Twilight

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Originally Posted by Joreads

That is OK you are still one of my favorites. Is this our first Lit Nit fight my friend?;)

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I'm not sure. I was smiling the whole time so... :D

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Originally Posted by Dori

I'm not sure. I was smiling the whole time so... :D

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Well that is good to know. I am smiling to;)

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Originally Posted by Joreads

Thanks MattG. I love the twilight series actually and I am by no means a teenager and they are not my only guilty pleasures either;)

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Well you left yourself wide open for an innuendo attack but I'll let you off the hook (this time). :D

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Originally Posted by MattG

Well you left yourself wide open for an innuendo attack but I'll let you off the hook (this time). :D

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I am getting into more trouble in this thread than the whole time I have been here. Maybe it is time to bow out gracefully - oh who am I kidding:lol:

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Originally Posted by *Classic*Charm*

I won't go so far as to say the writing is good. There is some really terrible sentence structure and a TON of grammatical errors, but for some reason I was completely sucked in by them.

Sadly, I put Anna Karenina aside to read them haha. I wanted some fluff for my Christmas break, and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

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If you thoroughly enjoyed them, why not forget Anna Karenina altogether and dedidcate your life to reading trash?

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

If you thoroughly enjoyed them, why not forget Anna Karenina altogether and dedidcate your life to reading trash?

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Because we can read both and enjoy both or at least I can. Not that I am admitting that they are trash either, one mans trash is anothers treasure is it not?

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

If you thoroughly enjoyed them, why not forget Anna Karenina altogether and dedidcate your life to reading trash?

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You're kidding me, right?

I was entertained by them, sure, but I have no intention of reading fluff for the rest of my life. I'm not saying I'm not enjoying Anna Karenina, just that I felt like reading something I didn't have to think about.

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Originally Posted by *Classic*Charm*

You're kidding me, right?

I was entertained by them, sure, but I have no intention of reading fluff for the rest of my life. I'm not saying I'm not enjoying Anna Karenina, just that I felt like reading something I didn't have to think about.

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I am not suggesting that anyone spend all of their time reading heavyweight novels such as Anna Karenina; there is plenty of lighter fiction to choose from as an alternative and, of course, it's entirely up to you what you choose to read. But teenage vampires! You're kidding me right?

Meh, novels for the most part are lightweight trash. It is almost accidental that they were taken seriously to begin with. As it is though, there are ones worth reading, but for the most part to find good novels requires digging, and I don't mean good, as in the it one a Pulitzer therefore it is good, I mean truly good, worth remembering.

It's a shame that people here seem to read only novels, and for half of the posters, only classic ones, and even further, only English language classic ones. Reading Twilight is just taking it to the next level - indulging in condensed cliché damasked with traditional American values. Though, I hear the last one has a birthing scene gory enough to turn most teenage girls abstinent.

Hooray! What a wonderful way to start the New Year. I just took the Twilight IQ test and qualified for the Twilight Ringtones.
What more could anybody want? I will have to get a mobile phone after all.

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Originally Posted by limajean

I find it interesting ( and funny ) that people , and i see this a lot, will say something like..
Oh i read "such and such" i mean i KNOW it doesn't compare to an author like AUSTEN.

It's almost becoming to the point where anyone can call themselves part of the "literature culture" because they've read Pride and Prejudice.
Sadly, the same has come of Shakespeare.

It really shows that you haven't read a whole lot of literature when people use Austen to constantly compare novels too, ( from what i have discovered anyway )

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I entirely agree! You ask your average teen to name a classic female author, they say Austen, maybe Charlotte Bronte because they think she wrote all the Bronte novels. Ask them to name a male one, they say Dickens. Ask them to name a playwright, they say Shakespeare.

They like to use it as some excuse to show that Twilight is obviously well-written as they like it and they like Austen. I like to remind them that the only classics the 'intelligent' people have read are the obvious ones- I'm not even sure if they enjoyed them, though they claim to.

You couldn't tolerate Breaking Dawn if you hadn't read the previous three

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

You couldn't tolerate Breaking Dawn if you hadn't read the previous three

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I heard most fans and trash-critics were disappointed as well.

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Originally Posted by Brian Bean

If you thoroughly enjoyed them, why not forget Anna Karenina altogether and dedidcate your life to reading trash?

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Just because a lot of us have enjoyed the Twilight series, does not mean that entertaining novels are all we should read. I read an awful lot of books a year and they are across a very broad spectrum. And its not just novels, its Drama as well and poetry. If i am in the mood for something light i'll read something light, if i'm in the mood for a classic i'll read a classic.
I will openly admit there are some "classics" out there that i personal found boring and droll, and someone else might think it was great. In saying that some people are going to enjoy what you consider as trash, and yet i for one would not criticise someone else for liking what i dont, and i for one would not insinuate that because they do like that book, they should stick to that type of book as they are obviously not worthy to read anything else.
We are all individual, so therefore we all have individual tastes and needs and what one person sees as a literary nourishment, someone else doesnt. We do not all eat and like the same food, clothes, music, so why should we be criticised for not liking the same books? What a boring existance we would have if we all liked the same things.

I seriously hate Twilight.

I am also probably the only person that hates Twilight.


Not altogether because it's badly written. Its writing is mediocre. Not bad, not great. The plot is okay, but the book is very bare [I actually enjoyed the film more than the book- which seemed full because it included everything in the book, plainly because they had to since the plot was so bare] and the hype portrayed it as, like, another Harry Potter so you expected it to be fantastic and it...wasn't.
The cumulation of being disappointed, the thin plot, and the mediocre writing just put it off for me. Okay, maybe I should use the world "hate". I don't hate it. But I'm not a fan.

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Originally Posted by JBI

Maybe me, as I generally esteem Austen as the mother of all English novelists, and the best one of the lot. In truth though, Austen is often misunderstood, or simply not understood, and in truth, many only read Pride and Prejudice, and skip her other works.

Austen relies primarily on Irony as her trope of choice for conveying meanings, and many people, especially now when our society has been so desensitized to irony, easily miss this. There are those that read the books purely for their plot, and see what romance authors see - a love story. But when it comes down to it, and you read Northanger Abbey, you may notice that Austen may say they get married and live happily ever after, but the ending itself can easily be interpreted, and with some cause, as a large irony, mocking the reader herself, and meaning no such thing.

On that notion, to what extent does Twilight bend. If we were to try and analyze it, we would need first to consider its major devices. First, the book seems reliant on allegory. We must question what the vampire represents, what it represents in relation to our culture, and what it represents in relation to the tradition. From there we must see how Meyer handles the concept, and how original its execution is. The notion of the vegetarian vampire, though I cannot verify it, I believe originates with the terribly repetitive Anne Rice, in Interview with a Vampire. On that level, that concept isn't new, but what of the romance of the vampire?

I think that to is established, though generally not at a teen level, which I think is what is the appeal. Perhaps that is the most significant feature of the work, but on the whole it is a cliché allegory for the sexual prowess of the vampire to his victim, the innocent girl.

But don't worry kids, they get married first, so despite the indulgence, it's all legal. If that isn't typically American - and I mean that in the sense of the religiousness and in the teenage culture sense - I don't know what is. You wonder why it sells - all that is repressed sexually within primitive society justified within a legal Christian frame to allow the pregnant teenager to become a heroine, and the attractive jock a knight in shining armor, with oh you guessed it! Wings! - oh, how wonderful - I see why it is so much fun.

Seriously I'm kind of fooling around here, as I have only read reviews, and seen the chimerical commercials, and read the Wikipedia articles quickly, as well as talked to some friends (mind the polysyndeton), so I guess I cannot comment, other than say the first 3 or so pages that I read had detestable prose.

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I know exactly how Austen writes, and would never dare to say she is a "romantic writer".
I've read all of her works so yes, i know

You say you haven't read twilight? to be honest, there is no need to analyze it. Its clear that Meyer wrote it simply to tell a story. Not to make a statement, not to present us with an idea - but to tell a story. At least, that's how i interpret it. I mean, to me its like asking what the meaning of Harry Potter is. You just cant go into it that deep.