This is as close to wank as I ever get.
During my self-imposed fandom exile, I did a lot of things... I started a career-ish thing, I bought a house, got a dog and a cat, and I read the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.
I feel compelled to weigh in on the issue.
About Stephanie Meyer and Her Universe
1. Stephanie Meyer is the after-school special of Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires + Werewolves + Female Protagonist That Can't Choose Sides + Character-driven Plots - Teh Secks & Raising of the Dead = Bella Swan & Co. (She's really not all that special. I think she would agree with me on this.)
2. She writes a mean Mary Sue... not only that, but she goes in to much too much detail about the colors of her characters' eyes, what they're wearing, how they smell, the "purr" of their voices... halfway through one of her description-heavy paragraphs, you begin to wonder if her editors are as much in love with her characters as she is. ("Amethyst" is not an adjective to be thrown around lightly, kthx.)
3. Her vampires can't go out into the sun because they sparkle. Like a piece of sparkly quartz. Not because they burst into flames. Just let that one sink in a bit.
4. One would assume that she has done a lot book reading... her influences include the classics, the romances, and the sci-fi/fantasy. (Orson Scott Card went to BYU, too, you know. The mother of one of my high school crushes was in his poetry class. She said he was terrible.) Terrible lacking of vampire!fiction on the list. Things begin to make sense.
5. I read them all in two days, and when I was done, I had that feeling in the bottom of my stomach like I'd just eaten an entire batch of raw cookie dough... the same feeling you get after spending six hours glued to the couch watching a marathon of America's Next Top Model on MTV. (Don't act like you've never been there.) Same target audience. Same saccharine aftertaste.
6. Her YA books are easy to read, and this is why: They aren't incredibly thoughtful or original. The reason this sells is because people's lives are already chock full of thought, conflict, and originality. ESPECIALLY young tweeny girls. This is the same reason why Mary Sues exist in fanfiction... to allow the author to work out their identity/sexuality issues/conflicts in a safe, controlled environment. Bella Swan is the epitome of this. She's not a meaty character... her flaws are predictable, her actions are not particularly heroic, and she could never be mistaken for a feminist. She is, however, the characterization of the stock image of a high-school girl. This is why there is no outright balls-to-the-wall, Anita Blake-type sex in the books. It is chaste, and I am glad for it. It would undermine the purpose.
7. I think this serves an important function and definitely deserves its place on bookshelves. She is telling a story about a female experience, or more aptly, the experience of a female character. And we all know that one of the arguments used to suppress women's writing and keep it out of the literary canon is to dismiss it as unimportant. Let me quote Virginia Woolf from A Room of One's Own: "... the values of women differ very often from the values... [of men] naturally this is so. Yet it is the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial.' And these values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room. A scene in a battlefield is more important than a scene in a shop." Another fun suppression method? Undermining the integrity of the work by assigning it to the realm of genre, which we all know, isn't real art. (JKR didn't publish with her first name for a reason, kids. I'm not saying that Meyer is canon-worthy, but it serves a purpose.)
8. Personally speaking, I find little in common with Bella Swan. This doesn't mean that her experience, her "natural philosophy", doesn't ring true to many other readers. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, but they don't make movies out of flops, peoples. Just because they read like something The Weird Girl workshopped in your college creative-writing class - and then got totally defensive when faced with constructive criticism and said to your professor, "You just don't get it!" to which he replied, "I don't think you do, either." - doesn't mean it isn't valid on some level.
9. I don't know why Robert Pattinson looks like he's spent three days locked in his sunless room listening to the entire Cure discography and smoking clove cigarettes. It's not how I see Edward. Stephenie Meyer's vampires are not goth. They play sports and run around in the forest like super strong fanged elk. I mean, I don't expect them to be tan by any means, but really? We're going to play the goth!vampire card? Pffft. Whatever. All I know is wet!Cedric is worth the price of movie admission, no matter what the fantasy universe.
9a, slightly off topic. I really want Cedric to be a total diva on the set, like Skwisgaar when he does his pay-per-view event in Metalocalypse. "Get this guy out of here! Somebodys find me a dragon!" I wants fly in on dragons, too, my little blonde metal god goofball. Okay, I'm done.
10. I will buy the new novel and go to the movie. I might even consider going to the Prom event at Barnes & Noble. If I go, however, I want to wear a t-shirt that reads, "Jacob and Edward are secretly in love and Bella is too busy swooning/falling down to notice." *sporks her* I mean, she really gets on my nerves. GO FOR THE WARM CUDDLY ONE! *diez* Anyway.
I also read Keri Arthur and Patricia Briggs, and - show of hands - who else thought the new Stephanie Plum novel was crap?
I feel compelled to weigh in on the issue.
About Stephanie Meyer and Her Universe
1. Stephanie Meyer is the after-school special of Laurell K. Hamilton. Vampires + Werewolves + Female Protagonist That Can't Choose Sides + Character-driven Plots - Teh Secks & Raising of the Dead = Bella Swan & Co. (She's really not all that special. I think she would agree with me on this.)
2. She writes a mean Mary Sue... not only that, but she goes in to much too much detail about the colors of her characters' eyes, what they're wearing, how they smell, the "purr" of their voices... halfway through one of her description-heavy paragraphs, you begin to wonder if her editors are as much in love with her characters as she is. ("Amethyst" is not an adjective to be thrown around lightly, kthx.)
3. Her vampires can't go out into the sun because they sparkle. Like a piece of sparkly quartz. Not because they burst into flames. Just let that one sink in a bit.
4. One would assume that she has done a lot book reading... her influences include the classics, the romances, and the sci-fi/fantasy. (Orson Scott Card went to BYU, too, you know. The mother of one of my high school crushes was in his poetry class. She said he was terrible.) Terrible lacking of vampire!fiction on the list. Things begin to make sense.
5. I read them all in two days, and when I was done, I had that feeling in the bottom of my stomach like I'd just eaten an entire batch of raw cookie dough... the same feeling you get after spending six hours glued to the couch watching a marathon of America's Next Top Model on MTV. (Don't act like you've never been there.) Same target audience. Same saccharine aftertaste.
6. Her YA books are easy to read, and this is why: They aren't incredibly thoughtful or original. The reason this sells is because people's lives are already chock full of thought, conflict, and originality. ESPECIALLY young tweeny girls. This is the same reason why Mary Sues exist in fanfiction... to allow the author to work out their identity/sexuality issues/conflicts in a safe, controlled environment. Bella Swan is the epitome of this. She's not a meaty character... her flaws are predictable, her actions are not particularly heroic, and she could never be mistaken for a feminist. She is, however, the characterization of the stock image of a high-school girl. This is why there is no outright balls-to-the-wall, Anita Blake-type sex in the books. It is chaste, and I am glad for it. It would undermine the purpose.
7. I think this serves an important function and definitely deserves its place on bookshelves. She is telling a story about a female experience, or more aptly, the experience of a female character. And we all know that one of the arguments used to suppress women's writing and keep it out of the literary canon is to dismiss it as unimportant. Let me quote Virginia Woolf from A Room of One's Own: "... the values of women differ very often from the values... [of men] naturally this is so. Yet it is the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial.' And these values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room. A scene in a battlefield is more important than a scene in a shop." Another fun suppression method? Undermining the integrity of the work by assigning it to the realm of genre, which we all know, isn't real art. (JKR didn't publish with her first name for a reason, kids. I'm not saying that Meyer is canon-worthy, but it serves a purpose.)
8. Personally speaking, I find little in common with Bella Swan. This doesn't mean that her experience, her "natural philosophy", doesn't ring true to many other readers. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, but they don't make movies out of flops, peoples. Just because they read like something The Weird Girl workshopped in your college creative-writing class - and then got totally defensive when faced with constructive criticism and said to your professor, "You just don't get it!" to which he replied, "I don't think you do, either." - doesn't mean it isn't valid on some level.
9. I don't know why Robert Pattinson looks like he's spent three days locked in his sunless room listening to the entire Cure discography and smoking clove cigarettes. It's not how I see Edward. Stephenie Meyer's vampires are not goth. They play sports and run around in the forest like super strong fanged elk. I mean, I don't expect them to be tan by any means, but really? We're going to play the goth!vampire card? Pffft. Whatever. All I know is wet!Cedric is worth the price of movie admission, no matter what the fantasy universe.
9a, slightly off topic. I really want Cedric to be a total diva on the set, like Skwisgaar when he does his pay-per-view event in Metalocalypse. "Get this guy out of here! Somebodys find me a dragon!" I wants fly in on dragons, too, my little blonde metal god goofball. Okay, I'm done.
10. I will buy the new novel and go to the movie. I might even consider going to the Prom event at Barnes & Noble. If I go, however, I want to wear a t-shirt that reads, "Jacob and Edward are secretly in love and Bella is too busy swooning/falling down to notice." *sporks her* I mean, she really gets on my nerves. GO FOR THE WARM CUDDLY ONE! *diez* Anyway.
I also read Keri Arthur and Patricia Briggs, and - show of hands - who else thought the new Stephanie Plum novel was crap?