I read it so you don't have to Twilight edition...nicer part two

Pages 119 - 195.

I agree with the lovely Jabba in that I wanted so much to be wrong about Twilight. I wanted to read it and say ahhhh this is what everyone is all in a tizzy about. It allll makes sense now. I am saddened that I can't do that. Truly. Because I want people to read. I want them to enjoy reading. But there is a part of me that wants people to like reading worthy books.

And so, I will start with the positive aspects of Twilight as I see them 195 pages in. I can be nice, you know.

Twilight is a quick read. I don't mean quick simply because of its low reading level. I mean quick in the sense of plot timing. It is all look over here Bells is getting attacked no look over here Bells and Eddie are having dinner together no look over here Bells is manipulating a guy into telling her stuff no look over here Bells is having dreams about Eddie no look over here Bells is having petty school issues with her girlfriends.

So, while the activities might be ridiculous, I appreciate them being developed in quick succession.

The other positive aspect concerns spots of truth. I am one of those people who believes fiction can and quality fiction must reveal truth. I won't pretend there aren't aspects of truth Meyer conveys of adolescent life. I think we all remember being a little bit too enamored with someone we shouldn't have been. Were they a vampire? Probably not, but still.

There are also nice moments in the book. Are they wrapped in throw-up worthy conventions? Well, sure, but you can pick them out none the less.

Example: So apparently Eddie is super attractive and, let's say, influential to everyone he meets. And when I say everyone I mean women. Meyer writes a scene where waitresses are swooning all over the place, Bells is jealous, but Eddie only has eyes for her and doesn't notice. I've personally had that feeling, when someone looks at you and you are the only thing they see. It is nice. So at least if Bells is going to fall for a controlling blood sucker who ditches classes when it's sunny he isn't going to cheat on her.

Finally, I chuckled. I know. Crazy right? When Bells and Eddie are eating dinner, and when I say eating dinner I mean Eddie is creepily watching Bells eat dinner he says, "It's a bit easier to be around you when I'm not thirsty." Come ON. That is funny. It is easier to be around her when he is sated because then he doesn't want to CHOMP ON HER. Love in the making people.

Those are my positives.

I will leave my griping about the portrayal of gender rolls and the completely messed up fact that Eddie stalks Bells and she is flattered by it. Or that she says she isn't hungry he says she is she says she really isn't he says eat and she says OK. Or how Bells is apparently depressed and undercuts herself like ALL THE TIME even though she pretty much always gets what she wants like oh I am so inept at flirting that I just got this guy who I don't even like to divulge ancient family secrets, I'm just little old depressive insufficient me.

I'm not going to touch any of that right now.

"Stupid, unreliable vampire."
Bells

I read it so you don't have to Twilight edition...part one

I'm reading Twilight. I will not let it be said that I don't sacrifice for my love of reading and love of talking about reading. I am not a hypocrite. I will not continue to barrage a book I haven't read. Instead, I will read it to further deepen my arguments and thinking.

Now, before I give you my thoughts on pages 1-118 let me clarify my feelings. I do not hate this book simply because the masses like it. The Twilight series has gotten a lot of anti reading teenage girls reading. That is to be commended. The book makes my toenails curl because adults have hoped on the bandwagon. I want to pull out my hair because it is a mockery of all things awesomely vampire. I want to shout 'I am woman' because this book is so ridiculously patronizing of women. I want to sit down and cry because after all the love I have loved and lost it's the wrong messages about love that are in this book.

It can't be denied that the series is a cultural phenomenon. I just wish culture would latch onto something worthwhile for once.

Sigh.

Anyway, the first 118 pages have opened my eyes to many new things to dislike. Here is a play by play. Proceed at your own risk.

Bella is the new girl in school and within two days she has two guys who are like in love with her. Someone punch me in the face PLEASE. As a girl who has been the new girl in countless schools, you don't get paramours the first two days; you get lunchtime in a bathroom stall. Call me jealous. I guess they never said this book was realistic.

No way. The vampires go to high school. Seriously? What does a vampire want with high school? They go to class. They don't even bite people during passing periods. What kind of messed up vampire novel is this? Where is Buffy the vampire slayer when I need her?

Oh, don't worry, Bella doesn't like to talk, falls over everything, and is moody but is somehow popular. Right. Oh, and she is super smart. Faulkner? Totally read that. This lab? Totally have already done it. If that is true why the hell is she in these crap classes? Why aren't her parents talking to the counselors to get her into better classes?

Speaking of parents. Bells left her mom so she (the mom) could gallivant off with her new minor league baseball playing husband. Oh, and her dad is really busy being town sheriff. But don't worry, she sends emails to her mom and whips up dinners for her dad. You know, when she isn't swooning. So glad this novel provides good parental role models.

Let's get to why we are really here folks. The love story. That is what this is supposed to be right? A teen romance novel. Just like Romeo & Juliet, only sucky. So Eddie is pretty much in love with Bells the moment he sees her. Only he shows it by pushing her away. That actually rings true. I get that. What I don't get is the paradox of Bells needing saving like ALL THE TIME while also calling herself stupid for liking vampy Eddie. Oh and don't worry, Eddie tells Bells how incredibly bad he is for her (you know, because he can't seem to lie to her...sigh). Girlfriend just doesn't listen. Typical.

During a science class they test their blood types. Wow. Seriously? They actually prick their fingers and put blood drops on slides. Honestly? 1. law suit and 2. these vampires suck. They are in the same school (remember, they go to school like good little vampires, except when their feelings for certain ladies are too much to handle, then they ditch) and you are trying to tell me they didn't come to take advantage of an entire room of flowing blood?

Three people asked Bells to the Sadie Hawkins dance. That is where the girl asks the GUY to the dance. You are trying to tell me that not one, not two, but three high school boys couldn't wait for Bells to ask them to the dance to the point where each asked her? To her face? Are you kidding? Are we sure Bells isn't the one who sparkles in daylight?

There is fiction and there is fiiiiiction. The book is pretty much fantasy at this point. I want to punch Bells in the face and then show Eddie how to be a real vampire.

Thankfully, I am also reading Dracula: The Un-Dead. In that book, a duchess vampire just took a bath in the blood of a peasant she tortured.

Ball's in your court Eddie.

"We scowled at each other in silence. I was the first to speak, trying to keep myself focused. I was in danger of being distracted by his livid, glorious face. It was like trying to stare down a destroying angel."
Stephanie Meyer, Twilight

When I read you like this, and I fold you like that, it's so hard to believe, but the meaning's all coming back to me now

I vaguely remember reading House on Mango Street when I was younger. I don't recall whether it was for school or for fun. I don't sense that I gleaned any mystical meaning from it. It was just another book. Another book in a long trail I have left behind me my entire life.

Don't get me wrong, I have a great affinity for Latino culture and lit. When my fam lived in Texas it took about two seconds before I was walking around yell singing O pueblecito de Belen at the holidays and The Ballad of the Alamo the rest of the time.

But Mango Street has always been filed in my mind as just a book. I didn't get all the hullabaloo. Just as with most things though, it was bad timing.

Years later, my college experience coincided with the world realizing Latino lit. Just like American Indian and Asian before it, Latino lit had been championed. By that time I had long since put Ana Castillo's So Far From God on my favorites list. I said, "Bring on Chicano Literature, viva la revolucion!"

All this was priming me for my second Mango Street reading.

Now, years later AGAIN, when I read this lovely subset of lit I get all nostalgic. Even more clearly now, I appreciate the way the accessible language allows the reader greater access to meaning. I appreciate the real quality even surreal events have. For Mango Street specifically, the first time through I completely bypassed or possibly didn't care about the themes which run throughout: ideas of home, finding yourself, and ultimately realizing that yourself was there all the time and it is actually in that place called home.

I closed the book and articulated stated, "wow."

That's my English Literature degree speaking.

All these years of meandering in between reads. I'm finally ready to hear what Mango Street had to say.

"Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free."
Sandra Cisneros

I grok fullness

While I love fiction, I also like to dabble in the fantasy and science fiction genres.

Growing up moving around the country in a car meant my family had a lot of time for readathons. We were in the car so much we were able to read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series out loud.


If you need surmising help...we were in the car A LOT.

Then, of course there were the consecutive years Face gave me Dune for Christmas until I read it. If you don't think the following is funny/awesome then you haven't read Dune.


So stop here and go read Dune.

My most recent foray into science fiction has been Stranger in a Strange Land. I have previously called it the book about martians. Both Dune and Stranger as science fiction are able to not only comment on our society but to offer an alternative process and philosophy. If you don't dig science fiction I would say these two books are engaging in similar activities such as Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

So there is this martian. Only he is a human who happened to be raised on Mars. And now he is back on Earth. Causing a raucous. For martians, there is this thing called grokking. Generally it could be translated as to know...only more so. To grok is to drink.

Stick with me.

So you can grok ideas. Or places. Or people. Well now we are getting somewhere. So the martian is rolling around grokking all over the place and starts to open people's eyes to this new way of thinking. Through the book Heinlein opens the reader's eyes to their own notions of propriety and the structure of society. If you ever wanted religion (read spirituality) and sex to do a mashup you should read this book. I am God. You are God. Orgies are God.

You grok that?

"A prude is a person who thinks his own rules of propriety are natural laws."
Robert Heinlein