And now for something completely stupid
Sep. 24th, 2011 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oselleReally, I told myself that Twilight wasn't worth talking about but I've been away for a long time (except through the Magic of Twitter) and I have to, have to say something about Twilight.
You read that right. She's a genius.
I'm convinced that Ms. Meyer is part of some modern-day Algonquin round table where she gets together with other geniuses, great wits and assorted clever bon vivants to discuss the current pathetic zeitgeist.
One day, one of her comrades -- David Sedaris, perhaps, or maybe Michael Chabon -- leaned over and said, "Stephenie, darling, I'll bet you a whisky that any one of us could write a book in which absolutely nothing happens and it would become an epic best-seller." And she replied, "You're on, Sedaris (or maybe Chabon)."
I finally finished the last book in the Twilight "saga," Breaking Dawn and wow, is my hat off to Stephenie Meyer. What a feat of nothing. Nothing happens in the entire series, but this last book is such a tour de force of nothing that at times it seemed that the letters themselves would fade off the page, like invisible ink, as I was reading.
In this last book, Edward and Bella get married. They go on their honeymoon. Their supposedly epic sex happens offscreen, but not until Bella precedes it with a mini-lecture about how she couldn't imagine how some other girls do THIS VASTLY IMPORTANT THING with someone that they haven't been united to forever in marriage.
Bella suffers a couple of mild bruises during her deflowering and Edward is so appalled at this violence that he swears off sex for the rest of the honeymoon. Like a good Victorian bridegroom who has discovered his new bride is most surprisingly unladylike, he proceeds to drag poor horny Bella off on a series of wilderness hikes to wear her out so that she'll be too tired to jump him at night. Finally comes a night of lingerie and tears, and Bella finally has her itch scratched.
Bella gets pregnant and has a warp-speed gestation. Her half-vampire fetus kicks the crap out of her from within until Edward finally c-sections her with his teeth and then saves her life by turning her into a vampire. Bella awakens and proceeds to spend the next thousand or so pages telling us how beautiful and rich she is now, what a terrific wardrobe she has, and how vampire sex is a kajillion times better than human sex. But only if you're married.
The child, Renesmee, becomes a toddler nearly overnight and has a "gift" for touching people on the face and projecting her every thought into their heads. She is, of course, the most beautiful child who ever lived. In fact, Jacob the werewolf, "imprints" on her the moment he sees her, which means that she is instantly his greatest love and property for all eternity.
All of the above may sound like something is actually happening but I can assure you, it is not. It's like the dullest party you ever went to. Oh sure, people are there, you're talking, food is coming out of the kitchen, drinks are being served and yet it's like you're in some existentialist hell where all of this is just some endless, lugubrious suspension of time and reality, where everything down to the last hors d'oeuvre is really just papier mache and you go to the bathroom to inspect your hostess's medicine cabinet because even that has to be more interesting and OH MY GOD DID THAT CLOCK JUST TICK BACKWARDS??
Three-quarters of the way through this book (exactly 72% according to my Kindle), the brilliant authoress decides to insert the semblance of a plot, so the vampiric ruling body known as the Volturi make an appearance. Or rather, their appearance is PREDICTED, at great length, by the Oracle of Forks, Alice Cullen. Apparently, they want to wipe out this half-vampire freakchild slide projector and kill or enslave the Cullens to use their many talents for their own power-mad ends. Or something.
The Cullens assemble a gang of friendly vampires to act as "witnesses" on their behalf. Bella discovers that her vampiric "gift" is a rubbery mental "shield" that she can literally wrap around the people she wants to protect, and the description of this "shield" is so wet and pulsing and weirdly...gynecological, that it is the single most disturbing thing to appear in these books.
Many, many pages later the Volturi actually show up. The climax to the entire "saga" involves the Volturi and the Cullens standing around in a field talking.
There is one rousing speech, which is delivered by a character so minor, who came into the story so late, that I can't even remember his name. This alone tells you that Meyer is a genius. If she had been trying to write a book in which something happened, she would have given this speech to Edward or Bella. But no! She gives the speech to a wholly unimportant walk-on extra, while Edward stands there silently grinding his teeth and Bella stands there staring and nothing else happens.
Then the Volturi go away. They just go away and never bother anyone ever again.
Bella tells us that everyone lived happily ever after. Which means that nothing will go on happening, forever.
The Cullens will apparently stay sequestered in their McMansion Forks compound, using none of their superhuman talents or immense wealth for the betterment of mankind, even though we've often been told that all of them are deeply caring and generous.
Like a younger, shirtless Warren Jeffs, Jacob will patiently wait out Renesmee's childhood so that he can claim her as soon as she hits puberty.
Bella and Edward will be very rich and very beautiful and have an eternity of earthshaking, offscreen sex and a room-sized closet of slinky couture to look forward to.
Even Bella's dad will have another woman to cook for him now that his live-in housekeeper is too busy being beautiful and rich and tearing off her slinky couture to have earth-shaking offscreen sex.
Nothing. Four books with no plot, no characters, no action, nothing at all. And one of the biggest worldwide publishing phenomena in history.
Brava, Ms. Meyer. Brava. David Sedaris (or maybe Michael Chabon) owes you that whisky.
You read that right. She's a genius.
I'm convinced that Ms. Meyer is part of some modern-day Algonquin round table where she gets together with other geniuses, great wits and assorted clever bon vivants to discuss the current pathetic zeitgeist.
One day, one of her comrades -- David Sedaris, perhaps, or maybe Michael Chabon -- leaned over and said, "Stephenie, darling, I'll bet you a whisky that any one of us could write a book in which absolutely nothing happens and it would become an epic best-seller." And she replied, "You're on, Sedaris (or maybe Chabon)."
I finally finished the last book in the Twilight "saga," Breaking Dawn and wow, is my hat off to Stephenie Meyer. What a feat of nothing. Nothing happens in the entire series, but this last book is such a tour de force of nothing that at times it seemed that the letters themselves would fade off the page, like invisible ink, as I was reading.
In this last book, Edward and Bella get married. They go on their honeymoon. Their supposedly epic sex happens offscreen, but not until Bella precedes it with a mini-lecture about how she couldn't imagine how some other girls do THIS VASTLY IMPORTANT THING with someone that they haven't been united to forever in marriage.
Bella suffers a couple of mild bruises during her deflowering and Edward is so appalled at this violence that he swears off sex for the rest of the honeymoon. Like a good Victorian bridegroom who has discovered his new bride is most surprisingly unladylike, he proceeds to drag poor horny Bella off on a series of wilderness hikes to wear her out so that she'll be too tired to jump him at night. Finally comes a night of lingerie and tears, and Bella finally has her itch scratched.
Bella gets pregnant and has a warp-speed gestation. Her half-vampire fetus kicks the crap out of her from within until Edward finally c-sections her with his teeth and then saves her life by turning her into a vampire. Bella awakens and proceeds to spend the next thousand or so pages telling us how beautiful and rich she is now, what a terrific wardrobe she has, and how vampire sex is a kajillion times better than human sex. But only if you're married.
The child, Renesmee, becomes a toddler nearly overnight and has a "gift" for touching people on the face and projecting her every thought into their heads. She is, of course, the most beautiful child who ever lived. In fact, Jacob the werewolf, "imprints" on her the moment he sees her, which means that she is instantly his greatest love and property for all eternity.
All of the above may sound like something is actually happening but I can assure you, it is not. It's like the dullest party you ever went to. Oh sure, people are there, you're talking, food is coming out of the kitchen, drinks are being served and yet it's like you're in some existentialist hell where all of this is just some endless, lugubrious suspension of time and reality, where everything down to the last hors d'oeuvre is really just papier mache and you go to the bathroom to inspect your hostess's medicine cabinet because even that has to be more interesting and OH MY GOD DID THAT CLOCK JUST TICK BACKWARDS??
Three-quarters of the way through this book (exactly 72% according to my Kindle), the brilliant authoress decides to insert the semblance of a plot, so the vampiric ruling body known as the Volturi make an appearance. Or rather, their appearance is PREDICTED, at great length, by the Oracle of Forks, Alice Cullen. Apparently, they want to wipe out this half-vampire freakchild slide projector and kill or enslave the Cullens to use their many talents for their own power-mad ends. Or something.
The Cullens assemble a gang of friendly vampires to act as "witnesses" on their behalf. Bella discovers that her vampiric "gift" is a rubbery mental "shield" that she can literally wrap around the people she wants to protect, and the description of this "shield" is so wet and pulsing and weirdly...gynecological, that it is the single most disturbing thing to appear in these books.
Many, many pages later the Volturi actually show up. The climax to the entire "saga" involves the Volturi and the Cullens standing around in a field talking.
There is one rousing speech, which is delivered by a character so minor, who came into the story so late, that I can't even remember his name. This alone tells you that Meyer is a genius. If she had been trying to write a book in which something happened, she would have given this speech to Edward or Bella. But no! She gives the speech to a wholly unimportant walk-on extra, while Edward stands there silently grinding his teeth and Bella stands there staring and nothing else happens.
Then the Volturi go away. They just go away and never bother anyone ever again.
Bella tells us that everyone lived happily ever after. Which means that nothing will go on happening, forever.
The Cullens will apparently stay sequestered in their McMansion Forks compound, using none of their superhuman talents or immense wealth for the betterment of mankind, even though we've often been told that all of them are deeply caring and generous.
Like a younger, shirtless Warren Jeffs, Jacob will patiently wait out Renesmee's childhood so that he can claim her as soon as she hits puberty.
Bella and Edward will be very rich and very beautiful and have an eternity of earthshaking, offscreen sex and a room-sized closet of slinky couture to look forward to.
Even Bella's dad will have another woman to cook for him now that his live-in housekeeper is too busy being beautiful and rich and tearing off her slinky couture to have earth-shaking offscreen sex.
Nothing. Four books with no plot, no characters, no action, nothing at all. And one of the biggest worldwide publishing phenomena in history.
Brava, Ms. Meyer. Brava. David Sedaris (or maybe Michael Chabon) owes you that whisky.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 07:49 pm (UTC)There are no other words.
At any rate, it's kind of hard for anything to happen when the main character is so devoid of character and personality.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-24 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-25 05:32 am (UTC)I've had many, many grown adults try to rationalize the Jacob imprinting on toddler thing. NOOOOOO, it will never be any less fucking CREEPY AS ALL GET-OUT. However, I wish Edward would eat Jacob, so I may be particularly biased.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-25 08:24 pm (UTC)She doesn't. Jacob goes to Bella's dad and shows him that he's a werewolf. Then he tells the astounded Charlie that there are lots of things going on in Forks, but it's better for his own safety if he doesn't know what they are. Charlie accepts this unquestioningly. The first time he sees his transformed daughter, he notices that she's suddenly stunningly beautiful, and seems to have birthed a child who looks like a toddler in spite of being only a few days old. Before Charlie can start asking awkward questions, one of the other vampires distracts him with a televised football game and Charlie promptly loses all interest in these mysterious goings-on. The book never covers how the situation is handled with Bella's mother. In other words, nothing happens.
I've had many, many grown adults try to rationalize the Jacob imprinting on toddler thing.
What's especially grotesque is that the imprinting is all one-way: a boy imprints on a girl, not vice versa, and it's not necessarily mutual. In the last book, Bella asked Jacob what happens if the object of the imprinting isn't particularly into the guy who's imprinted on her, and I think the answer was something hideous like, "But who wouldn't fall in love with someone who loved them so much?" Which is, frighteningly, a classic stalker mindset: You HAVE to love me as much as I love you! Not really surprising, considering that Meyer has equated stalking behavior with true love throughout these books.
Especially disgusting here is that it's a given that Jacob will assume a sort of ever-present "favorite uncle" role in Renesmee's life until she's old enough to marry him. So in other words, he'll be a nearly parental figure to her until she's of age, at which point it's assumed that her feelings for him will automatically change from familial affection to romantic desire. Because every girl falls in love with her favorite uncle sooner or later, doesn't she? Who else is ever going to love her in such a very special way??
I'd love to know how people try to rationalize this as anything other than Stephenie Meyer being really fucking weird.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-25 06:08 am (UTC)So, the series is over, right? This mass waste of trees is finished, right? Just trying to stay focused on the positive, here.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-25 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-27 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-28 12:45 am (UTC)And don't worry, the Twilight screenwriters do a pretty good job of retooling these nothing-happens books into movies in which something at least seems to happen. Not having to endure Bella's vapid, non-stop internal monologue is a big help.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-30 06:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 08:30 pm (UTC)