Twilight

[TurquoiseSunset]

I must say I completely agree with everything LimaJean has said. I think the story was a good idea, although I liked the movie's structure better. The writing on the other hand was like reading a 13 year old's diary. And really diaries aren't written to be read the way you would novels. My English is terrible, it's not my first language, and I don't claim to be a classic buff and therefore knowledgable on "good" books (I read what looks good to me), but even for me this was a stretch.
I bought The Host and have only read a few pages, but it seems to be an improvement so far...here's hoping.
Maybe this is because I'm 24?

[wat??]

Twilight is bad and the fanbase is even worse.

The writing on the other hand was like reading a 13 year old's diary. And really diaries aren't written to be read the way you would novels.

Do you have some sort of a problem with the Diary of Anne Frank? :P

[Beautifull]

i wonder if anyone besides me has realized the Twilight movie crap is going too far?!

[Lynnwood]

^ I think the whole "Twilight Craze" went too far when it became the "Twilight Craze".

It's basically the Hannah Montana of literature. Do depth, no value, very stereotyped, cliche, unoriginal, but........it's good mindless fun. In today's entertainment, that's really all that's required to be popular.

While I wish that other more well-written book series could get as much attention as Twilight gets, all I can do is just recommend them to people who ask.

[Seraphina]

i understand people like Robert Pattison, but he's just not Edward Cullen!

if you read the books, you'd understand why. he's just not cut out to be like Edward.he doesn't even look like him.

hmm, I read the books (what I thought of them is another matter), and I have to say I thought Robert Pattinson played Edward to perfection. I'm usually ultra critical on actor's portrayals of characters, but I thought Pattinson was perfect.

As for the book itself....mostly, it was a good idea. I...didn't exactly enjoy them, but I didn't hate reading them. However, I'll never pick them up again. I have a major personal ick over the whole idea of vampires not going out in the sun because they're too sparkley and pretty, though...honestly. Best way I'd describe it, is as literary candyfloss; no nutritional value, but most people enjoy it once in a while.

[JBI]

hmm, I read the books (what I thought of them is another matter), and I have to say I thought Robert Pattinson played Edward to perfection. I'm usually ultra critical on actor's portrayals of characters, but I thought Pattinson was perfect.

As for the book itself....mostly, it was a good idea. I...didn't exactly enjoy them, but I didn't hate reading them. However, I'll never pick them up again. I have a major personal ick over the whole idea of vampires not going out in the sun because they're too sparkley and pretty, though...honestly. Best way I'd describe it, is as literary candyfloss; no nutritional value, but most people enjoy it once in a while.

He's perfect in the sense that the mass audience - primarily adolescent girls - decided he was a "Hunk", and therefore could be marketed as one. IF the person fit the visual description perfectly, acted perfectly, except had very little physical appeal to the adolescent girls, he most certainly would not have been accepted.

In truth, the books try, it would seem, to sell sex, yet at the same time, to sell religion. So in truth, we can interpret them, on a scale, to hypersexualize female identity, which isn't really a bad thing, in the sense that it is natural, and a form of feminist resistance to certain forms of Victorian patriarchy, yet at the same time, to subvert the female as following the whim of the powerful, hunky, male, and ultimately denying a real sexual identity until marriage, at which point, the bildungsroman, and the sexual awakening in the earlier books, it would seem, would revert back to a place of mother/wife, instead of lover/adolescent. In a sense, Edward it would seem is the archetypal romance novel hero, in the sense that he is a) powerful (perhaps a substitution for the usual "rich"), b) good looking, c) goes after the virgin, d) waits for marriage, and e) still enforces himself in a dominating position within the relationship. Edward is the provider and the muscle - he is in control, and ultimately, he is fulfilling a pretty mediocre fantasy which does nothing. Of course, the bulk of readers here aren't naive 14 year olds, so they ultimately see passed this sort of anti-feminist, highly religious dupe (which seems to try and override everything in the past 50 years the mothers of such readers struggled for) yet for the average reader, whose shelf consists of The Potters, Twilight, Stephen King, and some Sabrina the Teenage Witch books (those were the pulp in my day, I don't know what young girls read in terms of junk fiction today, as it seems to change as quickly as pop celebrities), I think there may be a problem, in terms of context. The books are highly politicized, as almost all books are highly political, except these ones, from my perspective, serve a rather harmful political cause, and ultimately aim to "reinstate" certain values meanwhile silencing others, and doing nothing to empower, or even educate properly these young readers. Keep in mind, the goal of the text ultimately is to serve as a morality tale, except the morality is so out of whack that it's almost ridiculous.

It's a shame really. The late 80s and 90s young adult novels had so much potential; one likes to think of Tamora Pierce, Monica Hughes, Judy Blume, Mercedes Lackey, amongst others. It seems now though, that instead of just banning books that offer a sense of progression, they started writing and promoting them. In essence, Meyer's publishers most definitely read into the contexts and politics of the book - I'm sure almost every publisher writing for that age group, if they are doing a mass printing will do so - and really, it must have been planned, well out in advance, that this would be the voice of the new Young Female, in the sense that Hillary Duff, and then this new Hannah Montana were planned, planted, promoted, and sold, and eventually will be killed all by their publicists.

In essence, Twilight is the Narnia of America, though aimed at an age bracket 2-3 years older (probably because Lewis' readership could read better, though perhaps not tackle mature themes). The religious elements seem, instead of being Catholic/European to instead be the political elements that dominate concepts of religion in the states; Abortion, feminism, pre-marital sex, the family/marriage, and ultimately teen relationships, and the lives of the youth, as they are, in culture and in the book, perceived by a conservative audience as both a) innocent angels who can be corrupted, and b) contradictorily as demonic misfits who have degraded from their previous generations because of the influence of sex, drugs, and liberalism, and education.

[Beautifull]

true!! but the movie just made it too much! i don't see what the fuss is about the movie, it was horrible!it was monologue, and just needed to chill...or get a new director...

[mystery_spell]

I really dislike Stephenie Meyer. I think that she is an author of the moment and only that. She's not timeless and does not appeal to all age groups or genders. She doesn't even have any talent really. Her stories are rather boring because they're so predictable. If the books did not have so much fluff in them, they could easily be condensed down into a single novel.

-shrugs- Each to his own I suppose.

[Beautifull]

i understand where you're coming from Mystery, but i think most just don't like her because all this fuss over her book and crap... i mean there's movies out for her book, there candy coming out with that Twilight crap, and there might even be a new kind of ice cream for it or something...

but Stephenie Meyer is a pretty good author...that's why we are tired of her, because we hear her name so much it's sickening...

BTW, has anyone read her other book? Talking about Twilight is getting boring, what about The Host ?

[wat??]

She's a pretty good author in the same way Dan Brown is a pretty good author. She sells books.

I was actually going to make the comparison to J.K Rowling, but I remembered that I actually enjoyed the first Harry Potter book quite a bit.

[rozreads]

I read the first one, Twilight, and I felt like it went in and out of interesting, like two people were writing it...but it gets young people to read, so that, in itself, is anaccomplishment..

[JBI]

I read the first one, Twilight, and I felt like it went in and out of interesting, like two people were writing it...but it gets young people to read, so that, in itself, is anaccomplishment..

Read what though? Are we that desperate or that illiterate? That's hardly an excuse - if reading means, in my opinion, being exposed to Twilight, then quite frankly, as McLuhan put it decades ago, the book is dead. I see no justification that literacy is important if the value placed in it is the ability to discern the meaning of Twilight, a relatively meaningless (in terms of depth) text.

[Joreads]

but Stephenie Meyer is a pretty good author...that's why we are tired of her, because we hear her name so much it's sickening...

BTW, has anyone read her other book? Talking about Twilight is getting boring, what about The Host ?

yes and it would seem that it is not only fans that cannot move on talking about her

[Dr. Hill]

i understand where you're coming from Mystery, but i think most just don't like her because all this fuss over her book and crap... i mean there's movies out for her book, there candy coming out with that Twilight crap, and there might even be a new kind of ice cream for it or something...

but Stephenie Meyer is a pretty good author...that's why we are tired of her, because we hear her name so much it's sickening...

BTW, has anyone read her other book? Talking about Twilight is getting boring, what about The Host ?

Stephenie Meyer isn't a good author :\ Her books are aimed at people who aren't mature enough to understand what a good author is and are impressionable enough to become entirely immersed in a fantasy world in which all guys are perfect, even the nerdy girl gets laid and vampires have a sweet and innocent side (much unlike the eponymous bloated leech who throws dogs through doors, found in Bram Stoker's famous work, Dracula).

[Lynne50]

Read what though? Are we that desperate or that illiterate? That's hardly an excuse - if reading means, in my opinion, being exposed to Twilight, then quite frankly, as McLuhan put it decades ago, the book is dead. I see no justification that literacy is important if the value placed in it is the ability to discern the meaning of Twilight, a relatively meaningless (in terms of depth) text.

Oh,JBI , that sounds a bit harsh. Should we only provide books to people who have above average reading abilities? That denies a whole population of people the pleasure of reading. Who knows where the reading of Twilight will take them. It may just be a stepping stone,one where they take pride in finishing a series and now want to explore other avenues. Not everyone can start out reading War and Peace. Teenage readers need help in finding books they feel are relevant to them. Everyone knows that Twilight is not great literature, but it may give help to those who struggle with reading. The more you read, the better you get at it.