherent reviews of bad things and slightly more coherent reviews of good things.
I've sort of dropped out of the book club circuit, due to all of the traveling, not to mention college, some family issues, and general exhaustion. Thus I express my literary opinions (which no one within shouting distance even bothers to listen to anymore) on mah blog, sometimes I express them nicely, sometimes not.
Today I set a precedent.
Today I try to write a coherent review about something I hate.
Twilight.
I know many people who are big fans of these books, or at least pretend to be because they know they drive me insane. But I have some fairly legitimate complaints about them, and as the new book is coming out in a few days amid inane amounts of hype, I feel that now would be a good time to share my viewpoints.
First of all, I have not read all three books. I have listened to the audiobook of the first one, while trying to find a new MMORPG to become addicted to. More on that later. I read the summaries of the second and third books on wikipedia, and I have seen the movie trailer.
(One small side note about Paris. All the boys are gorgeous, and look exactly like Richard Pattinson, or whatever his name is. Hot kid who keeps playing dead people.)
Anyway, I feel I have a fairly good sense of the series, and of the author, who as it turns out is a Mormon. I was unaware of this when I first read Twilight, again, resorting to the holy wikipedia for all vital information.
Like most vampire series aimed at young adult females, the premise is shallower then a 7 euro bowl of French Onion Soup (which, by the way, I utterly despise). Normal Mary Sue falls in love with a tortured yet charming and gorgeous vampire with a heart of gold, and gets into hot water over it. This is a plot that has been used over and over again in mainstream media, most notably in Buffy, which I happen to love quite insanely.
I have no problem with this premise, formulaic as it is, for the same reason I don't have a problem with the other dozen or so formula genres of fiction. When the mystery of the plot is removed, when you are utterly sure of where it's going, you can focus on what the author brings to the genre table, their style, their writing, and the sprinkles of originality. And occasionally they surprise you, as Buffy and Angel did for many years.
This same thing happened with Harry Potter. The author took a fairly basic and well-used story, added a few new things and a lot of old things, and then proceeded to write it well.
Both Twilight and Harry Potter have huge, devoted fan bases in roughly the same demographics. Twilight came to the fore just as Harry Potter was ending, which I believe to be the main reason for it's popularity. It filled a gap in the needy minds of readers. Which is great, I just wished they'd latched onto something like Sherlock Holmes or Oscar Wilde or something. They also stole a perfectly good British actor and changed his accent, but that's a soapbox for another day.
Fish and chips on my shoulders....
Of course neither of them are likely to be having a midnight release party any time soon.
Anyway, all this so far has been me spelling out the situation. Now on to my central points of complaint.
Recently in my studies, I've been making a general survey of vampire genre literature. I forced my way through 15 Laurel K Hamilton books, both Anne Rice movies, part of Bram Stoker, and countless copycats of all of these. It's modern philosophy for the imaginative masses, and it intrigues me. My favorite so far is Paris Immortal, a completely homoerotic, oddly grammerized, completely plotless nonsense set in Paris, yet purchased in London. I make no excuses for this book, and do not claim it to be in any way better then Twilight, except by virtue of being 60% gay pornography.
Ok, let's start there. Homoeroticism. Most vampire books have it, originally to promote the metaphor of damnnation, but more recently just because it's hot. Twilight has NONE. Not even close. Nowhere. At least LKH tried. One compliment I can give to Anne Rice is the effortless fluidity of this element of her books. Despite her being Catholic, the complete bisexuality of her vampires is never questioned or made that much of ( that I know of, haven't read a great deal of her). In Buffy and Angel, the sexuality of the vampires is a delicious mystery to be speculated over and hinted at by the writers.
Sexuality in general is rather badly handled in Twilight (I speak collectively of the series). LKH fell into this trap of sitting around for hundreds of pages talking about it and boring us all to death. Any sexyness is completely lost in a sea of moral quandry and repetitive adjectives. Not that these aren't issues that should be discussed, but I believe it should take place once, rather then ten times, preferably after a really satisfying saucy scene. In Twilight, the character in question is quite young, so I can see where a religious author would get hung up on that, but honestly. Buffy was barely 17, the physical age difference was much much wider then in this case. I mean, at this point she's actually older then him isn't she? And sure she might be killed, but if the author wants to get the point across that sex=death, she doesn't have to beat her teenage audience over the head with it.
Ok, this is really not the main issue, I just got distracted by it. The main issue is probably somewhere between the stop-and-go plot and the hideous overuse of the word "dazzle" and various conjugations thereof. Many books have this issue. It's the little things in these books that grab me.
I hate her vampires. I really really hate them. They have far too few weakness. I know, I know, Love as a weakness is all very well, but it's been done to death (sorry), and really, where's the violence? What happened to the stake through the heart? The crosses? The sunlight? Holy water? The thousand other things? A vampire with no physical weakness just does. Not. Work. At least not for me. Also it encourages people to throw their boyfriends in front of cars. Why doesn't Bella ever save herself?
Also, this might be because I haven't read the book in question but....WHY do they want to get married? Is this a Mormon thing? Why won't he just vamp her already? She's not getting any yummier! Is this more messages of abstinence directed at her target audience?
In conclusion, I encourage all Twilight fanatics to pass the time between now and Breaking Dawn to read Kushiel's Dart by Jaqueline Carey. People in the West Hollywood area may see me at the Borders Midnight party in some outrageous costume, escorting some of my more mentally challenged friends.
Those of you who have made it this far, congratulations. Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you thought. I think I mostly kept it together.
XOXO
The Almost Birthday Girl.
My first act upon waking up today was to con my sister into making fried bread. Then I pelted her with candy. Then we got jambha juice and an electric kettle.
It's all very uninteresting and dull, normal jetlaggy stuff. I got lots of lovely souvenirs. However, as my friends may I have noticed, I haven't been posting much (at all *cough*) in the last few months. Most just incoherent reviews of bad things and slightly more coherent reviews of good things.
I've sort of dropped out of the book club circuit, due to all of the traveling, not to mention college, some family issues, and general exhaustion. Thus I express my literary opinions (which no one within shouting distance even bothers to listen to anymore) on mah blog, sometimes I express them nicely, sometimes not.
Today I set a precedent.
Today I try to write a coherent review about something I hate.
Twilight.
I know many people who are big fans of these books, or at least pretend to be because they know they drive me insane. But I have some fairly legitimate complaints about them, and as the new book is coming out in a few days amid inane amounts of hype, I feel that now would be a good time to share my viewpoints.
First of all, I have not read all three books. I have listened to the audiobook of the first one, while trying to find a new MMORPG to become addicted to. More on that later. I read the summaries of the second and third books on wikipedia, and I have seen the movie trailer.
(One small side note about Paris. All the boys are gorgeous, and look exactly like Richard Pattinson, or whatever his name is. Hot kid who keeps playing dead people.)
Anyway, I feel I have a fairly good sense of the series, and of the author, who as it turns out is a Mormon. I was unaware of this when I first read Twilight, again, resorting to the holy wikipedia for all vital information.
Like most vampire series aimed at young adult females, the premise is shallower then a 7 euro bowl of French Onion Soup (which, by the way, I utterly despise). Normal Mary Sue falls in love with a tortured yet charming and gorgeous vampire with a heart of gold, and gets into hot water over it. This is a plot that has been used over and over again in mainstream media, most notably in Buffy, which I happen to love quite insanely.
I have no problem with this premise, formulaic as it is, for the same reason I don't have a problem with the other dozen or so formula genres of fiction. When the mystery of the plot is removed, when you are utterly sure of where it's going, you can focus on what the author brings to the genre table, their style, their writing, and the sprinkles of originality. And occasionally they surprise you, as Buffy and Angel did for many years.
This same thing happened with Harry Potter. The author took a fairly basic and well-used story, added a few new things and a lot of old things, and then proceeded to write it well.
Both Twilight and Harry Potter have huge, devoted fan bases in roughly the same demographics. Twilight came to the fore just as Harry Potter was ending, which I believe to be the main reason for it's popularity. It filled a gap in the needy minds of readers. Which is great, I just wished they'd latched onto something like Sherlock Holmes or Oscar Wilde or something. They also stole a perfectly good British actor and changed his accent, but that's a soapbox for another day.
Fish and chips on my shoulders....
Of course neither of them are likely to be having a midnight release party any time soon.
Anyway, all this so far has been me spelling out the situation. Now on to my central points of complaint.
Recently in my studies, I've been making a general survey of vampire genre literature. I forced my way through 15 Laurel K Hamilton books, both Anne Rice movies, part of Bram Stoker, and countless copycats of all of these. It's modern philosophy for the imaginative masses, and it intrigues me. My favorite so far is Paris Immortal, a completely homoerotic, oddly grammerized, completely plotless nonsense set in Paris, yet purchased in London. I make no excuses for this book, and do not claim it to be in any way better then Twilight, except by virtue of being 60% gay pornography.
Ok, let's start there. Homoeroticism. Most vampire books have it, originally to promote the metaphor of damnnation, but more recently just because it's hot. Twilight has NONE. Not even close. Nowhere. At least LKH tried. One compliment I can give to Anne Rice is the effortless fluidity of this element of her books. Despite her being Catholic, the complete bisexuality of her vampires is never questioned or made that much of ( that I know of, haven't read a great deal of her). In Buffy and Angel, the sexuality of the vampires is a delicious mystery to be speculated over and hinted at by the writers.
Sexuality in general is rather badly handled in Twilight (I speak collectively of the series). LKH fell into this trap of sitting around for hundreds of pages talking about it and boring us all to death. Any sexyness is completely lost in a sea of moral quandry and repetitive adjectives. Not that these aren't issues that should be discussed, but I believe it should take place once, rather then ten times, preferably after a really satisfying saucy scene. In Twilight, the character in question is quite young, so I can see where a religious author would get hung up on that, but honestly. Buffy was barely 17, the physical age difference was much much wider then in this case. I mean, at this point she's actually older then him isn't she? And sure she might be killed, but if the author wants to get the point across that sex=death, she doesn't have to beat her teenage audience over the head with it.
Ok, this is really not the main issue, I just got distracted by it. The main issue is probably somewhere between the stop-and-go plot and the hideous overuse of the word "dazzle" and various conjugations thereof. Many books have this issue. It's the little things in these books that grab me.
I hate her vampires. I really really hate them. They have far too few weakness. I know, I know, Love as a weakness is all very well, but it's been done to death (sorry), and really, where's the violence? What happened to the stake through the heart? The crosses? The sunlight? Holy water? The thousand other things? A vampire with no physical weakness just does. Not. Work. At least not for me. Also it encourages people to throw their boyfriends in front of cars. Why doesn't Bella ever save herself?
Also, this might be because I haven't read the book in question but....WHY do they want to get married? Is this a Mormon thing? Why won't he just vamp her already? She's not getting any yummier! Is this more messages of abstinence directed at her target audience?
In conclusion, I encourage all Twilight fanatics to pass the time between now and Breaking Dawn to read Kushiel's Dart by Jaqueline Carey. People in the West Hollywood area may see me at the Borders Midnight party in some outrageous costume, escorting some of my more mentally challenged friends.
Those of you who have made it this far, congratulations. Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you thought. I think I mostly kept it together.
XOXO
The Almost Birthday Girl.