Yes, I'm a bit of a literary snob. Not much of one, but enough.
Now that I'm done with emo poetry hour for the moment (everyone else was doing it!), as promised: my thoughts on Twilight, let me show you them.
Everyone was pestering me so much, and I eventually got curious, so I finally gave in and read the first book. And oh god, it hurt. Sorry, guys. Sometimes when I go around mocking out something popular without really knowing about it, I end up liking it when I finally give it a chance. Not this time. This time I feel like I must be from another planet, because I don't understand how this book could possibly have become a national phenomenon with three sequels and a movie deal, and I really don't understand how anyone can consider Edward Cullen a compelling romantic hero.
Where do I even start? Bella is a horrifying Mary Sue. She's dour and aloof and whiny and generally pretty unlikable, but somehow almost every damn character in the novel loves her to death, and the few who don't fall all over themselves to kiss her ass are portrayed as petty and jealous (Lauren and Rosalie) or superstitious and misguided (Billy). She comes to a new school, makes very little attempt to be social, treats pretty much all of her non-vampire classmates with distant contempt, and somehow has three guys falling all over themselves to take her to the first dance. Yeah, okay. Even her clumsiness seems like one of those "Look, she's not a Mary Sue, she has a character flaw!" things, since it's basically an excuse for her to be a damsel in distress to Edward's knight in sparkly skin shining armor all the time.
And speaking of our esteemed vampiric hero, could he be any more boring? Yes, he's the perfect man. He's physically perfect and perfectly good at everything and the perfect boyfriend. If we couldn't figure this out from the fact that he is portrayed with absolutely no flaws, Stephenie Meyer tells us that he is perfect approximately every two pages. So, um... what on earth is hot about that? Am I the only one who thinks that most of the time people are sexy because of their quirks and imperfections, not in spite of them? It'd be like lusting after Superman-- the character is just so wildly unrealistic that I can't relate to him at all, and so he leaves me cold (no pun intended).
AND THERE'S NO PLOT! There's no plot until maybe the last 100 pages, where at least a little bit of action happens. Before that, it's over 400 pages of Bella mooning over Edward, sneering about her boring human friends and their tedious human drama, mooning over Edward some more, listening to Edward moon over her, and etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam, emphasis on the nausea. Meyer needs an editor almost as much as a certain other self-indulgent female vampire-novel writer I could mention. Seriously, this book did not need to be almost 600 pages long CONSIDERING THAT NOTHING HAPPENS. And the others are longer, I shudder to think.
I'll admit that Edward's family is kind of okay-- they're also unreasonably, annoyingly perfect, but at least Emmett and Alice sort of have personalities, and Jasper could be interesting if he was ever allowed to actually do anything except lurk in the corner and be emo about not being allowed to eat people. Still, they inexplicably love and adore and accept Bella despite the fact that she's a huge liability and a distracting temptation from their chosen way of life, and are immediately willing to risk their lives for her just because Edward wants to bite her bang her WUV HER FOREVER. Bleah.
So yeah. No offense to anyone who found it meaningful... I know some intelligent, awesome people who like these books for whatever reason, and God knows I like some stuff that's probably pretty bad objectively, but... I just don't get it. How is this anyone's perfect romantic fantasy? Even putting aside the creepy stalking/controlling aspects of their relationship, the way they interact is just so ridiculously overwrought and purple-prosy-- nobody talks like that, nobody thinks like that. Again, am I the only person who finds subtlety and tension and, you know, characters who actually interact realistically and have things in common, far more romantic than 600 pages of "OMG I LOVE YOU MORE THAN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AND IF WE ARE APART FOR FIVE MINUTES I WILL LITERALLY WITHER AND DIE"? To be fair, I almost never like the way romance is portrayed in fiction, unless it's a really weird minor pairing or the source material is quirky enough that the main romance isn't traditional... so maybe I should just accept that the Twilight series is (to quote Penny Arcade) "not for me." Still, it seems to me that I've read crappy Harlequin romance novels that portrayed relationships better than this. :/
I almost think I'm going to have to read the rest of the series, because I'm a masochist, and I hear it gets worse and... oh, man, this I gotta see. At least I read fast and I'm not paying for the books. :D
Everyone was pestering me so much, and I eventually got curious, so I finally gave in and read the first book. And oh god, it hurt. Sorry, guys. Sometimes when I go around mocking out something popular without really knowing about it, I end up liking it when I finally give it a chance. Not this time. This time I feel like I must be from another planet, because I don't understand how this book could possibly have become a national phenomenon with three sequels and a movie deal, and I really don't understand how anyone can consider Edward Cullen a compelling romantic hero.
Where do I even start? Bella is a horrifying Mary Sue. She's dour and aloof and whiny and generally pretty unlikable, but somehow almost every damn character in the novel loves her to death, and the few who don't fall all over themselves to kiss her ass are portrayed as petty and jealous (Lauren and Rosalie) or superstitious and misguided (Billy). She comes to a new school, makes very little attempt to be social, treats pretty much all of her non-vampire classmates with distant contempt, and somehow has three guys falling all over themselves to take her to the first dance. Yeah, okay. Even her clumsiness seems like one of those "Look, she's not a Mary Sue, she has a character flaw!" things, since it's basically an excuse for her to be a damsel in distress to Edward's knight in sparkly skin shining armor all the time.
And speaking of our esteemed vampiric hero, could he be any more boring? Yes, he's the perfect man. He's physically perfect and perfectly good at everything and the perfect boyfriend. If we couldn't figure this out from the fact that he is portrayed with absolutely no flaws, Stephenie Meyer tells us that he is perfect approximately every two pages. So, um... what on earth is hot about that? Am I the only one who thinks that most of the time people are sexy because of their quirks and imperfections, not in spite of them? It'd be like lusting after Superman-- the character is just so wildly unrealistic that I can't relate to him at all, and so he leaves me cold (no pun intended).
AND THERE'S NO PLOT! There's no plot until maybe the last 100 pages, where at least a little bit of action happens. Before that, it's over 400 pages of Bella mooning over Edward, sneering about her boring human friends and their tedious human drama, mooning over Edward some more, listening to Edward moon over her, and etc. etc. etc. ad nauseam, emphasis on the nausea. Meyer needs an editor almost as much as a certain other self-indulgent female vampire-novel writer I could mention. Seriously, this book did not need to be almost 600 pages long CONSIDERING THAT NOTHING HAPPENS. And the others are longer, I shudder to think.
I'll admit that Edward's family is kind of okay-- they're also unreasonably, annoyingly perfect, but at least Emmett and Alice sort of have personalities, and Jasper could be interesting if he was ever allowed to actually do anything except lurk in the corner and be emo about not being allowed to eat people. Still, they inexplicably love and adore and accept Bella despite the fact that she's a huge liability and a distracting temptation from their chosen way of life, and are immediately willing to risk their lives for her just because Edward wants to bite her bang her WUV HER FOREVER. Bleah.
So yeah. No offense to anyone who found it meaningful... I know some intelligent, awesome people who like these books for whatever reason, and God knows I like some stuff that's probably pretty bad objectively, but... I just don't get it. How is this anyone's perfect romantic fantasy? Even putting aside the creepy stalking/controlling aspects of their relationship, the way they interact is just so ridiculously overwrought and purple-prosy-- nobody talks like that, nobody thinks like that. Again, am I the only person who finds subtlety and tension and, you know, characters who actually interact realistically and have things in common, far more romantic than 600 pages of "OMG I LOVE YOU MORE THAN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE AND IF WE ARE APART FOR FIVE MINUTES I WILL LITERALLY WITHER AND DIE"? To be fair, I almost never like the way romance is portrayed in fiction, unless it's a really weird minor pairing or the source material is quirky enough that the main romance isn't traditional... so maybe I should just accept that the Twilight series is (to quote Penny Arcade) "not for me." Still, it seems to me that I've read crappy Harlequin romance novels that portrayed relationships better than this. :/
I almost think I'm going to have to read the rest of the series, because I'm a masochist, and I hear it gets worse and... oh, man, this I gotta see. At least I read fast and I'm not paying for the books. :D