Okay, well, forgive me, but if Quill & Quire’s whole best seller page is being eaten by paper thin terribly written vampires I think an intervention needs to be staged.
As I understand it, Twilight is one of those book conglomerates that you either love to the point where you leave your boyfriend (or… girlfriend, not be be gender exclusive) for the idea that ‘Edward’ might really be out there somewhere and not gay or married (as all the ‘good men’ allegedly are) or you hate Twilight more than Hitler and the Teletubbies combined. It’s a really toss up. I’m sure it doesn’t take a garbage man to figure out what camp your noble writer falls into.
Not that I don’t understand reading books that are wholly self indulgent and hold little-to-no literary value whatsoever. I read Battle Royale and I liked it god damn you, and no one can take that from me. And if you liked Twilight and its bastard half vampire offspring then I’m not going to shun you for having poor taste. But I think lines need to start being drawn in the sand. Like every gay basher, racist, and Twilight hater I’m going to preface this entry by saying I have friends who love Twilight, I don’t dislike them for this I just simply think their fanaticism is misplaced. Especially when Trainspotting exists, now Sick Boy, there’s a character to lust after.
The problem I have is like a visible and clearly isolated example of the problem I have with society in general. At least, its one of them. (Oh the humanity, a society rant, kill me right?) I hate that people tolerate having a big huge target painted on their backs. The fact that there is practically a mathematic formula for crap that people will throw their money at scares the shit out of me. And the fact that Stephanie-fucking-Meyer cashed in on it before I got the chance to, that also pisses me off. For a culture so proud of moving forward in toleration of differences people can still outwit us and return us to the base question ‘Is this what I want, or is that what other people want me to want?’
I’m a firm believer that we should not have to dumb down society to keep up with its slower members. But when a whole shelf of the bookstore is set aside for Vampire Lit it amazes me that people think ‘Oh let’s buy this!’ rather than ‘People with too much money are cashing in on the fact that one author had success.’
As always this returns me to my pet rant of the improper use of media. We have so many ways to transmit information, so many outlets, and granted, we can’t all write thoughtful and insightful pieces all the time (I, for example, never do) but I feel as though with so much thought power and access we are wasting creativity. Don’t get me started on the homogenization of the games industry I may cry or something.
Anyways, I should get back to being productive, I just needed to type a bit of that out.
Mom
June 15th, 2009 at 1:43 am
OK, OK, I agree on the big huge target on the back thing — the machine springs into action. BUT, and this is a huge BUT. Let’s face it. At it’s heart Twilight is a romance — heart-throbbing unrequited and then fulfilled love. Love. Since time immemorial at the heart of, dare I say, all great stories? (alright I can think of some exceptions…) Whether you’re Shakespeare or Stephenie (who, by the way can’t seem to spell Stephanie) Meyer love is a very entertaining topic. Dumb it down or dumb it up (dumb it up??!!) it makes that plot line sing.
I felt the same way about The Da Vinci Code. And there it sat in hardcover on the bestseller list for 2 years. TWO YEARS in HARDCOVER!! A publisher’s dream. Not too bad for a bookseller either! I guess I’ll end there.
Well maybe not, because I just thought of one more thing I want to say in response to your blog and that is this: I think I do get some satisfaction out of people who don’t normally read being excited about books. It makes me happy. It was like that with Harry Potter. But the fanaticism I don’t get. I don’t get it with TV shows either. Maybe I’m just not a fangirl by nature….
Mia
June 26th, 2009 at 12:40 am
Oh, Twilight. I have this massive love/hate relationship with it. It moved more towards “hate” last semester when I was student teaching & met Junior High kids who worshiped Stephanie Meyer. See, I think that adults can read it and see it the way I do- as intellectual cotton candy wrapped in escapism and unintentional humor. Kids don’t have that filter, and see it as “a blueprint on how relationships should work.” THAT scares me.