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Stephenie Meyer
TWILIGHT (2005, 2006) Paperback: 544 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers ISBN-10: 0316015849 ISBN-13: 978-0316015844 reviewed by Patrick Killough reviewed for epinions.com Review Title: "And so the lion fell in love with the lamb" Written: May 07 '09 Product Rating: * * * * FOUR STARS Pros: Marlowe or Shakespeare might have launched a masterpiece based on this text. Original cross-cultural slants. Cons: Occasional inconsistencies in perspective. A fable wordier by far than any by Aesop. The Bottom Line: Tired of serious hard reading into science, philosophy or history? Then relax before falling asleep with conscience-driven vampires. TWILIGHT is gothic, romantic, scary and cross-cultural as all get out. aohcapablanca's Full Review: Stephenie Meyer - Twilight TWILIGHT is the 2005 "debut" novel of Stephenie (sic!) Meyer, one time Brigham Young University English major and since married mother of three, living in Arizona. The following text from the novel's close may explain why the tale is called TWILIGHT. "'Twilight,
again,' he murmured. 'Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is,
it always has to end.'" (Epilogue, p. 495)
The speaker is Edward Cullen. He was born around 1900 and was on the verge of death in the USA of 1918 from the Spanish flu epidemic. His life was then "saved" by Carlisle Cullen, son of a fanatical Puritan preacher who had flourished nearly three centuries earlier in the days of the Stuarts and the interregnum of Oliver Cromwell. Carlisle had been bitten in London by a somewhat enfeebled and aged vampire whom his clerical father had caused him to persecute and pursue. Carlisle's conscience, however, leapt over from his old to his new species. Conscience gave him the power to endure the intense suffering and alienation inherent in the three day species transformation caused whenever vampire venom stays in a human body whose heart still beats. Carlisle has ever since devoted himself to non-religious virtue. He sensed at once that a vampire's natural food is human. Indeed, the most edible humans have scents that almost always overpower any vampirean inclination to Lenten-style abstinence. But Carlyle revolted at the notion of feeding on his former kind. He learned by trial and error that the blood of lesser creatures might not be as satisfying, but was nutritious and strength-giving enough for everyday vampiring. Having lived among civilized Italian vampires for a time, Carlisle was also early drawn to medicine and to helping sick and suffering humans. A few of us featherless, furless bipeds, whom his medical skills could not save, Carlisle converted, for companionship if for no other reason, into vampires. Several of them became his family, all dedicated with varying degrees of willingness to vampire "vegetarianism," i.e. abstention from human blood. Now vegetarianism is not an easy habit for vampires to sustain and is not widespread across the globe. The nearest other vegetarian family or coven known to the Cullens is in Denali, Alaska. Vampires who abstain from human blood tend to settle in one place and live at peace with humans for as long as they can. After a few years, however, they must move on since vampires never grow old and humans tend to notice and resent this feature. Most modern vampires, by contrast, are nomadic. To them settling down is all but inconceivable. It was 1990s America, on the almost perpetually cloud covered, rain drenched northwestern Pacific coast when Carlisle's "son," Edward spoke those words "Twilight, again." He spoke them to 17-year old Isabella Swan, the novel's ever breathless narrator. Her father is Charlie Swan, police chief of tiny, almost always dark and dim Forks, Washington, north of Seattle. Isabella, better known as Bella, has recently moved to her father's home from Phoenix where her mother lives with her new professional baseball playing husband. Like Edward and his pale brothers and sisters, Bella now attends the local public high school. "Twilight again" is spoken to Bella by Edward during a student prom. She is recovering from cracked ribs, a broken leg and other cruelties inflicted in Phoenix by a "tracker" vampire from whose untamed blood lust Edward and his "parents" and "siblings" had done their best to protect Bella. A local Indian tribe who believe their ancestors were wolves have identified the Cullens as descended from bats. The Indians do not like vampires but have a four-generation old treaty of live and let live with the Cullens. On the other hand they are friends of police chief Swan and are always warning Bella to steer clear of the Cullens. Why would a handful of vampires single out Bella for their good deeds and protection? Primarily because Edward Cullen irrationally, hopelessly and eternally loves Isabella Swan (and vice versa) with a passion far beyond anything that seems to have inflicted other teen-age lovers like the pair named Montague and Capulet. For more details of this impressive yarn by a first-time novelist, you have two options: go straight to the 2005 book or first enjoy the 2008 feature film of the same name (rated PG-13). Of the film I wrote the following necessarily compressed mini-review for my NETFLIX.COM "friends": "A non-religious morality tale. A family
of Stoic vampires live peacefully and helpfully among humans. A local
Indian tribe knows their secret. Vampire boy loves non-Vampire girl.
Tough choices."
COMMENT on the film version: I do not recall another movie that tracks so closely with the book that inspired it as does TWILIGHT. Much of the film's sometimes sappy, sometimes memorable dialog is taken verbatim from the written text. Here is a sample of the written word, re-echoed in the film "'And so
the lion fell in love with the lamb . . . ,' he murmured. I
looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.
'What a stupid lamb,' I sighed. 'What a sick, masochistic lion.' He stared into the shadowy forest for a long moment, and I wondered where his thoughts had taken him.'" (Ch. 13, p. 274) Warm kudos to Stephenie Meyer and her debut novel! Her original, imaginative slants on vampire-human cross-cultural interactions may well inspire thousands of American teen age girls to become English majors. We can almost hear them thinking,"if Stephenie can write this well and wow so many readers, so can I." By the way, if those girls were in the same room with vampire Edward Cullen, their yearning would be no secret to him. For Edward's is a rare gift, even among vampires, for reading minds. Since 1918 only one human mind has been impervious to him, that of young Bella Swan. By such small things are vampire-human romantic passions ignited and stoked. Perhaps Stephenie Meyer will someday imitate the great Greek slave fabulist Aesop. Her novel might then be compressed, I think, by Stephenie's genius into a dozen sentences ending with a moral. King Log and the Frogs comes to mind as one model fable. TWILIGHT is a touching fantasy resonant with C. S. Lewis, Tolkien and many other favorites of English majors everywhere. Neither novel nor film is explicitly religious. But the tale, in any format, is intensely moral, a story of good and evil. TWILIGHT is a yarn written in basic English, pitched to teen age Americans. Being about an alien species far more powerful and cunning than mere mortals, it makes youngsters think fresh thoughts. Why, for example, shouldn't all vampires everywhere simply indulge their craving for human blood? Why not increase their numbers to as many millions as a few billion human meals can ecologically support? Does God love and have a salvation plan for bats and vampires? It is easy work, of course, to notice flaws in this clever, very clever first novel. But let us make the poetic suspension of faith in the cause and effect world as we know it, and enjoy a good bedtime read. A couple of authorial lapses will nonetheless reluctantly stay with some of us. First, Bella Swan is presented as average in intelligence, physically a klutz and very accident-prone. It is hard to imagine thoroughly American Bella measuring in the metric system when not compelled to during her biology class, where she shares a work table with Edward. Yet when three really bad news vampires arrive uninvited to take part in a Cullen family baseball game during a thunder storm, Bella thinks metric: "They
emerged one by one from the forest edge, ranging a dozen meters
apart." (Ch. 18, p. 375)
Bella, be it remembered is the first-person narrator of TWILIGHT. She has some very attractive personal qualities but thinking metric is not one a reader expects. Unless I read the Canadian version! More seriously, Stephenie Meyer's vampires suffer no pain from being in sunlight. But sunlight blows their disguise. Hence, their selection of rainy, dim Washington State. Normally pale, vampires glow like diamonds in bright sun. Humans notice them big time. Yet when warring vampires assemble in Phoenix in broad, hot daylight, one to suck Bella's blood, the others to rescue her, they draw no human attention. Oh well, "Even great Homer nods off" from time to time. And Stephenie Meyer is not Homer. At least not yet. I expect to look her up once every five years or so to see if she has since grown into the enormous potential as a writer that TWILIGHT shares with us. -OOO- Recommended: Yes http://www.epinions.com/reviews/Twilight_by_Stephanie_Meyer =-=-=-=-=-=-=- available at amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Saga-Book-1/dp/0316015849/ref =sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241653419&sr=1-11 |