Twilight - review + Marius debut!

We at ‘Fetch!’ are glad to welcome our friend Marius; who will enlighten you all with his words, that I am sure will de-shroud the exclusivity of the literary world. The family just keeps growing! - ( s )

Twilight is a young adult/fantasy/romance novel written by author Stephenie Meyer, originally published in hardcover in 2005. The story is about seventeen-year-old Isabella Swan, a girl who moves to Forks, Washington and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen.

As I checked this item off my Summer Reading List, my mind stumbled upon an old Oliver Wendell Holmes quotation...and I couldn't help but smile in agreement. Would you like to hear it? No, don't answer that! At any rate, here's how the quote goes: 'Love prefers twilight to daylight.' Perhaps the foreshadowing has worked...perhaps it hasn't. The item I speak of is Stephenie Meyer's much hyped 'Twilight.' This 435 page Vampire romance is...odd. How so? Well, to begin with, it doesn't suck! Frankly, the premise of the book disgusted me. The fact that it was 435 pages long also got me pretty hot and bothered. Anyone who has endured even one of L.J Smith's vile 'Night World' puke-pieces will know what I am talking about. You obviously have that one important thematic consideration: Love. And not just any ol' love but FORBIDDEN love. Other cliches like the scandalously pulchitrudinous vampire and the ho-hum plain Jane of a heroine abound. Not to mention how the two fight their 'urges' and eventually give in to the tempestuous force that is LOVE!!! Not sex.

So now you're probably wondering how this differs from any of L.J. Smith's bouts of projectile vomitting. Saying that 'Twilight' does not suck as bad as 'Secret Vampire'(Yes, dear reader, yes. Want to see my emotional scars?) and leaving it at that is a bit of a bitch, isn't it? A rather recondite bitch, actually. But I should stop meandering and address the lingering issue of what works to make 'Twilight' work. Two words: Character Development. Meyer belongs to that breed of writers who, brought up on Bronte and Austen, amalgamate those classy Olde Worlde pretensions into contemporary sensibilities to come up with that recherche phenomenon called an intelligent romance. Yes, romance and that too, a romance that flirts back with elan; in a time when love is nothing but a few seconds of squishy noises. Having said that,one can see that Meyer showers her characters with a lot of love and this feeling is palpable. Why this is judicious is because eventually you begin to see with Meyer's eyes and the vision is an enthralling one. Meyer's prose is lyrical and has true flow...her elegiac prose makes the book slip down as easily as cold fruit punch on summer's day...all this can be attributed to the rather alliterative and assonant nature of many of the sentences. Lexically speaking, it is fairly obvious that Meyer has deliberated over making her heroine, Isabella sound contemporary and the Vampire gigolo,Edward slightly Old World but still approachable. Her lexical choices in several of the descriptions (esp. Edward in the sun) are prudent and convey the beauty of the idea with ease, without overwhelming the reader. With the dexterity of a carpet weaver using a thread of delicately chosen words, Meyer builds up a scorching erotic tension between the couple. The intellectual tone of the book is raised with the many parallels that Meyer draws with The Bard's perpetual tale of star-crossed lovers: 'Romeo and Juliet.' In this aspect, 'Twilight' isn't very in-your-face for subtlelty and sub-text make any romance truly delicious! Those readers familiar with the play will be astounded at the many similarities that they can find in both incident and character. In terms of the protagonists, Meyer introduces us to Isabella or Bella, as she is called. Bella's character shows shades of Juliet. But it is a contemporary Juliet that you will find here -a Juliet who is not all incandescent gloss and beauty but one who can be slightly klutzy and often inarticulate. Yet, Bella can be dazzling in her own way...her levelheadedness and even her coquettishness comes as a bit of a surprise. Let me go ahead and say that Bella has shades of Austen's Elizabeth Bennet. The less I say about Edward Cullen, the better. He's revoltingly handsome and Byronic and I hate him for it. There is also a lustrous cast of minor characters who are as beguiling as they come. 'Twilight' is an exposition; it only introduces you to the characters and seductively hints at the intertwining destinies of Bella and the Cullens. Oh sure it has some (and I say this as delicately as possible) 'girly' parts like Meyer's constant attention to the many anatomical details of Edward's obscenely perfect personage. But on the whole, Meyer avoids the cringe factor with a wide, wide margin (Ms. Smith, do I have your attention?). The novel has the potential into turning into a time-less love legend but only the rising of the 'New Moon' followed by a much-needed 'Eclipse' can be privy to that fact. Meanwhile, put on Skillet's 'Comatose' CD and dig into the guilty pleasure that is shrouded in 'Twilight.'


posted by ( m )