I have a confession to make...
Nov. 23rd, 2009 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeI read Twilight over the weekend...
...
...and I liked it.
I used to love romance novels in high school and college for their pure escapism--my favorite one is called Royal Seduction by Jennifer Blake. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've reread it--classic Ruritanian story with a Balkan prince who sweeps into Lousiana looking for the mistress of his older brother who was murdered in their bed--said mistress just happens to be the lookalike cousin of the heroine, for whom the prince mistakes her. He kidnaps her and takes her to his bed--"a passionate punishment that proved she'd never been anyone's mistress" as the back cover copy breathlessly informed us--and even as he realizes the enormous mistake he's made, he refuses to give her up. What makes this book great, besides its classic elements of handsome prince, beautiful maiden, etc.--is how very well-written it is. Seriously. Genre fiction is not at all by definition bad or weak--Gone with the Wind is a romance (an epic one, to be sure) and it won the Pulitzer. Arthur C. Clarke and C.L. Moore, both highly respected authors, wrote genre fiction, as does Larry McMurtry. At any rate Royal Seduction's hero Rolfe is an intellectual who plays a lot of headgames with Angeline and she responds in kind--at one point, discussing his plans to track down her cousin, he says "fortuna favet fortibus" and she replies "fortune may favor the bold, your Highness, but it will take more than that to find a woman who is not there." Rolfe also has this peculiar, very poetic way of speaking that drove me wild--he says things like "you are the twin of my soul, half of my whole, a partnered swan without which you will die, singing." Yeah. Add to that devastatingly good-looking and an incredible fighter (he has a cadre of bodyguards who are a major part of the story, all of whom revere him) and you can see why I lapped this stuff up.
At any rate you can see why I enjoyed Twilight--sure it's silly (and certainly its prose is pretty pedestrian, not even close to Royal Seduction) but it's pure escapism. When the first movie came out last year, I'd never heard of the books and had no interest. Then when I was flying to Italy, I fell asleep just as they started showing it. I woke up, all bleary and exhausted, during that scene in the forest when he tells her "you're like my personal brand of heroine...I can't stay away from you." Even in my stupor I remember thinking "okay, NOW I get why so many teenyboppers love this story." A guy who looks like a Greek God, can protect you from anything and anyone, is all broody and angtsy and needs you that badly? That is crack to the fantasies of a thirteen-year old. Of course they love it. And for a Mormon author writing a series of books wherein very little sex (from what I understand) is had, there is some hhhot stuff going on there! Maybe teenage girls will hold the boys in their life to a higher standard--Edward's standard--and demand to be respected, which is even more hilarious since Edward is played by Robert Pattinson who, in the words of Dickipedia, is "a dick actor, model, and musician best known for playing Edward Cullen in the film adaptation of Twilight, and very likely the reason your wife or girlfriend has stopped having sex with you." (PS, Dickipedia, he is NOT a dick! :) He played Cedric in Goblet of Fire and for that alone he's awesome! Oh, Cedric...)
...
...and I liked it.
I used to love romance novels in high school and college for their pure escapism--my favorite one is called Royal Seduction by Jennifer Blake. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've reread it--classic Ruritanian story with a Balkan prince who sweeps into Lousiana looking for the mistress of his older brother who was murdered in their bed--said mistress just happens to be the lookalike cousin of the heroine, for whom the prince mistakes her. He kidnaps her and takes her to his bed--"a passionate punishment that proved she'd never been anyone's mistress" as the back cover copy breathlessly informed us--and even as he realizes the enormous mistake he's made, he refuses to give her up. What makes this book great, besides its classic elements of handsome prince, beautiful maiden, etc.--is how very well-written it is. Seriously. Genre fiction is not at all by definition bad or weak--Gone with the Wind is a romance (an epic one, to be sure) and it won the Pulitzer. Arthur C. Clarke and C.L. Moore, both highly respected authors, wrote genre fiction, as does Larry McMurtry. At any rate Royal Seduction's hero Rolfe is an intellectual who plays a lot of headgames with Angeline and she responds in kind--at one point, discussing his plans to track down her cousin, he says "fortuna favet fortibus" and she replies "fortune may favor the bold, your Highness, but it will take more than that to find a woman who is not there." Rolfe also has this peculiar, very poetic way of speaking that drove me wild--he says things like "you are the twin of my soul, half of my whole, a partnered swan without which you will die, singing." Yeah. Add to that devastatingly good-looking and an incredible fighter (he has a cadre of bodyguards who are a major part of the story, all of whom revere him) and you can see why I lapped this stuff up.
At any rate you can see why I enjoyed Twilight--sure it's silly (and certainly its prose is pretty pedestrian, not even close to Royal Seduction) but it's pure escapism. When the first movie came out last year, I'd never heard of the books and had no interest. Then when I was flying to Italy, I fell asleep just as they started showing it. I woke up, all bleary and exhausted, during that scene in the forest when he tells her "you're like my personal brand of heroine...I can't stay away from you." Even in my stupor I remember thinking "okay, NOW I get why so many teenyboppers love this story." A guy who looks like a Greek God, can protect you from anything and anyone, is all broody and angtsy and needs you that badly? That is crack to the fantasies of a thirteen-year old. Of course they love it. And for a Mormon author writing a series of books wherein very little sex (from what I understand) is had, there is some hhhot stuff going on there! Maybe teenage girls will hold the boys in their life to a higher standard--Edward's standard--and demand to be respected, which is even more hilarious since Edward is played by Robert Pattinson who, in the words of Dickipedia, is "a dick actor, model, and musician best known for playing Edward Cullen in the film adaptation of Twilight, and very likely the reason your wife or girlfriend has stopped having sex with you." (PS, Dickipedia, he is NOT a dick! :) He played Cedric in Goblet of Fire and for that alone he's awesome! Oh, Cedric...)
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Date: 2009-11-24 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-24 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-24 02:54 pm (UTC)Also, complaints that it's Mormon Propaganda.
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Date: 2009-11-24 07:19 pm (UTC)There are a lot of questionable things that are addressed in romances that are completely unacceptable in actual practice--but that in someone's mind can have an erotic element. For example, rape--rape fantasies are very common, and even more so in the romance fiction of the '70s (when the genre first really took off) and the '80s. You can also see it in the novel Jaws (in the novel, Ellen, Chief Brody's wife, has a brief affair with Hooper, the ichthyologist, and during their lunch together they're trading fantasies and hers is a rape fantasy) as well as the movie When Harry Met Sally (the fantasy about having her clothes ripped off). I stopped reading romances sometime during the early '90s but I believe the newer ones do not feature this element nearly as much--I know when I've read reviews of Royal Seduction and Sweet Savage Love (a CLASSIC of the genre, OMG is that a good one), younger readers are absolutely horrified at the rape sequences. I read somewhere that this was more prevalent in earlier romances because against the rise of feminism, women were still coming to terms with accepting their own sexuality and the element of rape relieved women of the responsibility and therefore, the guilt.
Anyway this applies to stalking as well. Nobody wants to be stalked in real life--it would be absolutely terrifying, because among other things, one important element of stalking is to let the target know you're after them and to terrorize them through that knowledge. It's a form of emotional terrorism as well as a means to an end. But if you're dreaming about some guy you already find attractive, what's more intoxicating than having him find you so interesting, he sneaks around to find out more about you? And to keep you safe? (Edward considers himself Bella's protector.) Again, real life--much more complicated dynamic. But fantasy? Kind of hot.
The Mormon propaganda angle--I could only read a little of that essay because I didn't want to spoil myself. It seems like pretty coded stuff though. Maybe it's not propaganda so much as those are story-telling elements she knew? I'm no fan of Mormonism, I really hope the books aren't some kind of Trojan horse!