Tuesday, March 16, 2010

You're just going to have to wait

I was afraid this would happen.

As I announced earlier today over both my Twitter accounts and on my Facebook, I have come to grips with the fact that I am enjoying Twilight. To fend off lynching attempts and invitations to Team Edward fan pages I would love to share in full the theory I'm developing on Twilight. I'd love to explain why I am enjoying this book and why I think the book is important.

But I'm not going to do that. Not yet. I'm going to finish the book before this idea can be fully fleshed out, and I don't want to share something that's only partially complete.

So for now I'll just say that I'm enjoying Twilight in a similar way, and for similar reasons, as I enjoyed Jean Rhys's response to Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea. I find the novel fascinating on feminist grounds.

For now, back to business as usual. Taylor what's-his-face is a hideous, albeit very muscular man (he has the face of Gumby) and Rob Pattinson has atrocious hair.


Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Unlike rain on your wedding day...

This is actually ironic. Twilight had been criticized as being sexist/misogynistic. Plenty of feminist critics have accused Meyer of telling a story that basically amounts to a young woman willing subjecting herself to the control of a man who doesn't care for her, doesn't respect her as a human being, but basically just wants to eat her. (A smattering of examples: 1, 2, 3, 4)

Now I'm not going to make a final declaration on the feminist issue until I'm further along through the book, but if Twilight is, as many have contended, inherently anti-woman, then when Mike asks Bella about a paper she's writing, her reply is deliciously ironic:
Whether Shakespeare's treatment of female characters is misogynistic.

It's worth pointing out that Meyer has denied charges of misogyny.

The High Crimes of Stephenie Meyer

There are three offenses for which I will never forgive Stephenie Meyer. I like to consider myself a tolerant, understanding person. But everybody has limits.

Crime #1: Spelling her name wrong.

I'm a big fan of the name Stephanie, in general. It means "crown" in the Greek and I've known a lot of cool Stephanies in my day. But when that a becomes an e the name looks it should be pronounced Stephen E. Meyer. When I'm particularly mad at her, which happens at times while reading Twilight (see below), to vent my frustrations I take particular joy in calling the author Steve.

Now some may argue this is more the fault of Meyer's parents, but even though Stephenie didn't choose to spell her name wrong, she chose not to correct the obvious error and as such she is rendered complicit in this heinous crime.

Crime #2: Having Bella Google "Vampires."

This entire chapter would be utterly awful, if it weren't Bella's eventual double-take, when she realizes she must be crazy for thinking Jacob might have been serious, but it's still an unforgivable and cheap tactic to have Bella surf the web for answers. Seriously? You couldn't think up a better way to convey some information to us, the readers, then to have Bella read it off a computer screen while we watch over her shoulder?

Crime #3: The following sentence.
Edward had scooped me up in his arms, as easily as if I weighed ten pounds instead of a hundred and ten.
Two things, Steve. 1.) This sentence is much stronger if it ends after "ten pounds" because if one is to maintain the theme of Bella as a self-conscious everywoman, it only makes sense for her to be so self-conscious that she's willing to think concretely about her weight, if she leaves those three terrifying numbers unsaid. 2.) Bella only weighs 110 pounds? Really? I'm not expert on the anatomy of 17 year-old girls, but 110 seems awfully light. I seem to recall her being described as five-foot-four--though I don't remember exactly--and that is definitely significantly underweight for a young woman of that height. Source 1 Source 2

That's also a poorly placed comma. Just saying.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

First Thoughts

I'm starting to think Stephenie Meyer might be bipolar.

Wait, let me back up.

Going in to this project, I didn't hold high hopes for Twilight. The book and its author received less than flattering treatment in the circles I frequent. One person went so far as to say, "Only two things are required to write Twilight: a thesaurus and ovaries."

I made it clear when I set out on this endeavor that I intended to approach things with an open mind. That's true, but I won't deny that my expectations were low.

Thus far Stephenie Meyer has done exactly what I expected. But at the same time I've been very surprised. I didn't think this would happen, but I have to be honest: parts of this book are very, very good.

To understand my thoughts on Twilight and its author you need to know some terminology. When I look at a book I look at two things: writing and storytelling. These are separate though interconnected parts of a novel. The truly great works of literature excel at both.

By writing I mean the nitty gritty. I mean the minutiae of sentence construction. I mean the elements of style and the particulars of their execution. The goal here is simple: prose is meant to communicate something--a message, a story--and it's simply fact that certain combinations of words communicate more clearly and with more effect than others. Good writing hits you in the chest. Poor writing puts you to sleep.

By storytelling I mean characters, plot. I mean everything from the events that happen (Edward saves Bella from a car accident) to the people it happens to (Bella a clumsy 17 year-old). The three keys to great storytelling are imagery, tension and voice.

So how does Stephenie Meyer stack up so far?

Writing
In far too many ways this tends to be a lost art these days--even among published authors. I used to work as a book reviewer and one of the main reasons I stopped was the constant exasperation I endured at the hands of authors who had never learned to construct good sentences. I don't expect every writer to be Tom Wolfe or Gay Talese or Maxine Hong Kingston, and maybe it's just professional jealousy ("why are they published and I'm not?"), but I think the boring little details of writing still count for something.

Here I have to say that overall Stephenie Meyer does exactly what I expected her to do. Twilight reads like a book in need of an editor. There are moments of brightness. A well-employed fragment. There's occasional anaphora and every so often she hits us with a strong one-sentence paragraph at just the right moment.

Nothing Meyer does wrong is anything beyond the mistakes I would expect from a first-time writer. But again I have to ask: where was the editor?

Meyer's prose is far too passive. The only verb to be found in most of her sentences, was, leaves the reader entirely unsatisfied. Take the very first paragraph of the book:
My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favorite shirt--sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.
Meyer begins strong, active voice and concise imagery (more on that in a minute). The following three sentences, however, fail to compare. The voice shifts into a passive mode, and the repetition "I was wearing...I was wearing" is trying to be anaphora but ends up obtuse.

This is more or less the structure of the whole book (thus far). We have strong sentences swimming in a sea of poorly constructed, unimaginative refuse--vibrant and vital refugees suffocating in the hordes of the living dead.

To put an arbitrary number on it, Meyer gets a 5 out of 10 in the writing category. When she's on her game she produces great work. Problem is she's only occasionally on her game.

Storytelling
I said before that great storytelling is composed of three elements: imagery, tension and voice.

Because we are a visual species, imagery speaks to us in a way and to a degree that no other device can. Without fail a writer's attempts to describe an emotion, to paint out the details of what an experience feels like, will always fail to live up to a simple description of the event itself. As a professor once illustrated to me, "If you want to talk about how sad you were when you moved away from your first house, don't talk about how sad you were. Describe what it looked like when you looked out the back of the car as you were driving away."

Meyer does imagery fairly well. She's not spectacular, but she's far from terrible. For the most part she understands that less is more. I have a pretty good idea what Forks, Washington looks like. I can picture the various characters and I could do so even if there weren't a movie to help. Thus far the best imagery came when Bella awoke to find the world covered in snow and layers of ice. Meyer painted a wonderfully terrifying picture

Tension is the reason a reader keeps reading. It's the ticking time bomb in the background, the subtext of pain and betrayal when separated parents are trying to play nice for their kids. Whether overt or underplayed, tension is the lifeblood to any story. Without it characters, no matter how interesting or well designed, are basically over glorified furniture. They're just standing around.

I know more dramatic events are coming, but right now the prime tension in Twilight comes from Bella being the New Girl, and from the strangeness of Edward Cullen and his creepy family (if I didn't know they were vampires I would think they were some kind of inbred psychopaths a la The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Thus far Meyer has done a fair job of maintaining the tension. Whenever one element exhausts its potential, see introduces something new. For example, when Bella's newness has about run its course, she's almost hit by a car.

Voice takes a character, a construct made up of ink on paper, and turns it into a person. It's the lightning that animates the monster and makes us care about him. Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is one of the greatest novels ever to be written in the English language precisely because of its mastery of voice. Humbert Humbert is a vibrant, realized character, fully defined, complex, hateful, and impossible not to cheer for, even though you feel guilty for doing so.

From page one Stephenie Meyer has done voice well. While it's always easiest in first person, nevertheless I have never once not been able to believe that I'm reading the thoughts and actions of a teenage girl. Bella is a maddening character. She's petty and vain and dramatic to a ridiculous extent--exactly the way a 17 year-old should be. Bella tells the story of her life with honest appraisal, with her feelings laid bare, and with a bitting if sparingly employed wit that allows her to rise above the mold of just another confused adolescent. I can honestly say that here I am impressed with what Meyer achieves.

The best example of voice thus far:
Of course he wasn't interested in me, I thought angrily, my eyes stinging--a delayed reaction to the onions. I wasn't interesting. And he was. Interesting...and brilliant...and mysterious...and perfect...and beautiful...and possibly able to lift full-sized vans with one hand.
I would put this up there with J.D. Salinger. Seriously. Meyer isn't quite a master of stream-of-consciousness like James Joyce, but then again who is? Aside from "angrily," which should have been removed, this paragraph is damn good. We have Bella lying to herself (we all know her eyes aren't stinging from the onions) and we have the progression of her thoughts. We can tell how frustrated and conflicted she is. And the end is funny as hell to boot. I had to read this paragraph twice I was so impressed.

Again, the artificial number. 7 out of 10.

Overall
So at this point you're probably thinking that all things being equal, one should just average out the two scores, get 6, and be done with my thoughts on the first four chapters of Twilight. But wait, perceptive readers will say, he called Stephenie Meyer bipolar at the beginning of this post.

Here's the deal. I started reading Twilight expecting it to be bad. I'm waiting until I've finished the book to see the movie, but the bits I have seen have looked like trite, uninspired garbage--I expected the book to be more or less the same. And in plenty of ways Meyer has done what I thought she would. She has a long way to go before I would call her a great writer.

But here's what makes reading this book frustrating. Meyer isn't always bad. In fact, sometimes she's very, very good. In terms of storytelling she's mostly good, but not extraordinary, and as regards writing she's pretty consistently mediocre. But interspersed among that tapestry are these moments of greatness. And they're frequent enough that I don't think she's just getting lucky. They're also random, coming and going without discernible pattern. Sometimes key sections are sloppy and filler passages are master prose. And sometimes it's the reverse.

I think Stephenie Meyer is bipolar, but instead of getting euphoric or deeply depressed, she suddenly and briefly transforms into a great writer in a Cinderella-esque metamorphosis.

I just wish this carriage didn't spend most of its time as a pumpkin.

And for the record I still maintain that Robert Pattinson has terrible hair.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Friends of the Blog

A more proper post is in the works. In the meantime I want to offer thanks to people who've supported this blog.

Check them out!

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Shameless shout out

The fine folks over at bittenforums are helping me in my quest to understand Twilight. If you're a fan, or someone trying to figure out Twilight mania, they're a pretty solid resource. Check them out!

On the subject of hair


My earlier comment about the ridiculous mess that is Robert Pattinson's hair has caused some controversy. Twilight fan @Shaz532 went so far as to claim "His hair is the best part about him."

I may be new to this whole Twilight thing, but the book clearly describes Edward's hair as "reddish brown" (Twilight, 22). And yet as we can see, Rob's hair is definitely dark brown, mahagony even. NOT RED.

For shame!

The Plunge

At the end of the day I guess I just want to know what all the hype is about.

I've worked as a freelance writer for three years. I hope one day to be a successful - and financially stable - published author. I am intensely interested in men and women who have already achieved that goal. I read Stephen King, James Patterson and J.K. Rowling with one thought in mind: what are they doing right?

Stephenie Meyer's
Twilight is the latest incarnation of the surprise, runaway bestseller phenomenon (The Harry Potter Effect). The four-part Twilight Saga has sold over 85 million copies.

Let's go over the facts. What do we know?
  • Twilight is a Romeo and Juliet style tale of star-crossed lovers
  • One of the lovers is a vampire
  • The story has met with critical praise
  • It has also incurred harsh scorn
  • Twilight fans on the whole, are ravenous devotees, most of whom have Team Jacob or Team Edward tattooed on their wrists
This blog asks a single question: why? Why is this story of teen angst and vampirism the runaway success that it is? To find that answer I'm proposing a simple solution. Over the next month I will read Twilight. I will post my thoughts, my observations, my praises and my criticisms - and hopefully others will join in the discussion.

As part of this project I'm also maintaining a Twitter page. There you'll find updates about this blog and a general repository of Twilight news.

I hope you'll all join me in my month with Steph(enie Meyer). I know this trip will be better with company.

I'll say this from the beginning and without reservation: Robert Pattinson's hair is ridiculous. I'm sorry. I just have to be honest.