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I read Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" because:
I was more than a little put off when I heard that Meyer practically bragged about "doing no research into vampire folklore" before writing these. And, of course, I almost lost my lunch when I heard that these vampires of hers "sparkle in the sun". (This is not a spoiler, as Hot Topic sells "Edward Cullen body glitter".) I also worried about the 1st-person character Bella, who basically throws herself at a moody stalker boyfriend.
So why are these books so popular?
Like them or not, Stephanie Meyer captures perfectly the weak-kneed, world-spinning, obsessive tunnel-vision that is a teenager first falling in love.
Yes, perfectly. Any human imperfections can be blamed on the heroine's personality, or lack thereof. Bella has esteem issues, is both socially and physically awkward, and her family is a mess.
But what Meyer has done here is take the concept of "vampire" and turned it into the ultimate obsession target. Her vampires are graceful, conscientious, grounded, athletic, and (of course) sparkly. They are absolutely everything that a teenage girl could possibly want in a teenage boy: broody, dangerous, attractive, beautiful, and impossible to stop.
And, at least in the first book, ( cut because this may be a spoiler )
I will probably get around to reading the rest of the books, maybe. But I'm in no rush. I think I learned all I need to from the first one.
As for how this fits into the progression of vampires, from wild beasts indistinguished from werewolves to parasitic aristocrats to murdering seducers to urban hunters, we now have a new category extended from the seducers: untouchable lovers.
(And no, I wasn't too put-off by vampires in sunlight; after all, the urban hunters in "The Hunger" could walk around in daylight. The vampiric set of strengths and weaknesses is so broad, it's all self-contradictory taken as a whole. Any given vampire story has to use a chosen subset.)
- I'm a big vampire fan, and need to see what the major inputs to the diverse legends are;
- my elder daughter read all four books last summer, and then re-read them;
- I needed to see what the attraction was in order to protect my daughter.
I was more than a little put off when I heard that Meyer practically bragged about "doing no research into vampire folklore" before writing these. And, of course, I almost lost my lunch when I heard that these vampires of hers "sparkle in the sun". (This is not a spoiler, as Hot Topic sells "Edward Cullen body glitter".) I also worried about the 1st-person character Bella, who basically throws herself at a moody stalker boyfriend.
So why are these books so popular?
Like them or not, Stephanie Meyer captures perfectly the weak-kneed, world-spinning, obsessive tunnel-vision that is a teenager first falling in love.
Yes, perfectly. Any human imperfections can be blamed on the heroine's personality, or lack thereof. Bella has esteem issues, is both socially and physically awkward, and her family is a mess.
But what Meyer has done here is take the concept of "vampire" and turned it into the ultimate obsession target. Her vampires are graceful, conscientious, grounded, athletic, and (of course) sparkly. They are absolutely everything that a teenage girl could possibly want in a teenage boy: broody, dangerous, attractive, beautiful, and impossible to stop.
And, at least in the first book, ( cut because this may be a spoiler )
I will probably get around to reading the rest of the books, maybe. But I'm in no rush. I think I learned all I need to from the first one.
As for how this fits into the progression of vampires, from wild beasts indistinguished from werewolves to parasitic aristocrats to murdering seducers to urban hunters, we now have a new category extended from the seducers: untouchable lovers.
(And no, I wasn't too put-off by vampires in sunlight; after all, the urban hunters in "The Hunger" could walk around in daylight. The vampiric set of strengths and weaknesses is so broad, it's all self-contradictory taken as a whole. Any given vampire story has to use a chosen subset.)
