I’m puzzled. Honestly and utterly puzzled. I cannot understand how a book that has been dismissed as naïve, foolish, badly-written, boring… a book that, all the same, has been praised as the ultimate love-story for hundreds if not thousands of readers (of various ages AND professions) .. is actually turning out to be so much more than just a book.. or movie.. or story. I’m obviously talking about “Twilight” and the way it has crept into my mind to the point where I became obsessed about it. Me and a couple hundred others…
I should start by saying that I’ve only experience this sensation before, when I first took up reading Stephen King. By that time I was 20 something and boasted on a large reading experience that included many of the world’s classics. My interest for “light” literature surfaced occasionally when, in lack of something more serious, I got my hands on some Pearl Buck or Alexandra Ripley or Ann Rice (funny it was always women, isn’t it). And then my revelation of Stephen King was just that: a revelation. So called “light literature” could actually be profound, well-documented, complex, wrapping you up in the story and making you breathless with every page… Now, I have no intention whatsoever of comparing Stephen King to Stephenie Meyer. Their writing is just so worlds apart, you couldn’t really compare them like you can’t compare a wolf to a.. (I was going to say vampire..) a lion, for instance. They’re both carnivore mammals, but that’s just about all they have in common. King and Meyer, on the other hand, do have something in common. They are both very easy to read… and their books seem to always reach a part of your mind that is beyond conscious control…. the part of your mind that will interrupt me while trying to translate a difficult phrase, for instance, only to casually ask me: “So, what do you think will happen next to… ?”. And the funny thing is that this voice appears even when I’ve already seen the movie or read the book before… because, as I said, it’s beyond what I KNOW. It’s actually the voice of what I FEEL…
Getting back to the “Twilight” series. I am by now halfway through the second book, “New Moon”. I haven’t been able to read it in one day, as with the first one, but that only makes things worse. When I woke up this morning I actually considered trying to skip work to stay home and read. Obviously, there was a part of me that knew better than that, and fortunately it did prevail. But the thought, or actually the feel of the book is still there, in my mind. It could be it made such a big impression on me because of the way I read it: listening to the soundtrack, eating up page after page of the book, and unable to keep myself from picturing the characters as I’ve seen them in the movie. Not that I was trying too hard, anyway. But the scariest thing is that I’m genuinely feeling what Bella is feeling. I can identify with her to the point where I dream her nightmares! I am racing through the book knowing that there will be a happy end to it, yet almost unable to bear until I reach it. Reading this book makes me both happy and miserable, at the same time, in a way none of the great “classics” was ever able to. I guess that’s partly because of the whole diary-appearance of the story, but I have a feeling there’s more to it than just that. Maybe the book is simply well-written. Maybe there’s more to good literature than just expressing complex feelings and re-creating the world from scratch. Meyer’s characters might be simple, the story might be annoyingly linear to some, even the language mistakes might count as an argument that the book is crap (I personally believe they add authenticity to the book, since it’s Bella’s words that Meyer is reproducing). But I still think it’s a book worth reading… and maybe it will give us, the snobs of “classic” literature, an opportunity to loosen up a bit and give up our prejudices on what is good literature and what is not. After all, it’s a beautifully told story of something we’ve all been through at one point in our lives. And we might have grown up and grown out of love, but Meyer is here to remind us that it’s not too late to go back yet…
I should start by saying that I’ve only experience this sensation before, when I first took up reading Stephen King. By that time I was 20 something and boasted on a large reading experience that included many of the world’s classics. My interest for “light” literature surfaced occasionally when, in lack of something more serious, I got my hands on some Pearl Buck or Alexandra Ripley or Ann Rice (funny it was always women, isn’t it). And then my revelation of Stephen King was just that: a revelation. So called “light literature” could actually be profound, well-documented, complex, wrapping you up in the story and making you breathless with every page… Now, I have no intention whatsoever of comparing Stephen King to Stephenie Meyer. Their writing is just so worlds apart, you couldn’t really compare them like you can’t compare a wolf to a.. (I was going to say vampire..) a lion, for instance. They’re both carnivore mammals, but that’s just about all they have in common. King and Meyer, on the other hand, do have something in common. They are both very easy to read… and their books seem to always reach a part of your mind that is beyond conscious control…. the part of your mind that will interrupt me while trying to translate a difficult phrase, for instance, only to casually ask me: “So, what do you think will happen next to… ?”. And the funny thing is that this voice appears even when I’ve already seen the movie or read the book before… because, as I said, it’s beyond what I KNOW. It’s actually the voice of what I FEEL…
Getting back to the “Twilight” series. I am by now halfway through the second book, “New Moon”. I haven’t been able to read it in one day, as with the first one, but that only makes things worse. When I woke up this morning I actually considered trying to skip work to stay home and read. Obviously, there was a part of me that knew better than that, and fortunately it did prevail. But the thought, or actually the feel of the book is still there, in my mind. It could be it made such a big impression on me because of the way I read it: listening to the soundtrack, eating up page after page of the book, and unable to keep myself from picturing the characters as I’ve seen them in the movie. Not that I was trying too hard, anyway. But the scariest thing is that I’m genuinely feeling what Bella is feeling. I can identify with her to the point where I dream her nightmares! I am racing through the book knowing that there will be a happy end to it, yet almost unable to bear until I reach it. Reading this book makes me both happy and miserable, at the same time, in a way none of the great “classics” was ever able to. I guess that’s partly because of the whole diary-appearance of the story, but I have a feeling there’s more to it than just that. Maybe the book is simply well-written. Maybe there’s more to good literature than just expressing complex feelings and re-creating the world from scratch. Meyer’s characters might be simple, the story might be annoyingly linear to some, even the language mistakes might count as an argument that the book is crap (I personally believe they add authenticity to the book, since it’s Bella’s words that Meyer is reproducing). But I still think it’s a book worth reading… and maybe it will give us, the snobs of “classic” literature, an opportunity to loosen up a bit and give up our prejudices on what is good literature and what is not. After all, it’s a beautifully told story of something we’ve all been through at one point in our lives. And we might have grown up and grown out of love, but Meyer is here to remind us that it’s not too late to go back yet…
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