Twi-fail.....the end of the epic fail.

Before I begin, does the picture above make you cringe slightly?

Let me begin the post with a story. I was in a land far away forgotten by time, yes Tasmania. We were being visited by some friends when the subject of 'Twilight' emerged. I spoke about my 'Twilenge' as posted below and was immediately confronted with an array of questions and debates about the genuineness of this epic....er.....(insert your opinion on Twilight here).

It was about then that one of my esteemed and intellectually enhanced friends said to me, 'why would you waste your time?'. I thought about that. I thought some more. And some more.....and then a little more. A thousand reasons sprung to mind from literary criticism, to being able to have an opinion that is informed about the book that a dozen or so around me said was brilliant. But in the end as Marx once famously said, 'all that is solid melts in the air'. Or in other words, once the superfluous reasons for reading Twilight were pushed aside, I was at last confronted with the ultimate reality. Namely....

I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS!!!!!!

Plus...I have not got the mental and emotional power to maintain a 'semi-interest' in something that is less interesting and worse written than some of my son's 'Bob the Builder' books. So with my bookmark at page 182, I placed it to the side, and picked up where I left off reading other books which delights rather than infuriates. 

SO I FAILED!!!! Yes pick on me all you want, and yes I have no free lunch but at least I can say this, I tried. But to those of you loyal readers (I know there is about 5 of you out there) who are Stephanie Meyer lovers, I say in the words of Lisa Simpson 'Pick up Yurtle the Turtle, possible the greatest book on the subject of turtles there is'.....

SpruceMoose Out.

Twilenge Update - 100 pages in....Urge to Kill Rising....Risssinnnggg.....

I have been quite busy over the last week so the blog and the Twilight novel sitting lazily on my desk have had to wait. But I have been able to scrounge off a few 100 pages and as the title of the post suggests, I feel sometimes like Homer sitting in the snow growling, 'urge to kill rising....' (for those of you who don't 'get' the Simpsons quotes I apologise immensely'. Ok, so I did say I would try to be open minded about this, so I have tried...I really have!

So to start with here are some pros...the cover is pretty cool...just kidding (Spoiler al....ah bugger it, if you have not read it by now you are one of those types who is either a hater or dubious towards the whole thing)

Actually I think the whole story as it stands has a lot of potential. The mysterious nature of Edward and his family brings an air of optimism to my mind that perhaps I will graft some enjoyment out of this quasi-vampire tail. I say this with every ounce of restraint I can but, a better writer would have made this book well worth the $22.99 that my friend paid for it (thanks again S!). Certainly, the darkness of the novel has me intrigued being one who enjoys a bit of the evil side of the supernatural. The attraction of Bella to Edward also has my interest. Whose obsession with a pasty white 'perfect' male is beyond normal. In the back of my mind I'm hoping that in some twisted manner it has a relationship between Edward being a subliminal charmer and Bella being intwined in some type of eerie and wicked trance, but seeing the movie already has spoiled this somewhat. I also find that the setting is worth mentioning. The small town, the family of vampires, the hint of a killer prefaced (albeit very poorly) in the introduction, all calls attention to a gripping tale of horror, dread but also imperfect love and impossible choices.

UNfortunately! (And I meant the inflection here), there are so many errors so far that its making the reading of the book totally infuriating and slightly laughable. My wife who is currently reading Marly and Me (and enjoying it too I think...) is getting frustrated herself with my constant interruptions of 'oh for the love of...' or my favourite, 'PLEASE GIVE ME STRENGTH TO CONTINUE!!!!' (Remember a free lunch is on offer). To save time, space and brain capacity, here are some....SOME gripes that I have so far....

* The opening quote of Genesis Ch2 verse 17 - totally out of context and seems like its put in there to make the book appear somewhat sophisticated - Vampire love with humans and the tree of knowledge of good and evil? er....

* The adoption of a first person prose. Well, this wouldn't be such an issue really if Meyer knew and cared to develop her character Bella properly. For instance, she claims egocentrically to be an advanced reader of English Literature. To quote her own words, 'Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I'd read everything. That was comforting and boring' (p.14). I can handle this, a smart girl who obviously is deep enough to have delved into the belly of classical literature and come out feeling slightly intoxicated with her own sense of self belief. In other words, she poo poos the class because she's smarter and more advanced. And so if she had read Shakespeare for instance, she would reflect on beauty in this manner perhaps;

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

 

Instead this is what I get on page 16;

The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue....

Or on page 67...

Interesting...and brilliant...and mysterious...and perfect...and beautiful...and possible able to lift full sized vans with one hand.

 

Sigh. Throughout the next 100 pages though it gets significantly worse. I actually feel like Meyer has run out of words in the grammar section of her mind because consistently Bella turns to Edward and is lost in his 'perfect face'. This happens on at least 4-5 seperate occasions...which would be fine, if she had used better descriptors and signifiers.

* But perhaps the most annoying thing about the 'first person' prose is the manner in which Meyer assassinates the main character Bella. By the end of chapter two, I hated her with a passion. She is egocentric, nasty, rude and incompassionate towards her family, those trying to be her friends and well wishers and most importantly, the reader. For instance her response to Mike, a nice kid who wants to be her friend (seems later just like that something more) is more than enough to warrant my rage against the Bella;

I smiled at him before walking through the girl's locker room door. He was friendly and clearly admiring. But it wasn't enough to ease my irritation.

What's more she consistently raves on about her clumsiness and instability on her feet to the point where I'm beginning to wonder (a) if she has some type of vertigo issue and (b) if she's taking drugs on the side but not telling me about it. I'm going to go with b, makes it more exciting!

* All this aside, let me pull up on my last point and one that clearly annoys me the most perhaps. It is obvious that this is a novice novel, a first go at writing. From my standpoint, I can picture Meyer sitting at her laptop excitedly punching away with a scene in mind that she wants to rush to because she does so little in both the character, setting and plot development, the first 100 pages are a blur (and she needs lessons in English sentence construction and paragraphs...for goodness sakes PARAGRAPHS...they are like 2 sentences long! And for heaven's sake use a Thesaurus! Or put it down when its obvious you don't know the meaning of words - eg. infinitesimally). At one stage after she is saved by Edward from the crushing truck (I did say I was not doing spoiler alerts right?), she and Edward are suddenly not talking after a confusing and infuriating discussion at the hospital, and after three short pages 6 weeks have passed. Again, wouldn't be such an issue but according to Bella, in those six weeks she has been having strange dreams of Edward and developing such an obsession that it makes me the reader feel unfulfilled. Such an important component of the building plot requires some insight, descriptiveness....something!

100 pages in...yes give it time. I'm hoping that Meyer gets her act together, but as a taster, the first 100 pages are not filling me with optimism. Yet the promise of a free lunch drags me on (Drag Me To Hell like Raimi's work? jokes). I leave the question open as to firstly why this is one of the best sellers of 2009 (the whole series that is) and on the top 20 list of must read books (as voted by Australians), and secondly whether this is a success of Meyer's....or the marketers behind it.

On this question I will return to later in my life.....if I've not been beaten to death by Twilight fans first.

Twilenge....One Man's Journey into Vampire Perplexity!

So last night I finally finished the massive 700+ page new book from one of my favourite writers Paullina Simons called A Song in the Daylight. To be honest, I was slightly dissappointed with this effort from her. Certainly not up to the Tully standard that made me a follower of her work. This time around I found it all too heavy. The main character has a significant 'itch' which is never really explained unlike Tully who is highly complex for good reason (no spoiler alerts). Anyway that is not the issue at hand here.

The real issue is that I told no more than three of my friends (all female and including my sister in law) that once I had finished this book, I would take up what I call the Twilenge. In short, I've been a constant cynic towards the entire Twilight series including the movies. Before the series took off in the global western imagination of every girl/woman inspired by pasty white men who glitter in the light, I read around 20 pages of Twilight (the first one) and put it down with the thought, nice for young women...perhaps. But since then I do not need to tell you its become an international best seller. I took the 'anti-twilight' label on happily. But how did I do it? Apart from reading those initial pages, I also saw the movie on the flight home from London in May (Ok so I had exhausted all the movies on the play list and was still 6 hours away...I had a choice, Free Willy or Twilight.....it was a tough choice). Needless to say I wasn't impressed. In fact, I think I may have fallen asleep - but waited impatiently for the death of the 'bad' vampire at the end. But that was a non-event.

Ok so I've heard so many people protesting my disdain for Twilight for various reasons. Let me list them for you quickly:

(1) You're just jealous of Edward - Oh yeah...cursed brown skin! (jokes...nothing racist there ok?)
(2) You're just jealous of Stephanie Meyer - yes damn it, why can't I make millions from....
(3) Why do you have to be critical of it? Just get over it - ok...if you can get over telling me how brilliant it is I will.
(4) It's just a book - it's also a book that influences and has a wide....audience. Should it not be subject to critical thought? All other literature and movies are? (I also heard my friend tell me that the girls at his work said to him, you should read it, your wife would want you to be more like Edward....that sadly is not a joke.)
(5) You don't get it cause you're male and you don't get romance novels - sure, except I have read all of Jane Austin's work (except for Mansfield Park) and loved Pride and Prejudice as much as anyone. I suppose however the Austin is not really a good example of romance novels. After all, Pride and Prejudice is really a book about just that, Pride and Prejudice (and not Keira Knightly)
(6) You've not even read it so how can you judge - can't argue with this one....

In response to this last one, people began to Twilenge me. What is that you say? To read the first two books and see what I think. Well, my friend Sam finally decided to let her 'baby' go, and now I'm ready to dive into Meyerist fictional delight fantasy .... I have no way to finish that sentence. My friend Sam told me to be nice. My sister in law Julia told me to read it with an open mind (I'm striving to do this...really). My other friend Shannan told me that I wouldn't be able to put it down as the story will suck me in. My other more critical friend Sam R told me that if I could get through the second book, she'd buy me lunch (I'm holding you to that Sam!) and my wife....well she just laughed.

So for the next month, I'm subjecting myself to the first two hopefully (oh yeah...free lunch baby!). While doing so, I thought I would post up my play by play commentary of it. Open minded of course. I'm not an English major, I've only done literary or theatrical critique perhaps a handful of times in my life (once I had to do a sociological critique of Terminator 3....pretty fun stuff) so don't expect too much. Just honest lay public perceptions on what is one of the most widely read books of our recent times. Should be fun um...I can't finish that one yet....