Tuesday, December 2, 2008

I has read a book. REALLY.

Four, actually.

However, it was only the Twilight series. I suppose that doesn't count, that's like saying I listen to Contemporary Music and then bursting into Baby One More Time... hmm. I like that song. Fun tune, composed of that delicately balanced combination of sugarcandy and acid reflux that promises to drive you up the wall by staying in your head till kingdom come..

ANYWAY. Twilight.

Twilight is a story about an obsessive teen-vampire love thingy. Wallflower teen stalks broody vampire who wants to eat her cos she smells of flowers and other nice-smelling things, but can't because he's sworn off humans. Eventually he decides to address that problem by dating her (don't ask me, I didn't write it.) So then they have a true (and truly obsessive)love characterised by what characterises all true love stories. You know, the usual. The unearthly(unearthly-ly? unearthlily?) beautiful monster and the emo teen girl who pees everytime she sees him. Cos of his Beauty. And how it Overwhelms her. And cos of his Beauty. And cos of..

Yes, well.

But seriously, twilight starts off okay, and Stephanie Meyer can pull it together better than some (many) other teenfic writers I've read. And I get that Edward Cullen is supposed to be the unattainable: the beautiful, considerate and delightfully sarky boy with shiny skin and perfect hair. (And bloodsucking, of course. That's hot. That's just how we roll ;D ) It's just that there's only so far you get on the believability scale when pretty much half the novel is taken up in whinily insisting to the reader, in something like the mental voice of that ten year old cousin you secretly want to choke with rubber tubing, that Edward is beautiful, Edward is beautiful, Edward is unearthly, Edward is beautiful. Stephanie Meyer ends up falling from the precarious position of almost-successful-teenfic writer to the depths of the depths: yammering-Edward-groupie. Sad, yesno.

Oh, the rest of the series?

Ok, there's a bunch of werewolves who don't quite like the vampires, but of course they bond over love for poor fangirl here, and the four books (each one a little longer than the last, until the last is the effing Encylopedia Brittanica: Harry Potter Syndrome?) , after a torturous and largely boring journey, culminates in the birth of a bloodsucking fangirl; fruit of the union of guess-who and guess-who-again.

Who, in turn, is pursued by vampires but loved by werewolf and.....well, you get the point. There's Lots of Love. And Unearthly Beauty. And Descriptions of Unearthly Beauty. Long, Detailed, Oh-God-I-Get-It-Already-Please-Stop-Now-Please Descriptions of Unearthly Beauty.

I guess I've outgrown pretty boys with delicately sarky tongues and fabulous hair and Deeply Tortured Souls. Awwww poor me. This must be my coming-of-age moment. :D

It was nice spin anyway. Maybe I'm just pissed cos they chose Robert Pattinson to play Edward.

I'd have gone with Hugh Jackman. :D

4 comments:

Jil Jil Ramamani said...

Ouch....who is that sniffling and snobbing noisiy in the WC?!

Ooh its Stephanie Mayer!

Spaz Kumari said...

no. that's emo teen girl. :)

Unknown said...

Glad I didn't read it..

arunabh said...

If you really admire Hugh Jackman, I don't think you would ever wish him to play the lead role in a movie so well directed as Twilight :P
Btw, I never thought so many people read Dave Barry!