Read this article here

-- Edited by Kitty Fire at 14:54, 2009-01-19

I honestly have to agree with this article.
I seriously think that the author is living out as exual fantasy and now young girls are living out her sexual fantasy of Edward.
I mean afterall she wrote the book all based on a dream and that must link to her writing out a fantasy.

Hmmm, I think that may be reading a little too much into the story of how Twilight came about.

But I'm intrigued by how a story that contains no sex whatsoever (at least as far as I've read the series), can be considered a sexual fantasy.

Yeah, he is designed to be the perfect male, and never gets old. I don't think the books are misogynistic, I think that they do portray the lead female in a bad light, she's clumsy, and not too quick, and incredibly self absorbed, but that's because she's a teenager and that's what people are like at that age. Is it fickle? Well, it's fickle if you are past that stage, if you can't relate to your teenage self.

I still haven't decided if Meyers is a very good writer, for the writing from a clutsy, self absorbed point of view, for capturing the rather bland way a teenager would write, if they were writing a novel. Or she just really writes that way and really hasn't matured as an author yet.

Does anyone know of any other readings into the Twilight books..? I know I read too much into it when writing that one, even if I think that the whole book is voyeuristic.. but I know I read too much into everything. But this is the first time I've found an interpretation which is both overboard and completely plausible; so I wrote the article!

Well, I read somewhere that authors are supposed to put a little bit of themselves into their first novel (unintentionally.) But then this isn't meyer's first book, is it? Correct me if I'm wrong.

After reading this article it all made perfect sense- Edward appears "perfect" because he is Meyer's "perfect guy".
But I still don't understand why loads of people are completely in love with this character. I read the book, just to spite myself, but I couldn't see the attractiveness myself.

This article was great. I loved it =D
Honestly though, the Mary-Sueness of it all was the least worrying thing. I think the most worrying thing is the hints of pedophilia in the last book, and the fact it tells teenage girls its A-OK to try and kill youself if your boyfriend breaks up with you, and that abusive relationships are where it's at! After all, it's not like young teenagers are EVER influenced by anything they see or read...

(ps, someone might want to check the title of this topic =) )

I think the reason teenage girls love Edward is because it's what everyone else is doing. And he's such a two dimensional character that there's nothing for them to dislike really.

red spirit moon wrote:

---

Well, I read somewhere that authors are supposed to put a little bit of themselves into their first novel (unintentionally.) But then this isn't meyer's first book, is it? Correct me if I'm wrong.

---

Where did you read that?!?! Its scaring me... when my best friend read my first novella (she's the only one aloud near it!) she was like, Rach... the main character IS you! 

I've read all the Twilight series and I really enjoyed them.

Meyer based them on a dream she had. The chapter were Edward and Bella are lying in the grass together in the clearing was essentially her dream and she started there, finished the book and then went back to write the preceding chapters.

I'll agree that it isn't the best written book in the world but what I really want to tackle is the view that it's misogynistic. Personally, I don't agree. Edward cares for Bella in a way that we don't often come across in the real world. He's overly protective frequently says that he can't live with out her. She is forced to depend on him, although most of the time she doesn't like it and wants to be out there kicking ass wih him.

I think you have to remember that Edward is a vampire and was born in a time when chivalry was alive and well and sex before marriage was frowned upon. Also, he has super human powers, so next to him, Bella is weak. Not because she is a female, but because she is human. After all, Edward's sisters and mother, Esme, Alice and Rosalie, all take part in the fights in the book and are depicted as intelligent and strong in their individual ways. Alice is also hell bent on protecting her partner Jasper in any way she can in the following books.

I don't see the problem with it personally. I'm a strong fiesty little bugger and I will cut down any fella who tries to prove me otherwise but I expect my other half to want to protect me and care for me. Not because I need it and in reality I am some weak, silly girl but because that's what you do for the people you love. Just as you would fight to protect your family and friends, you would fight to protect your lover. And what's wrong with that?

As for the novels encouraging girls to kill themselves if their boyfriend leaves them, well that is just misguided. Edward tries to kill himself when he thinks Bella has killed herself. It's a misunderstanding. However, in no part of the novel does Bella try to kill herself because Edward left her. Aside from that, this novel is certainly not the first literary work for the lovers to kill themselves when they thought they had lost the other. Remember Romeo and Juliet?

Lastly, a quick note about the mention of peadophilia from victorian nightmares. I'll admit at first I was a bit perplexed when it came to Jacobs imprinting on Nessie, as were Bella and Edward, but Meyer made it very clear that Jacob thought of Nessie as like a little sister and not in any way sexual. In the book, Edward even said that he was impressed with Jacob as when he learnt Nessie would be an adult in only a few years he still didn't think of her in a sexual way. He would know, he can read minds!

I don't know how many of you went on Quizilla as teenagers, but the "Twilight" style stories were knocking about on there a while before the book came out. If I were a cynical person I might suspect that she was just cashing in on that.

[backstory]
The Quizilla thing was essentially a phase where people used a quiz editor to write "stories" (which quizilla now has a separate section for), in the second person, where the answers chosen by the reader lead to them getting a different guy in the results. Some of them were about as well written as Twilight, most weren't. The plot basically revolved around a Bella-like Mary-Sue described as "you" having 1-4 supernatural men who were all friends attempt to protect her and fall in love with her when some dark power took an inexplicable interest in her. If only one man was involved, it was usually a vampire. If more than one was involved, there were generally expected personalities for vampires, demons, angels and werewolves. If the story did end up being completed, which most of them didn't, the reader was forced to make a choice between them to see the appropriate ending. A couple of examples can be found here and here (sorry for the formatting on the second one, when the story editor came in, a lot of what used to be formatted as quizzes got changed to "stories", so the selection options for the old quizzes are still there).

They ranged from suggestive/romantic to outright pornographic, and after a while they spread from supernatural boys into rock stars/film fanfics/celebrity boy du jour stories and Quizilla now has a separate section and a separate editor for them. Also, see Holly Black's "Tithe" and "Valiant", publised before Twilight for the same kind of writing.
[/backstory]

Back to the point: at the time I was reading these, they were a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, because I was pretty much reading them FOR the thrill. I didn't think they were well written pieces of art, but I enjoyed them anyway, in the same way as I enjoy listening to Green Day even though it's not the world's best music - it's still fun, and it still provokes a response. For me, Twilight was nostalgic, as a reminder of those days.

Twilight is fantasy, pure and simple - it's like Mills&Boon novels for kids, or at worst, an erotica/porn substitute. And to be honest, if I want equality and fair play from my boys, I'll go and live in the real world. But she's obviously enjoying it, and her millions of screaming fans are too, so *shrug*. If Robert Pattison was so freaked out by it, he could have turned the job down, you know? I'm sure many different people have got many different things out of the books. I also debate the distinction between "work of fiction" and "voyeuristic fantasy". The fantasy is a subset of the fiction - it's all works of fiction in the end.

I see what victorian nightmares is saying about Bella's mindset being influential to young girls who read the book, but to be honest, I think someone who is prone to drama will find drama wherever they can, and removing that one thing is unlikely to stop them. Some of the melodrama I came up with in my own head aged 14 is beyond comparison to anything I've read before or since

I also can't help but wonder if Bella being clumsy/stubborn/"thick" is intentional. If you're a reader who is madly in love with Edward, would it not give you hope that if Bella can get someone like that, you certainly can?

Incidentally, the bit from the article about this being an "unusual case" where the author writes about their own fantasies is misinformed - Pandora's Star, anyone? Hardcore Sci-Fi is full of this kind of thing, middle aged men writing about what they'd like to happen to them. As is a lot of fantasy. The only reason this is shocking and different is because it's ok for fantasy to be more mainstream as it's become fashionable lately, so many more people, especially young girls have had access to and read it. And if it's a choice between my little sister reading in graphic detail about a sexually liberated hivemind world where all jealousy has been eliminated and all the people are stunning and willing, and a pretty boy who loves her and cares about her, I'm totally on the side of Twilight for that one :)

I'd give the sexually liberated hivemind book to a little sister/daughter anyday, before I gave her a book with a clumsy useless mary-sue "heroine".

Luckily, I wouldn't have to choose, because there is a lot better stuff to choose from both in the fantasy/sci-fi genre and among the erotic fantasy books.

When I was a teen, I devoured trashy housewife porn. But in them, the heroine was a proper Heroine (often some kind of witch), because strong female characters is what sells in Scandinavia.
Now it might be a coincidence that Scandinavia is the place in the world closest to the feminist goal of egalitarian society, but I do not think so.
What came first, the female ideal/fantasy of strong, capable women or strong capable women having fantasies I can not say.

But I seriously doubt that fantasizing about being a helpless little twat who are saved all the time by some strong and capable hunk is going is going to encourage you to be a independent and capable person.

Now, I have to admit that I haven't read the twilight books. Maybe I should, but everything written about them make them sound like absolute drivel. Like Barbara Cartland in a modern wrapping plus some vampires. Eeeww.
I might have read it despite the criticism, but it's actually the fans telling why they like it that is most off-putting.

Too be coarse, Twilight is basically Meyer's wet dream.

I totally disagree.

the author only got the idea from a dream she had (which was far from sexual)
in her dream she only saw edward nd bella laying in a meadow (twilight).
nothing is sexual in any of the books as far as im concerned.

ive read all the books and i think SOME people are taking it too far, just because of all the attention its getting.
if you dont like the books, then thats good for you.
but SOME people dont need to be all anti-twilight nd making it overly obvious nd obnoxious. (thts how i spellz it).

SOME people take twilight too seriously, just because its a romance novel.
Just because its romance, doesnt mean that everything is all about sex or the preparation for the sex. geez.

nd i think the article is false in some cases because its kind of too opinionated. nd it doesnt see BOTH sides of the story.

nd if you disagree, thats fine for me. just stating my opinion nd showing my spirit for the whole twilight team. X3

I'm interested in the assertion that exploring all avenues of fantasies makes you somehow weak. I am damn sure I'm a "strong female character" by anyone's standards, and of course I enjoy the stories where the woman is strong, but I don't consider a story/fantasy to be bad purely because a woman is weak.

To be honest, I retract my previous statement. I would give my sister both books, Twilight and the Sci Fi one, and let her make up her own mind. Fantasy is fantasy. If you don't get off on the "helpless little twat" thing, continue not to read it, you probably made the right choice for you :P But there's no correlation between what gets someone off and what they're really like - there are plenty of strong women who like being sexually controlled, for example. There's a large element of chivalry and romance in the Twilight relationship, which is probably the appeal.

Besides, were I to be fantasising about the Twilight universe, Bella wouldn't feature. And I would be a damn sight less useless in her place.

_Nix_ wrote:

---

I'm interested in the assertion that exploring all avenues of fantasies makes you somehow weak.

---

Please read my post again. That was NOT what I said. And what I meant (although I didn't say) is pretty much the opposite.

Possibly I should make my argument more clear, but you might as well read page 5-6 of this summary first, so that it is more clear what I'm talking about.

 

Thanks for the info. Response pending until I have a chance to read it, as I'm mid-exams at the moment :)

LaLa wrote:

---

I'll agree that it isn't the best written book in the world but what I really want to tackle is the view that it's misogynistic. Personally, I don't agree. Edward cares for Bella in a way that we don't often come across in the real world. He's overly protective frequently says that he can't live with out her. She is forced to depend on him, although most of the time she doesn't like it and wants to be out there kicking ass wih him.

---

You make a good point about Edward being a product of a different time. But I'd like to draw a parallel to the case of Jesse (hundred and fifty year old ghost and the protagnonist's love interest) from Meg Cabot's Mediator series. Like Edward, Jesse doesn't believe in pre-marital sex, to the frustration of his present day girlfriend and tries to repeatedly to distance himself for her because they can never have a normal life together.

This is where the parallel ends. Whereas Jesse does rescue Suze from time to time she holds her own against various supernatural threats and ultimately rescues him. Suze is attracted to him and (like Bella) often describes him in loving detail, but (unlike Bella) she is her own person and is not afraid to stand up to him when they disagree.

Edward, in contrast, routinely kidnaps Bella when he believes her life is in danger and bribes members of his vampire family to act as her jailors when she's away. He uses the promise of sex to control her and is frequently patronising and/or overbearing. He claims to be doing all of this 'for her own good', but if he's so much older and wiser than her then you have to ask why he has chosen a girlfriend who is so blatantly unequal to him. I can't help thinking of him as a teacher dating a technically 'legal' student or a doctor hitting on a patient: both of these situations are illegal, because there is a commonly held belief that romantic involvement with someone in a position of power over/under you is wrong.

Of course if all this was addressed it would provide a great source of conflict, but neither Meyer or her stand in Bella call Edward up on any of it. Bella may whine about how angry she is, but whenever she actually has the chance to confront Edward she simply melts into his arms.

I don't think that Stephenie Meyer is sitting at a desk somewhere, thinking of new ways to make women look bad. I think she has a very set viewpoint and that that viewpoint bleeds through into her writing. Whether that viewpoint is dangerous is up to the individual reader to decide.

 

I respect those who read the books, but... I gave it a try when the first book came out, and couldn't even finish it. I grew up watching all those Dracula and other vampire movies where they're viscous un-dead monsters whose only function is to feed on blood, so the whole relationship thing with a vampire just didn't seem right to me. I kept thinking it was necrophilia. It's filled with high school drama, I had enough of that when watching Dawson's Creek (yeah, I watched it. Don't judge me.)

I read the book, loved it. Saw the movie, wanted to pull my brain out and vomit through my eyes in pain. The book was based on a dream, it ain't meant to be realistic. I only liked because it was a break from normality because it was SO far-fetched. Still, it is like the marmite of teen books. You either hate it or you love it. But, Stephenie Mayers onther work (The Host) is a completely different story. Much better, more fantasy.

I would describe the host as SciFi myself...

'nothing is sexual in any of the books as far as im concerned.'


How about the sex?
The huge chunks missing from the bed...
The thing that gets her pregnant?

personaly i find twilight is an updated, vampire version of wuthering heights, it is mentioned in the books and has too many paralells (sp?) this is why i hate bella she is just cathy

Thing is, Twilight isn't as good or as bad as people think. It is incredibly mediocre and rather meh...

It's more the idiotic fangirls and over-the-top praise the book gets that irritates me.

I read the books after working at a girl scout camp. Most of our campers aged 12 and up constantly mentioned the book all summer so there was no way I was going to be able to avoid it. To be honest, I did enjoy reading the first few books. The last was painful for me for several reasons.

Personally, I think that those who bash the books often times take their examples to an extreme. In New Moon, Bella's adrenaline addiction doesn't speak to me as a case of a suicidal person. I do think that her obsession with Edward is ridiculous. But, if you accept how strongly she does feel as fact, it's not hard to imagine she would risk so much for a chance to be near to him (As when she does these things she hears/sees him.)

There is a lot in the books that are strange. The sparkling vampires, the over-use of words like "chagrin" and how shallow the characters are. But, nothing unexpected from a book that really shouldn't have become this famous. To be honest, I think Twilight is filling a hole. Meyers lucked out by being in the right place at the right time. I don't think she should be blamed for it.

My one main gripe with her books, though, is purely to do with the fact that Bella and Edwards relationship is very immature and overly dramatic. It's really not that healthy. It may be that Meyers does idealise teen's lives. Bella wants to stop aging in her teens, all the vampires pass for teens, Bella's mom and Dad had the best parts of their relationship in their teens, etc....If you look purely at that, it does look pretty bad for Meyers. However, I do think that the relationship between Jasper and Alice is a strong, healthy relationship. I really wish the books had featured Jasper and Alice instead, but what can you do?

As one of my friends put it.......When you take a great author and a great idea you get Lord of the Rings. When you take a decent author and a great idea, you get Harry Potter. When you take a decent author and a decent idea, you get Twilight. If you take a great author and a decent idea you probably get a Stephen King novel of some sort....

I don't think Stephenie Meyer IS a good author. I don't say this just because I dislike Twilight, but because I generally don't believe she is. From a detached view she isn't that good at all. She constantly repeats phrases, over describes things and writes quite dull and unbelievable dialogue. It's also a shame that she made some of the elements of the story so ridiculous- the obsessive relationship, for example, or the 'sparkling'. If things had been a little different, the book might have turned out half-way decent.