book review: twilight [or, where, oh where, have the editors gone?]

after seeing just about every woman between the ages of 18 and 80 reading this book at the gym, and on the advice of a couple of trusted friends, i decided to give stephanie meyer's twilight a read. i'm a big 'buffy' and 'angel' fan, so i was a bit weary at first; but my friends assured me twilight beared no resemblance to either, so why not? after all, she's lds, she went to byu. so, you know, gotta support the home team, right? and ms. meyer seems like a perfectly nice and kind woman, someone who's probably pretty cool [she listens to muse and reads orson scott card] and likable. i was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and ignore the massive hype and adoration by fangirls and give it a go.

the first chapter, i admit, was mildly intriguing: big city girl moves to small, gloomy washington town and is instantly consumed with an inexplicable attraction to a boy with a 'pefect face' by the name edward cullen. he's dark, brooding, gorgeous, enigmatic, blah, blah, blah. and oh yeah, he's a vampire. only bella does it know it yet. ok, it seemed like there was some potential for interesting story, so i lowered my head and trudged forward, all the while hoping it was worth the hype and that i'd be able to pass a few pleasurable hours with this new cast of characters.

my hope, however, only lasted about ten minutes. by the middle of the second chapter i had one one burning question: did anyone actually read this book before it went to press? i say that without irony, without hyperbole. it's not a rhetorical question. i sincerely want to know because the problems with this book are so abundant that it was the third time in my life i've actually been offended by a book [the kite runner and white oleander being the other two]. there's no way i could possibly cover all the issues with this book, but i will address a couple of major, glaring problems. and they are major. and they are glaring.

you would think that someone with an english degree from a major university would at least be able to form a coherent, well-structured sentence. but no. meyer's prose is so clunky, hard to read, and filled with some many voice inconsisties [drifiting between present and past within the same sentence, for example], adverb abuses ['i took my book out my backpack industriously' -- what does that even mean?], and cliches [overly long and repetitive descriptions of the weather, stock characters, for example], and usage errors that it literally drove me to distraction. i had a hard time following what little story there was because the book is so poorly edited both in content and syntax. any editor worth his or her salt should have caught and corrected them as they are very easy to spot. it doesn't matter that the book is aimed at twelve year old girls. poor editing is poor editing and shame on the publisher for not treating its readers with at least a modicum of respect. it's the worst kind of condescension imaginable.

again, i'm not trying to throw ms. meyer under the bus, but the prose itself reads much more like a 1st draft in an intro to creative writing class than a national bestseller. i found myself groaning or rolling my eyes at each passing page, feeling embarrassed for ms. meyer and her publisher, because of the triteness of the writing--again, did anyone read it beforehand? the dialogue borderline laughable. it's flat and generic. the exposition doesn't fare much better. it's amateurish and filled flowery prose and redundant passages that do nothing to advance the plot or develop character--and speaking of plot, twilight should've been whittled down to about 25o pages, maybe even fewer. there's no way a plot this thin and flimsy can sustain a monolithic 55o pages. no way, no how. and just when i didn't think the writing could possibly get any worse, ms. meyers unleashes this zinger: 'again, the fabric clung to his perfectly muscled chest. it was a colossal tribute to his face that it kept my eyes away from his body.' i mean, seriously. really? that's the kind of writing you get in $3.99 supermarket checkout romance books, not a national bestseller. at one point i half expected to close the book and fabio engaged in some good, old-fashioned boddice-ripping.

the writing might be forgivable were twilight at least inhabited with interesting chracters. again, ms. meyer fails miserably. i don't know that i've read a more pathetic character than the novel's protagonist, bella swan. yes, yes. her name is bella swan, the beautiful girl who doesn't know she's beautiful. seriously? do your best GOB voice: 'come on!' so strike one for a lousy, predicatable name. even that, however, might've been easy to overlook had she any redeeming qualities. but bella, for some inexplicable reason, has no ambition, no goals, no hobbies, no interests, no hopes, no dreams, and not a single original thought of her own. and i mean none. about all she does have going for her is her looks. well, that and an all-consuming lust for the hot vampire. that's it. all she does is stare at him and comment on his 'perfect face,' 'rippling muscles,' and 'amber eyes' ad nauseum. i'm not kidding, there have to be at last a couple hundred references to edward's glorious looks and physique. no exaggeration. ms. meyer made a less-than-admirable attempt to make bella more than one-dimensional by giving her an odd, wholly necessary, physical clumsiness. but i quickly realized that bella's clumsiness was just a cheap device to give edward chance after chance to rescue her from the throes of danger. it's just painfully ridiculous and lame. bella swan is an incredibly difficult person to empathize with and cheer for because she's such an idiot. but there was one more surprise about bella that i wasn't prepared for: when you get to the last page of the and see a picture of stephanie meyer, you realize she's mary-sue'd herself right into the book. she is bella swan. tsk, tsk, ms. meyer. at that point what little credibility the book has is immediately blown.

edward, for his part, is about the most boring vampire in history. he's 100 years old, but talks like he's ten. his initial repulsion of bella [due to the scent of her blood -- no lie] gradually gives way to, well, lust. his major conflict is balancing his literal bloodlust and protecting bella from all manner of 'danger' and 'peril' a.k.a. stalking. he's dominating, domineering, and like i said, 100 years old [anyone else see a problem with a 100 year old and 16 year being together? at least buffy and angel didn't skirt the issue]. a number of times bella states that she 'obeyed' edward or 'was commanded' by edward. does that worry you a bit? aside from his alphamale qualities, edward his a big, fat snoozefest. he's the least interesting love interest i've ever read. and that leads me to biggest, and most offensive part of the book....

twilight is marketed and sold as a romance, the quasi-tragic tale of forbidden love between human and vampire, the kind of story that draws women of all ages into fantasyland. that's all well and good, but there's nothing remotely romantic about twilight. in order for a romance to work and be believable, there must be a reason those involved fall in love. ms. meyer, lord knows why, completely skips or ignores that part of the equation. bella shows up in forks, washington and by the third or fourth chapter she's 'irrevocably' in love with edward. why is she love with him? what's he done to make himself so deserving of her love? not one single thing. he's just hot. well, that's a problem. a big problem. it's hard to buy a 'love story' when there's no good reason for bella to be in love with edward in the first place. and there's certainly no reason for him to be in love with her. in twilight what you have is a teenage girl looking for wish-fulfillment--the kind of thing that gets real life teenage girls into all sorts of trouble. what almost no one seems to understand, most of all ms. meyer, is that love is a result, or a bi-product. love is earned and developed over time. love isn't something you just wake up and feel one day. lust? yes. absolutely. love? absolutely not. [and we wonder why so many women end up married to burger jockeys?] i realize twilight is escapist fantasy, but when i see hundreds of reviews on amazon.com by young women who see it as a 'sweet romance' or 'great love story,' it makes me worry for their futures. it's neither a sweet romance or a great love story. life is a lot more complicated than 'you're hot, i'm hot. let's be hot together!' forget about hard work, kindness, respect, decency, thoughtfulness, ethics or morals [as ms. meyer does]. so long as your hot and you've got your man, hey, it's all good.

and i think that's why i was so offended by this novel. when it comes to difficult and complex issues like love and implications of wanting to turn yourself into a vampire, much less fall in love with one, twilight is dishonest and disingenuous. it's not so cut-and-dried as ms. meyers would have us believe. like i said, i realize it's escapist fiction, but that doesn't excuse or forgive the shallowness of twilight. if i had a daughter, i'd think twice about letting her read it, even if it is just about the most popular book around. there's simply nothing to recommend it. boring plot + boring characters + sloppy writing/editing = bad book. i haven't the foggiest idea why it's so popular. i really don't. but i do know that it scares me. it scares me that so many people identify with it; it scares me that so many women buy into twilight's warped and simplistic version of love; it's scares me that such shoddy writing can be so well-received by semi-respected publications. but then again, maybe i shouldn't. wish-fulfillment is a powerful thing. it's made a lot of people a lot of money; and twilight is a perfect example of capitalizing on it and turning it into a cash cow. but in the end, bad books are bad books. and twilight is a stinker of the worst kind.

twilight apologists like to defend the novel by saying things like, 'well, at least young women are reading!' that's one way of looking at it, i guess, but with that kind of logic you might as well congratulate an anorexic for eating a marshmallow.

spitcake verdict: turkey