Adventures of a heterosexual male reading Twilight
The story so far: my floor of my dorm is coed. It's called an "LLC", or "Living Learning Community", and the idea is that since all freshmen have to take a First Year Seminar, you'd get to know the members of your FYS if you live with them. This has worked fairly well, as we all know each other's names and such, but it has brought an unfortunate side effect.
My floor is infested with Twilight fangirls (and one gay male. My roommate)
These girls rave about Twilight all the time, and will defend its splendor at a moment's notice. Worse, they only accept arguments about the book's weaknesses if one has read the books. So, in order to properly debate them all, I've decided to risk insanity and read the Twilight Saga.
Ooooooooooooh boy.
So far, things aren't as bad as I feared. The writing is fine, but it has this strange fan fiction feel to it, like it was written by a sixteen year old high schooler. It has these strange tendancies to explain every detail of what a character is doing, such as explaining that Bella is drinking milk from the carton, not using a glass at all (the slob). While some may cite this as great scene and action development, I find that it all breaks flow somewhat. I've only ever found such microdetailing in, as I've said, fan fictions. One moment that made me groan audibly was a scene in which Bella comments on how small a classmate is by saying that she's "well below my five feet four inches". I didn't need to know that! I wasn't picturing Bella as some Amazon giant, nor was I thinking to myself, "Stephanie, this is nice, but how tall is Bella? Tell me, woman!" This gripe may only apply to me, but it all just seems like it was written by a skilled teenage writer in her spare time, not by a woman who has chosen writing as her chosen profession.
And then we get to Edward, who I'm pleased to notice has "reddish-brown hair" in the book (just like me). So far I'm not minding the man too much; his dialogue is usually pretty interesting in that so far it's really provided a psycholical profile of a vampire then anything else and hey, I'm a psych major. However, Edward brings me to the biggest problem I'm having with the book, and that is:
They never stop talking about how gorgeous Edward is.
On almost every page or so, Bella has to mention at least once how Edward is lovely and beautiful and pretty and handsome and manly and statuesque and perfect and muscular and good looking and all sorts of other compliments. Okay, Bella, we get it. The guy's got a cute face and a killer bod. Now, will you kindly shut up?
My problem is that this really breaks the flow and pulls me out of the novel. I'll be reading the book, slowly starting to lose myself in the dialogue, and then Bella will glance at Edward, and talk about how his face is better looking then any face should be, and I'll be jerked out of the immersion like I'm on a catapult. Now, I have little tolerance for high school teen drama, so just reading the good writing in Twilight is like pulling teeth. But when Bella feels the need to remind the reader that she's falling in love with the best looking kid in town, it really just makes me dislike her. A lot. Maybe this changes later on in the book, but so far she's fallen "irresistably and irrevocably in love with him" based solely on his physical beauty. And is that really the way love is born? I mean, I know that Hollywood has tried its best to say the answer is yes, but for pete's sake, Bella's a high schooler! We've all had that one high school crush who we liked based on looks alone, but we never fell head-over-heels for that person only because they were hot! I like to think it takes a little more then good looks to win eternal love, but hey, maybe that's just me.
Anyways, those are my first opinions of Twilight. If enough people care to hear more of my opinions I may write about what I think about what happens next (Bella's going to the beach, everyone!) If not, hey, I'm not a vain guy. I'll kindly shut up and stop taking up space.
Till next time (maybe),
-Tigg
I love Twilight satire. Some time ago, I considered reading some of them to stay current and stuff. Then I realized, it's a freaking romance novel! Why in the hell do I need or want to read thousands of pages of that!?
I'm not convinced that romance novels can sufficiently elevate themselves above that fan-fic feel. Not in a novel solely based on romance, anyway. If it's a story in itself, where two of the characters fall in love through the course of the tale, but is not centered on that, it can work. For example, Han and Leia fell in love in the original Star Wars trilogy, but those were not romance movies.
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Why can’t women objectify and fantasize for once? I’m wondering why everybody is so judgmental about this series. So it’s shallow- big deal…. The characters came from a dream that the writer had, and she couldn’t get them out of her head because she fell in love with them, so she decided to write the books. I think that’s pretty cool! I wish I could publish one of my dreams and make a bunch of money!
Bella is not in love with Edward because of the way he looks, she loves him because HE is so intensely in love with her, and he can’t resist her; it’s just a plus that he is really, really, incredibly good looking (like Zoolander, for instance.) The blood drinking is (obviously) just a metaphor for lust, or is interpreted as such, and the fact that he is so dangerous makes him desirable – “I’m just a fragile, tiny woman, but I have this sexy man/beast to protect me”….. Anyway, I know this was mainly for your confessions but I had to chime in.
Signed: Shameless Twilight Fanatic
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I'm planning to read it too just so I can diss it properly, LOL. I'm not a heterosexual male, though, I'm a bisexual female, but I'm still not exactly a Twilight sort of person.
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Bella is not in love with Edward because of the way he looks, she loves him because HE is so intensely in love with her, and he can’t resist her; it’s just a plus that he is really, really, incredibly good looking (like Zoolander, for instance.) The blood drinking is (obviously) just a metaphor for lust, or is interpreted as such, and the fact that he is so dangerous makes him desirable – “I’m just a fragile, tiny woman, but I have this sexy man/beast to protect me”….. Anyway, I know this was mainly for your confessions but I had to chime in.
Signed: Shameless Twilight Fanatic
cough*** bs***** cough, well then again I wouldn't mind if it wasn't a romance novel and therefore focus on other things as well. I would like to see more interactions with human and their part in the whole vampire affair. How come there aren't any vampire hunters in Twilight as anagonist or something ugh. Yeah I get that they could kill human easily but I don't think many vampire hunters in other vampire books were super human or anthing they still managed it so why can't this happen in the twilight universe. I kinda did like the series but didn't like the really bizaare messages it gives to it's readers. Examples, being a pedo is ok as long as you just can't help it (lul wat), stalking is super romantic and flattering (wow I should try it too, not). Also it is interesting that you bring this objectifying business up, funny how we get hounded all the time if even one of us mention that a girl is pretty. Now you're judging us for judging you in the same manner. This seems to give a whole new meaning to ironic and hipocritical.
This is interesting.
Seriously-you might consider submitting a version of this article to Playboy.
This "Twilight" thing is a big phenom, and youve done the work for us of reading the darn thing and reporting about it.
By 'us' I mean everyone who is not teenage girl.
Guys in general are curious about female sexuality and how it works.
So a light cheeky piece about a "straight male reading a Twilight Novel" would fit right on the pages of Playboy.
I haven't read it yet, but I've been seriously considering it. Not because I think I'll like it, but so I can see what all the fuss is about. I already know the whole story. I found this brilliant satire online that pretty much tells all the plot points in the four books. So...I know how it will end. Whatever, I'll still give it a shot, I suppose.
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