Bookworm Bites into the Twilight Apple

Vampires versus werewolves. Team Jacob versus team Edward.

Even Burger King has begun to cash in on the mania. With the movie adaption of "New Moon" fresh in theaters, perhaps we should take a moment to turn back to the beginning to marvel at the source of this pop cultural storm.
"Twilight," the first book in the saga sharing the same name,  is a fairly straightforward romantic fantasy where a girl falls in love with a vampire, the vampire falls in love with her, and they eat mushroom ravioli. Well, she does, anyway; apparently mushrooms aren’t bloody enough for vampires.

Yet despite the fairly well-known story, "Twilight" is one of those books that creates a strong reaction in pretty much anyone you mention it to. People either love it or hate it, and there is really no way to know who will fall in what category.  Age, gender, and interests can’t seem to categorize who might be fans and who might not. People you would assume might never touch the cover of a "Twilight" book are actually die-hard fans.  It may actually be more dangerous to ask whether someone enjoys "Twilight" or not than whether they are a part of team Edward or team Jacob.

Numerous reasons have been cited for such strong reactions to the series: "Twilight" is wonderfully romantic; it’s much too girly; the characters are well-rounded and interesting; everyone in the book is as flat as cardboard. The contradictions go on and on.  Well, as a firmly anti-Twilight person, I can honestly say I wasn’t remotely interested in finding out the truth about "Twilight" to begin with. But as I started reading (unfortunately forced by one of my English classes) I think I can see where both camps are coming from.

"Twilight" is, on some levels, romantic.  The most perfect bad boy of your dreams has fallen in love with you, and proceeds to be your knight in shining armor at every turn. And I do mean you; not Bella Swan. "Twilight" is seductively written with Bella, the Juliette of the novel, relating all events in first person, allowing the reader to take over as the damsel-in-distress with the stunning sparkly beau. 

This is very carefully contrived through a game of omission; Bella isn’t very often called by her name, and shows very few descriptive qualities about her character. The few qualities she has are mostly to cement her connection to the reader, such as her ordinariness and her love of books. Her clumsiness, her one other major characteristic, seems to be mostly used as a means for which trouble might be created so Edward can save the day.

But one might reason that any mere human might seem clumsy next to such a god-like vampire boyfriend. If you take the bait and fall into the role of Bella, the book can turn into a shallow but enjoyable romp through a line of romantic daydreams with a spooky Halloween-esque element every now and again.  The writing can drag sometimes, but it’s not too bad to take this path with Twilight; it simply becomes a little guilty pleasure, some light reading you might take to the pool to read while you tan.

The other possible option is a bit harder to maintain, but definitely makes you think. If you do not slip into the role of Bella, and do not get fogged up in the dreamy romance Meyer so deftly creates, you begin to see things somewhat differently.

Edward is suddenly an obsessive monster, vampire or not. Moments you might not have paid much attention to before -- such as Edward creeping into Bella’s house to watch her while she sleeps, or when he literally tastes one of her tears -- suddenly become dangerously bizarre rather than signs of devotion. These moments that veer closer to nightmare fodder than romance bring out questions about what  our society might think the ideal man and woman are, and what love is supposed to mean.  The psychological implications of this fantasy of male aggression and female passivity can be quite dizzying.

So am I still anti-"Twilight" after reading the book? Well, yes, actually (sorry to those out there with the ‘try it, you’ll like it’ mentality).  The writing is very bad in a couple of places, and I definitely don’t like books that try their hardest to entrap me into a certain way of thinking, and the novel "Twilight" is just as treacherously charming as any of its vampire characters.  But to those of you who think you are strong enough to not get bogged down in the extensive romance of the book, I would definitely recommend you pick up a copy in order to fully enjoy it as a contemporary female's bizarre fantasy.
 
"Twilight," by Stephenie Meyer
Published by Little, Brown and Company in 2005
544 pages in length
ISBN 0-316-16017-2