Allow Me to Introduce Myself

“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world,” — Walt Whitman

This is mine: “I hate Edward Cullen. I cannot like him.”

Twilight is an unusual book in that it’s one of the few I dislike immensely. Two years ago, when it was already established as a classic, I didn’t even know it existed. Normally, a book like that wouldn’t make my reading list. However, a friend of mine decided to lend me her copy.

“Zach, you’ve got to read this and tell me what you think,” she said and handed me her paperback copy. She knew I liked books and words, especially in the form of novels. I assume she wanted to see the books effect on me.

When I took Twilight home, I sat with it in my chair. I thumbed through the first few pages lightly. I was encouraged that a present-day author for young-adults would use the word “saunter.” Optimism being my fatal conceit, I was painfully disappointed when I began reading.

Girl falls in love with vampire. That’s it. What’s so moving about this story? Certainly not the plot. I kept asking the book: “yes, but what happens next?” There were no great revelations on sex, love or immortality: just a “pretty” story about a girl and her frisky fickle fanged friend. You can imagine how pained I was when on that last page I found out there would be a sequel. Why would anyone want to stretch out this kind of cloudy fluff?

The moment I finished reading Twilight, I took a deep breath, clapped it shut, dusted the clichés that had fallen off onto my shirt and went over to an open window for some fresh air.

I speedily returned the novel to my friend. If she expected my praises, I certainly surprised her.

I’ll cede I have one up on my generation. By the time I read twilight I had already read about Newland Archer’s and Countess Olenska’s clandestine romance in the Age of Innocence. By the time I read twilight I was halfway through Anna Karenina. I knew what novels can be, I knew what they ought to be. Twilight did not make the cut.

“Why be concerned?” you ask. “It’s just adolescent literature,” you say. You say. When the author herself, Stephanie Meyer, is parading through talk shows, or is in magazines, you say “adolescent literature.”

Not only do you miscalculate the audience, you underestimate the book’s stranglehold on American culture. The book was a best-seller, and not just because a flood of ornery teenage girls flooded bookstores. The film was a blockbuster. Since Twilight I can note appearances of two prime time shows involving vampires. “True Blood” and “the Vampire Diaries” both of which deal with the unusually whiny sentimentality of the undead. Are you sure it’s just “adolescent literature”…?

I’ve struggled to understand why this damn book is so popular. Why has Twilight’s influence spread through the mainstream and not other/better novels? What is it about this story that other people identify with?

I endeavored to avoid the film for as long as I could. My folks saw it before I did.

I eventually wound up watching it with a few friends at a party. Through our roaring laughter, I managed to follow along. The film is the unrelentingly painful illusion of substance the novel could only hope to be. It is a remarkable effort of cinema when, for once, the film supersedes the book.

Reader, I refuse to join the Cult of the Cullen-Crazed.

I’ve found reasons to dislike this book for the literary competence, or lack thereof, of its design (for examples see the film), and the gender roles. I between these points of observation, sex and language, I’d also like to explore the dimensions, or (again) lack thereof, of Twilight’s characters.

“Oh, but it’s just like a man to not get it!” you may exclaim. “Only a man could be critical of something so beautiful.”

I’d like to examine your ideas of beauty…

I don’t like Edward Cullen, but it’s not because I’m a man. There is a difference between the actor who plays your favorite character and that character itself. Any man or woman can measure that difference. And to be honest, I think Robert Pattinson is a good-looking guy. Yes, ladies, I’m completely comfortable with my sexuality. I’d date him if I could.

I pity all of the poor samples of young Hollywood that are going to be a part of the Twilight film series. Pretty faces playing terrible parts. It is the ideas behind Twilight as a book, and behind Twilight as a film that I want to interrogate.

So let’s put our thinking caps on, shall we?