April 5, 2009

Hola, mis amigos!

Okay, so, everyone who wanted a CD, I've burned them, but I'm also
writing notes to go along with them, and those are taking a bit, so,
no, I haven't forgotten, but yes, it might be a little while longer.

Tonight I went back and re-read my LITSL emails. I was re-reading
them because... well, it's a long story, involving a novel I've always
loved and a highly improbable situation, suffice it to say that I
wanted to make sure that if Elliot was ever relying on words I'd
written to find out how I felt about him that there was plenty talking
about how much I love him. Turns out I have been talking about that,
but I also spend 4 times as much time talking about how tired I am.
Is that bad, do you think?


Fast forward like, a month. Waxor has been sick, and still isn't
really well, Elliot has been teething, growing, SOMETHING to keep him
from sleeping, and now HE'S getting sick. I am exhausted and really
emotional. Yes, I know, all of you know me. When am I NOT emotional?
But this has been a bit much even for me. I started sobbing during
March of the Penguins last night. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

On the brighter side, my baby says Mama now. And really, it's the
best thing ever. Seriously. There is literally nothing better in the
world than his happy little face saying Mama. And he knows it makes
me happy. He will toddle up to me, and get this impish look on his
face and go "Ma-ma" and then smile really big and wait for me to sweep
him up and say some ridiculous thing about how much I adore him. It's
great.

Okay, on to the major topic of the day:

I finally broke down and put a library hold on the following books:
Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. Yup. Had to do it.
Had to know what the hype was about. HAD TO. One, two, and four came
in the other day, so I went and picked them up and spent the next two
days reading books one and two. Now I was forewarned, Kate doesn't
care much for this series, and she's told me a little bit about why,
so I wasn't hoping for great literature. I figured that, as long as I
was indulging myself by reading these books I could do my best to
figure out what it was about them that made them such a phenomenon.

I think I've figured it out.

Ready?

It's an impressive cocktail of crack for the mind. Take three parts
excellent character study, two parts wish fulfillment, one part Han
Solo Effect, four parts repressed sexual tension, and one part undead.
Mix it all together and voila!

First, three parts excellent character study: It's rare to find a
novelist who doesn't mind spending pages on nothing but character
development. There's always action going on, especially in novels for
young people. Stephanie Meyer doesn't seem to care about that - whole
chapters would pass with nothing more than the main character
THINKING. It was fairly impressive. Even more impressive was that it
didn't lose your attention, and I think that's due to the fact that
she does a good job painting the characters for you. With the
exception of the whole, y'know, VAMPIRE THING, her characters are
actually very realistic. At least, I think so. The main character
seems very much like a teenage girl.

Two parts wish fulfillment: Who DOESN'T want to meet their soul mate,
and discover that this person is a fabulously wealthy, incredibly
gorgeous, marvelously talented individual who adores you beyond reason
and can live with you forever? Anyone? Anyone? I didn't think so.

One part Han Solo Effect: Even before Leia finds out that Luke is her
brother she is ALREADY in love with Han. And you know why? Because
he's HAN FREAKING SOLO. He is the most awesome dude in the galactic
empire - the space rebel without a cause, if you will. WE LOVE BAD
BOYS! Let's face it, we do. We want them to have hearts of gold, but
given the choice between the puppy and the wolf..? Please. Be
realistic. And who is badder than a vampire? No one. They are
creatures of the night, forever struggling against their own baser
instincts. And they have perfect hair. Very James Dean.

Four whole parts of repressed sexual tension: Teenage girls are soooo
caught up in the whole "my hormones are raging but I wanna be a good
girl" thing, and they often manifest this in weird ways - like
developing erotic fixations with the forbidden. So you take the girl
and this vampire, and yeah, they totally have the hots for each other,
so there's that desire (that they aren't gonna experience, cause it's
a teen novel). Then you add on the fact that he really really REALLY
wants to drink her blood, and what you have done is just add a sexual
metaphor on top of an actual sexual situation, BOTH OF WHICH are being
repressed. It's the forbidden times TWO.

One part undead: I don't have to explain this? Do I?

So, I see how the books have done well. I really do. I also see how
they've got serious issues. I mean, first of all, I know girls mature
faster than boys and everything, but really, what is WITH all these
writers thinking that someone several HUNDRED years old would be
interested in a seventeen year old? Really? Seriously? I'm only 30
and I think most seventeen year olds are next door to infants.

And think of who YOU were dating when you were 17. Would you want to
be eternally bound together in undead matrimonial bliss? I didn't
think so. (No offense intended there, Aaron, but you wouldn't want to
be eternally bound to an undead me, either, would you? So we're all
good.)

The fact that he's always telling her what to do bothers me less. I
mean, if you are going to be so stupid as to date someone old enough
to be your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great...
great, great, great grandfather you should expect that they will think
they know better than you. But I cannot deny that you sometimes want
to shake the main character and yell "grow a backbone you NINNY!"

So - so far, I have to say - I highly recommend the Twilight series to
anyone interested in a light read. It's at least as much fun to read
as Janet Evanovich's novels.

Well, Baby's out of bath time and I've got to go put him to sleep.