So I just finished reading Twilight.
Yes, really.
To be clear, Twilight is not good literature, and so I won’t discuss it as though it is. Indeed, one of my biggest takeaways from reading this book is that, if this could get published, I must be able to write something that can, too. Not that I expect to match author Stephenie Meyer‘s reported $50 million in annual earnings.
(Warning: all links in this post contain spoilers.)
The central question of the novel is a good, if well-treaded, one — what would happen if vampires lived among us? — but Meyer’s execution is amateur and inelegant. You know that dreaded tic of the novice fiction writer, the italicized internal monologue? (I know exactly what he means, because I’ve written that garbage myself, he thought.) Well, this book is five hundred pages of that — and I don’t just mean that it’s a first-person narrative, which is obviously a well-accepted literary technique, but rather that it’s written in a voice that doesn’t exist, one that’s impossible to reconcile with the reality of how people actually think and feel. Meyer also clearly never read Stephen King‘s grim warning in On Writing: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
It should go without saying that any comparisons to Harry Potter are a grave affront to J.K. Rowling‘s considerable talents.
What is interesting about this book, though, is that it is the first book I have ever read which was written for a woman, by a woman, about a woman (if the generous appellation “woman” can even be applied to Twilight‘s puerile protagonist, Bella Swan). I’ve talked to more than one woman who finds Bella insufferable, so I’ll try to avoid overgeneralizing, but I do have some observations.
The thing that stands out most about Bella is that she is a damsel in distress, through and through, in a way that I actually haven’t seen in many novels written for a male audience. Yes, Meyer does seem to want us to believe Bella is smart, because she figures out that Edward Cullen is not what he seems (though this purported intelligence is hard to swallow when Bella petulantly proclaims that she knows the answers to teachers’ questions, not because she is a good student but because they already covered this at her old school). And she seems to want to us to believe Bella is brave, because she is willing to risk life and limb to get kissy with a bloodthirsty vampire. But Bella’s attraction to Edward is cast, above all, as an abject, thoughtless submission to temptation.
In some sense, this is nothing unique: vampires have been leaving knees weak, lips aquiver, and minds blank for centuries. Angel certainly did a number on Buffy. What’s remarkable is the energy of Meyer’s commitment to this characterization. Indeed, her prose is at its strongest and most convincing when describing Bella’s utter helplessness against Edward’s supernatural allure (never mind the other dangerous messes she gets herself into, and has to be rescued from). I can’t help wondering whether the “Bella is smart, Bella is brave” drumbeat was written halfheartedly for the benefit of a 21st-century audience that might be unwilling to accept the head-over-heels, fragile Bella that Meyer wanted to write.
Is this glorification of passivity common to this genre (where by “this genre,” I mean romance novels, because that’s what this is)? I honestly have no clue, but I tend to assume so. And if it is the norm, what is it that makes this idea of complete surrender so compelling?
I just said a minute ago that Twilight is a novel for women, but I don’t actually believe that the appeal of this idea is specific to women at all. We all find thrills in the loss of control; for some, this is physical (like skydiving, say), and for others, like Bella Swan, it’s emotional. Countless pastimes from substance abuse to sadomasochism all get at this same impulse, the desire to release the reins and just live. So while we might find Meyer’s description of Bella’s accelerating heartbeat at Edward’s touch a little unoriginal (okay, a lot unoriginal), we can all relate to that oddly invigorating feeling of powerlessness.
This might be the only reason that these books have legs. Mediocre writing and flat characters notwithstanding, we do want to be thrilled in the way that Meyer aims to thrill us. Even if she succeeds only occasionally, it’s easy enough to breeze through her words, so that we can find those moments and savor them.
And yes, I will be reading New Moon. You had to ask, didn’t you?