A Quick Post

Vampire stories are tricky.

When done right, you get Let the Right One In, one of the best vampire movies I've seen in a long time. It has Young Love, Vampires, Death, Blood, and School!
When done by Stephanie Meyer you have Young Love Brooding, Vampires an ad for the Gap, Death baseball, Blood sparkles*, and School.

*I just frakking youtubed that scene and watched it. For you.

Preface, an analysis.

I opened the book*. I did. It didn't try to burn me, or strangle me or paper cut me at all. I will admit, the cover, at least this cover (and not this one) is actually kind of nice. So the Trade Paperback edition I have is in fairly pristine conditions compared to how i usually 'love' my books. Most of my books are bent, curled, and have been very well read. I have quite a few hard covers who's bindings are only being held on by the glue or stitching.

I usually like to take time to look over the copyright pages and other informational pages before the story begins. So let's take the first couple of pages together, to re-create my experiences with the book.

With the cover open, we have the title page, which has Twilight in it's stylized lowercase font.
And read that the author's name is Stephanie Meyer (not Meyers, which I've been using).

The publishing company is a division of Hachette Book Groups- which have also published some of James Patterson's fiction aimed at teens/kids. Hachette acquired the subdivision of Little, Brown and Co. after Twilight was published in October 2005. This has been out for four-and-a-half years? Yesh! I am late to the party.

Never mind, I don't want to go to this party without at least 3 grams of coke and the TARDIS.

Ooh! My favourite part!
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Well, this bursts the bubble of Cullenism.

The (un)Holy Trinity

The dedication page is fairly standard, thanking a family member who's been encouraging.

After the Chapter List (which I didn't read due to the possibility of a spoiler) is a page with a Bible quote about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And God setting up his one big rule for Adam and Eve-- DO NOT EAT!

I am imagining these growing from a tree

So, forbidden love, doomed to fail, death, et cetera... Sounds good!

Then the actual preface starts. And is when it kind of starts to go down hill, for me. The first part of the opening line is rather strong; I'd never given much thought to how I would die. But the remainder is very wishy-washy. Still, the writing may be poor, but the story is there, sort of. So we have been dropped in the middle of a conflict between a 'hunter' and it's 'prey'.

The rest of the small four paragraph half page is more musings on what it is to die a noble death (in the place of someone you love) although there is no real sense emotion backing this statement. The said love is stated, not expressed or shown.

So here, we have someone about to die for someone who they say they love. Yay! Then we have a filler paragraph of semi-philosophical rambling about decisions and not regretting love and life.

Then we come to the last sentence.
The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

A hunter may swagger, a hunter may stalk, a hunter may run and decapitate it's prey, but a hunt sauntering is a hunter without prey to kill.

Example: Sauntering. An Example.

The whole en medias res of the preface drastically loses it's effect when you turn the page to...

Next: Chapter 1.


*So actually, I started reading this a while back ago. I got through the first chapter and had to stop. I had a huge headache. Not from the book, just I had a headache. Fun times or foreshadowing?

Chapter Zero: The Rules

I think I need to lay down some ground rules for this blog. First off, If you like something, you like something. It's not a big deal.

I'm not making this blog to be overly hostile to the fans of this series. At least not to the fans who are in High School or younger.

Because for the most part, children suck up pop-culture because these days pop-culture is youth culture. And no matter what, when you were between the ages of 7 and 16, you will inevitably get sucked into a fad. Off the top of my head some top fads in my Elementary and Middle schools were Pogs, Marvel Universe Cards, Snap Bracelets, Troll Dolls, and Goosebumps Books. Granted, most of those targeted for audiences younger than Twilight's audience, but I've heard of girls as young as 7 as being fans of the Twilight books/movies/Breakfast Cereals.

It happens, kids are easily swayed by advertising, peer pressure and (most importantly) they will bug their parents for what they want; constantly. I did it with all of the products linked to above. Scholastic Books and their fliers had me picking up at least 10-15 Goosebumps Books, I spent allowance and earned money on Pogs and Marvel Universe Cards. However, I do not think any of those hold a candle to Twilight's popularity.

I'm trying to think of fads I fell into in my teenage years, and I cannot think of anything that has been as hugely marketed and as financially successful as Twilight. Not one thing. If someone wants to remind me of something from my past that is/was as successful, and spawned movies, books, and the rabid fan-base as Twilight, that I was a part of/or I loved, remind me and I will gladly own up to this statement.

So, I'm not going to target the intended audience of this book, the pre-teens or teens. But those who read this after High School are fair game for the following reasons.

In High School required reading usually will contain various works of Shakespeare, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye and a plethora of other high quality books. Most High School students are too busy consuming pop-culture to take notice of the quality of those stories, and I include myself in that category. But I have since reread just about everything from those High School English Class days, and I find merit in each of those books that were assigned. There are a lot of books out there for young adults and for children that are intelligent, respectful to the reader and, most importantly, still entertain. A primary example of this would be The Giver which I never read until recently.

In a College course I took in 2005, I read excerpts from Harry Potter (Children's Literature). I have since developed an affectionate stance to the series; even going as far as doing a midnight book release with a friend after work. Literature that is intended for young adults or children can be rewarding for adults to read even without the nostalgia reasons. Will this be the case with Twilight?

I understand that personal taste will come into play here. And I will address that as best as I can in the next sentence. One cannot be completely objective when reviewing anything.

Allow me to state it again.
One cannot be completely objective when reviewing anything.

Since I am writing this for entertainment's sake, and not to be your Spark Notes to all things Twilight, I will rely on my observations, while using my knowledge of literature, pop culture and love of books to make comments in the things things that I find are good, bad, funny, and everything in between. I think this blog will be a mix of honest criticism with (humor as a flavoring) from someone who loves reading and the craft of writing, to praising the aspects that I find good, and all wrapped up with a nice chocolaty coating of irreverence. That is my intention. I don't plan to 'attack' anyone who likes these books, and my criticism is going to *try* to remain within the confines of the books/movies and the topics they raise themselves. But I'm not going to handle this with kid-gloves and coddle, and make token statments to those who love the series. I won't say something I do not mean.

I may be pleasently surprised by what Twilight has to offer, or I may want to cover myself in a million papercuts and slowly exsanguinate.

This blog is going to mostly be a critique of the Twilight Book and possibly the whole series. I will from time to time express my feelings on the phenomenon that is the fandom of this series. I will probably have guest bloggers to do either a chapter they want to, or to comment on either the books/movies/phenomenon of the series or the issues(if any) it raises. I am doing all of this from the position of someone from the outside, looking in on it. I have no real preconceived notions about the series; I know small plot points here and there, I know there are vampires, I know that the movies look rather lame (but usualy that is the case with adapted works) and I know that Robert Pattinson has stupid hair.

And People find him sexy?
Icky.

Chapter Negative One(-1): The Notification

The Twilight "Saga" has sold a mind-boggling 45 Million copies of the books penned by first time author Stephanie Meyer. Why a book like this gets attention, I don't understand. But I'm going to try. God Help me, I'm going to try. I plan on reading this virus of pop-culture obsession. Interviews with the author in Entertainment Weekly, front pages in the USA Today Entertainment section, The View bringing on whoever the main guy is, Robert Patterson. It's everywhere. It's like genital herpes. Odds are, someone you know has it, and you don't want to look at it.

Even the master of Horror, Stephen King has commented on this series.

If you've been deprived of your senses for the past year or so, Twilight has become a stimulant for all five senses. Let's see:

Sight?- Check!

Hearing?- Check! Check! (Ugh, I found another instance of audio-rape on 180 Gram Vinyl. Seriously, classic albums can't get a decent reissue, but we can have Twilight on vinyl? How many 12 year old girls know what a turntable is?)

Smell?- Check!

Taste?- Check!

Touch?- Check!

But, I can tell your saying, Yes, I see all the commercial products. But what is Twilight all about?

Good question. I don't have a frigging clue. It's about vampires. And it's about abstinence only education. And about a clumsy girl. And it's about 'forbidden fruit'. And by that I think they mean butt-sex.

I plan on dissecting the first book at least, and quite possibly the rest if I feel like I can. I'm not sure if i'll make it out of this alive, but I do have some guest bloggers to help me out along the way. It may not be on the book exactly, but on some of the topics the book may raise, the Twilight obsessiveness or just something for when I need a break.

So before we start this, I'll have one more 'Pre-Reading' blog to do. I'm not looking forward to this, as I usually have a very low tolerance for flat characters, ham-fisted symbolism and a general dislike for people changing the rules of an already established archetype.

But I could be very wrong in my preconceived notions of this series. I hope that I am.