For fear of being out of touch, I have started reading the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer. I have read the first book and am into the second. My husband has even joined the fun, having already finished “Twilight” and “New Moon” (a family that reads young adult vampire romance stories stays together, right?). Although I haven’t finished the entire series, I thought I’d go ahead and start blogging about these books now.
Most of the buzz I’ve heard about this series is that it sets up unrealistic romance expectations for the young female readers. Man, that’s for sure! But let’s broaden up this discussion to whether you’d be okay with your hypothetical 12 year-old daughter getting sucked up into Meyer’s smoldering world of vampires.
First off, I’m always going to be in favor of any book that gets young adults passionate about reading. So much better than a video game or reality TV show for their supple brains!
However, as an avid reader myself, I don’t think I’d be able to help myself but be disappointed in the lack of literary merit these books bring to the table. Sure - it is a successful piece of escapist literature if droves of people go out and buy the books and read them ravenously. However, who says escapist literature can’t have complex sentence structures? Or better-developed characters and mythologies? I know that these books are supposed to be written from the perspective of a 17 and counting year-old girl, but she is also supposed to be intelligent. How come she keeps awkwardly forcing nouns into adverbs? I distinctly remember Bella describing her day as “nightmarish.”
And Bella herself isn’t much more than a “Mary Sue” character, to borrow a phrase from the world of fan fiction. Through Bella, we live a fantasy of being swept off our feet by a beautiful boy… and better yet we get to choose this handsome devil over scores of other eligible bachelors, because every single male Bella meets fancies her. But Bella herself is short-changed of real-depth. We know she is clumsy (all the better for getting saved!) and we know she sacrifices hers safety and sanity for those she loves (dating a dude who kind of wants to kill her, hanging with his family of fellow vamps, and even the fact that she gave up her entire teenage life in order to give her mom some space to get jiggy with a minor-leaguer).
But literary criticism aside, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty with our issues of feminism and saving our beloved hypothetical teenage daughter from a world of romantic disillusionment. Surely this book presents a scary idea for teenage love: Edward likes to creep into Bella’s home without permission and watch her sleep. He is possessive and invades her privacy. He spies on her friends to get closer to her. He has unpredictable mood-swings and some major anger issues. And Bella is nothing but flattered by his gestures and treasures his every broody characteristic. Is this the sort-of relationship we’d like to see our daughter be a part of? Surely not- it’s abusive! However, our daughter is not reading an instruction manual on how to be a teenager in love. She’s reading a piece of fiction, and we’ve raised her better than for her to take any one piece of media and hold it as the ultimate guide for how to live a life.
And afterall, isn’t this essentially the story of Romeo and Juliet? There’s a love that forces the young couple (Juliet’s 15, no?) to forsake their families and their safety in order to be together? However, at least then our daughter would be reading Shakespeare.
So for all the hub-bub out there about this book being bad for its female readers, I’m going to go ahead and vote “nay.” We can’t blame Meyer for our daughter’s decision to date abusive weirdos- that’s a parental failure. More than likely Meyer is doing us a favor: setting our daughters up with high enough expectations that they won’t waste their time dating immature high-school jocks, saving themselves for more worthy suitors in college.
And just in case you really do have a high-school daughter reading these books, you might just want to show her THIS VIDEO MASHUP showing us in a nicely produced 6 minute movie how Buffy would react to Edward’s stalking.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Glad you're finally reading the books. I enjoyed them like I enjoy potato chips. I love them while I'm consuming them, but I don't expect to get any real nutritional value out of them.
ReplyDeleteI think the real feminist issues with the books show up later in the series. I had very little trouble with the first three books in that regard. Sure, Bella's relationship with Edward isn't ideal, and it's not the type of relationship I would wish on anyone in real life, but let's be honest, teenage relationships are never ideal, and most girls, at some point, get caught up with a guy they shouldn't be, and their friends are all, "He's not sexy and mysterious; he's creepy and weird!" In this scenerio, I like to think that readers are Bella's friends, thinking that about Edward - though I know there are lots and lots of Bella/Edward fans out there who think Bella and Edward are SOULMATES and MEANT TO BE and ETERNAL LOVE, etc., etc.
Agreed about the literary merit of the books as well. The other teenage vampire romance books I read - L.J. Smith's ouvre - are similar in a LOT of ways to the Twilight series. But, while they don't have the best prose of all time, I still think the writing is better than Meyer's. I wish L.J. Smith had gotten this kind of notoriety back when she was publishing her books. There's no understanding why certain books and certain trends happen the way they do.
Anyway, we can talk more when you finish the series. I tend to think your view of the feminist issues might change a bit, but maybe not. We'll see.
ACKKK!! I am on page 330 or so in the "Eclipse" book where *SPOILER ALERT* Jacob forces a kiss onto Bella. She attempts to push him off and fights the kiss throughout the experience. When he finishes he laughs and she punches him and he laughs again.
ReplyDeleteThen Jacob blames Bella for her broken hand, saying she should have known better!
Then he takes her home to her father who APPROVES OF WHAT JACOB DID!! About 30 pages later he tells Bella that he should teach her how to throw a better punch in case someone ever kisses her again without her permission, but then goes on to tell her to give Jacob a break because he's young. He may be young, but Jacob is also the size of an NFL line-backer, described at one point as having the body of a 25 year old man.
I really got worked up over this. This section really crossed a line! I was definitely a fan of Jacob, but this has totally turned me off of him. I have explained above how Edward is definitely an abusive boyfriend, but this is an example of real physical "no" means "i don't care what you say I want to kiss you" abuse. Ay yi yi!
I will continue updating this threads as I finish the 3rd and 4th books.
I've been trying to think up a response to this, but I just keep coming back to, "If she's responding to this, that means she has been reading the Twilight books and writing about them INSTEAD of watching the Harry Potter musical. She needs to be watching the Harry Potter musical!" It's consumed all of my brainspace - which is bad, since I need to study for the bar.
ReplyDeleteI'll have a real response later, when I've got some free brain space.
So, I can't really give a satisfactory response without re-reading that passage. Off the top of my head, I feel like on my first reading, I felt mildly annoyed by this scene, but found it to be a lot more innocent than you. I'm not sure Jacob's size is relevant, in my mind, for one thing. I mean, if Bella were a stranger who didn't know him, and was intimidated or afraid of him because of his size, that would be one thing. But she's never described as being afraid of him, so it doesn't really come into play for me. I'm more on the side of Bella's dad. The kid's only 15 and he's in love with her. They are friends and she has, at the very least, sent some mixed signals and been wishy-washy, back-and-forth about her feelings for him. Not only that, but he also thinks that he would actually be better and healthier for her than her current creepy boyfriend, so in his mind, this is just as much for her own sake as for his. Obviously, this reasoning wouldn't apply to any further sexual contact, or to lots, and lots of very similar circumstances where the facts weren't all the same. But, as far as I can recall the scene right now, it struck me more as just being annoying than actually abusive.
ReplyDeleteAs for her hitting him and breaking her hand, I'm sorry, but that was just funny. She's an idiot for doing that. He's a freakin' magical creature and she hit him in the face. It would be one thing if she hit him in the process of trying to get away from him - then I'd be WAY more upset about the situation. But she waited until the kiss was over and then hit him in retaliation instead of using her words or just walking away. She chose to hit an enormous werewolf. I mean, really, Bella. And we're definitely desensitized to her injuries in the books, since she seems to always be going to ght e hospital, so the fact that her hand is broken just doesn't seem like that big a deal. I'm not saying that Jacob didn't deserve a slap in the face - he did. I'm just saying that Bella deciding to actually give him that slap in the face was pretty stupid, and I thought it was pretty funny that she broke her hand on his face.
Maybe if I re-read it, the context will seem more menacing or abusive, but from my memory, I'm still sticking with annoying - but still not as bad as Edward. I mean, she's purposely putting herself in danger just to hear what she thinks is his imaginary voice in her head. I know that's not really Edward's fault, but to me, that's a WAY more unhealthy relationship and way more problematic.
Oh man, that Jacob kiss made Greg and I pretty livid, and Greg was even a big Jacob fan before that! I think the worst part about it was Charlie's reaction. If a daughter of mine broke her hand as retaliation for having a kiss forced upon her, I'd be pulling out a shotgun. Because Charlie does not know that Jacob is a wolf.
ReplyDeleteAnyway! I liked the third book a lot for introducing more mythology - like the wolf back-story and the whole newborn vampire armies of the South.
I am in the middle of the fourth book. Pretty soon, Metta, you'll have to post about the change in author's voice! I want you to write about that since I know you reacted really strongly to it.
We're devouring these silly books like candy bars here in Brand house. They are ridiculous, but very fun!!