Friday, November 28, 2008

#26: Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

Oh, Breaking Dawn, how you ruined Stephenie Meyer’s captivating series about vegetarian vampires and teen love. Your writing is erratic, you’re about 300 pages too long, your characters do things out of character, you introduce so many new characters in so little space that you needed to add a chart to keep them straight, you contain numerous detail errors that we won’t get into, and you forgot to include the dramatic plot point. It’s too bad. I really enjoyed the series and I feel like this one ruined it for me, leaving a sour taste in my mouth for the whole thing. If this had been the first book in the series, I would have skipped the rest. But I see now I’m not the only person who feels this way; countless readers and critics have wondered what the hell Meyer was thinking. I’ll do my best to keep this short.

On the most basic level, Breaking Dawn just didn’t hold my interest. The hardback copy I have is 754 pages long, and not surprisingly, it’s filled with a lot of rambling. For the most part, readers seem to realize that this series is not an example of good writing. It’s simple and Meyer relies on a lot of elementary adjectives and adverbs, instead of building unique prose. And that’s okay; the appeal of this series, I think, has always been the personal relationships: the love and tension between Bella and Edward; the confusion between Bella and Jacob; the competition between Jacob and Edward; the family dynamics between the Cullens and Bella. So then in Breaking Dawn, when Meyer abandons the relationships that have pushed the story forward, she creates a vacuum. In the fourth book, Edward is a fairly hollow character and there’s little interaction between him and Bella; Jacob and Edward are now buddies so there’s no rivalry; Jacob imprints on Renesmee early, so there’s no romantic tension left. Without these propelling winds that have kept the series going, Breaking Dawn just flounders on the rocks.

Personally, I was surprised that Bella became a vampire; I actually thought, at the end of the last book, that Edward would give her up and she would mate with Jacob. Oops. But she became a vampire and that’s Meyer’s choice and I don’t really object to it. But my issue here with Breaking Dawn was that in Bella’s conversion, basic vampire lore got thrown out the window. Obviously Meyer was already pushing the boundaries with the vegetarian Cullens, and that’s fine; she took a standard legend and transformed it into something original. The Cullens by nature want to drink human blood, and even though they resist, it’s a constant struggle – that’s transforming legend into your own. But it seems ludicrous to write a story about vampires and then ignore their basic characteristics, like she does with Bella post-transformation. Vampires drink human blood; that is what makes them vampires, by definition. But vampire Bella isn’t really interested in humans; she has super-duper control over her emotions (which is amazing, considering she was 100% emotionally driven as a mortal). Bella doesn’t struggle, and after three books of prepping us for her newborn struggle, it’s like what the hell? when nothing actually happens. As Edward tells her, “You shouldn’t be able to do any of this. You shouldn’t be so…so rational.” Wise words, Eddie. Unfortunately no one was listening.

I looked at Stephenie Meyer’s FAQs on her website, and I found the last sentences of the defense of the book interesting: “The surprise to me is that so many people do like my books. I wrote them for a very specific audience of one, and so there was no guarantee that any other person on the planet besides me would enjoy them.” I am pretty well convinced at this point that Meyer is living out a dream-fantasy, with herself as Bella, as she’s writing these books. As such, she doesn’t want to transform that into something horrific...which is where the unbelievable plot turns emerge from. Take away the vampires and the story becomes clear: A mousy girl moves to a strange new town where she suddenly becomes the most popular girl in school; the most gorgeous, amazing guy in the world falls in love with her and through this love, she transforms into the most beautiful, powerful woman the world has ever seen. I get that it’s a fantasy to have Bella emerge as the vampire with the strongest powers, who becomes the only one who can save the Cullens' way of life, after she’s been the weakest link…but this turn of events doesn’t really fit within the framework Meyer’s created over the last three books. And because Meyer knows this manuscript isn’t going to be sitting a drawer, for her own personal use, I do think she has a responsibility to the reader to stay on course. And Breaking Dawn just doesn’t do that. It veers. Oh, how it veers.

In the end, though, I have the same problem with this that I did with the last Harry Potter book: These final installments fail because their protagonists don’t learn anything. Both Harry and Bella go through an epic battle and yet they come out on the other side completely the same, as if nothing had ever happened. Look at The Lord of the Rings – Frodo dumps the ring in Mount Doom, yes, but he can't be the same. He won, but he lost, because he has to leave Middle Earth. He literally can't go back to his old way of life – and that’s what gives that book its heft. There are consequences, for both good and evil. But in the Harry Potter and Twilight series, risk means nothing because the enemy is vanquished and nothing of that struggle remains. Here in Twilight, you've been told over three books that there's supposed to be some struggle/conflict in becoming a vampire – some struggle in staying yourself – but in the end, Meyer skips it...because didn't you know, becoming a vampire is like, the most awesomest thing, way better than being who you were before? It comes out of left field and that, in the end, is what makes the series end flatly.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Rob Pattinson's Confessions

Yes, I'm blogging about Twilight again, mostly because Rob Pattinson has become my new favorite person. Not in that screaming-teenager-please-Edward-bite-my-neck kind of way, but because it seems it's no-holds-barred with this kid...which I find totally refreshing as the Twilight mania careens way out of control. I mean, I like the series, but it's not Shakespeare. And I'm a little concerned that teenagers can't seem to tell the difference between an actor and a fictional character. Get a grip, girls!

Anyway, Pattinson recently gave an interview to E!'s Ben Lyons about his take on the series' popularity. While looking totally nervous and running his hand through his artfully disheveled hair, he says, "When I read it, I was convinced Stephenie was convinced that she was Bella, and it was like a book that wasn’t supposed to be published. It was like reading her sexual fantasy..." And I realized, he is so right. Stephenie Meyer created Twilight from a dream that she had where she met the most perfect man she had ever laid eyes on in a clearing. He was amazing, sure, but the most amazing part was that he loved her. Isn't that every girl's fantasy? (Not to mention the plot of every makeover teenager movie in existence?) The dream was so vivid and strong that Meyer even remembers the date. She wanted to hold onto it so she started writing it down. The result, of course, was the phenomenally bestselling Twilight. It's not an especially well-written novel; I do think its appeal, like the VC Andrews books, is its fantasy aspect...and I don't just mean the mythical creatures. Pattinson totally hit it on the head, and I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before.

You can watch the clip here:
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/lyons_den/b68229_rob_pattinson_on_whats_weird_about.html

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

#25: Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer

So, Eclipse. At first, I wasn't too keen on this one, as it does the exact same annoying thing as Harry Potter; Meyer, like JK Rowling, uses the same set-up over and over again. By book 3, it's a little old. The preface hints at some impending doom that Bella has no control over, but then the book starts and everything is great, there's trial in the middle until bam, some larger menace arrives and the vampires prepare for a fight. That's basically what's happened in every one, with varying specifics. Still, there's something captivating about this overarching story which probably explains why I'm already 50 pages into Breaking Dawn. (The book jacket says it's the final book in the Twilight saga. But what about Midnight Sun? I'm confused.)

I also felt - and Meyer's website hints to this, though I can't find where I read that now - that Eclipse was written a little too quickly. Or maybe just not as freely; of course, Eclipse is the first Twilight book that Meyer wrote, knowing that the series' popularity, and I would imagine she felt some pressure. I saw it mostly in little mistakes, like at finals time. On page 316, Bella talks about how she's nervous for the first day of finals because she has her two hardest tests, Calculus and History; but then just a few pages later, and the same day, she says that she's relieved that finals were finished. There was also a 5-ish page section around 555 where Edward calls Bella "love" in about every other sentence. I also was able - and I don't know if this was intentional on Meyer's part - to guess everything major turn of event before it happened, and in some cases, like a hundred pages before.

So anyway, in Eclipse, Bella essentially has to choose between Edward and Jacob. I was a little surprised by the turn this took, as I never really thought that Bella saw Jacob as anything more than a brother - or a crutch. I never really thought that she was in love with him, and I'm still not totally convinced. Was Bella ever really convinced? Supposedly she's made her final choice, but I have a feeling that Jacob is going to reappear in Breaking Dawn, though I'm not exactly sure how that could play out. It will also be interesting to see where the story goes - Meyer has started to tackle some of the uncomfortable questions behind Bella's potential transformation, and I'm totally wondering how she's going to resolve it so that Bella stays herself while also staying forever with Edward.

Anyway, on a final note, Meyer earns props for including both Robert Frost and Wuthering Heights in this installment. She opens the book with "Fire and Ice," one of my favorite Frost poems. And occasionally, Bella and Edward argue over her beloved Wuthering Heights. But as you know from a past entry, I'm not a fan of that classic; Edward is of the same mind. "The characters are ghastly people who ruin each others' lives." Here, here!

And lastly, my favorite quote from Eclipse: "Then he [Edward] turned back to Jacob. 'But if you ever bring her back damaged again - and I don't care whose fault it is; I don't care if she merely trips, or if a meteor falls out of the sky and hits her in the head - if you return her to me in less than the perfect condition that I left her in, you will be running with three legs.'"

Next up? Haha, it's Breaking Dawn. And then I'll have to run through 4 more books to reach the 30. Not sure what they'll be yet. Woohoo, the goal is within reach!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

#24: Time's Arrow, Martin Amis

I finished Time's Arrow on Monday, and while I'm not sure I necessarily liked it, it's still an interesting read. In some parts, I felt Martin Amis got a little too literary, just to be literary, in the tradition of hip young novelists like the recently departed David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Safran Foer. All I ask of a book is that it be straightforward, you know? I hate when writers clown around. So that was my one issue with Time's Arrow. If the last page was supposed to hit me over the head with some grand meaning, it missed.

On the other hand, the premise of Time's Arrow was fascinating. At the moment of Tod T. Friendly's death, a soul is reborn. Friendly carries it inside him, unknowningly, and they start traveling backwards through his life. He starts out as the old retiree tending his garden, gets younger and becomes a doctor, gets even younger and goes back to his native Germany where he works at Auschwitz. The soul doesn't understand how life works, so to him, a lot of things seem terribly confusing; but also, more importantly, destruction looks like healing and healing looks like destruction. I thought Amis did a superb job at sticking with the conceit, writing everything backwards, even conversations. But what was so weird, and genius, is that once you accept the conceit, it was amazing how many of the situations played just as well, whether you read them from the top or the bottom. Which just says that life is absurd.

The book also at times made me crazy. Literally made me feel crazy because I couldn't remember which direction things should go, since they made sense both ways. I'd have to stop and think about it.

So overall, thumbs up. Now I need to go read The Curious Case of Benjamin Button...but right after I'm done with Eclipse! :)