I was having another one of those "Blah" days where I just need to change the routine. So none of us got out of our pajamas before Uncle C came to get his kids at 1:30. We watched Barbie Thumbelina. There's two hours of my life I'll never get back. And that's a shame because of could have put those hours toward something fun or productive or...nevermind. I'm not really out that much.
I need to get out of the house.
The Boss has managed to pull of a couple of winners with the girls this week. She let Haggis go down to Walmart at midnight to get a copy of "New Moon". I'm not sure why; we told her that she wasn't going to get to watch it until we had seen it first, so there was no way she was going to be viewing it for at least a day and a half. Might as well have waited for the next afternoon. I guess she just wanted to go to the party.
Whatever. It made her happy and got her to help around the house with less grumbling than usual.
As for me, teenage vampire movies hold all the interest of waiting for sunburns to peel. Twilight was wholly panned by most of the folks I was in school with. I myself only read the first one (I had to before I'd let Haggis read it; the Boss read the rest of them) and it wasn't really my thing.
Most of the pseudo-critics at school thought it was formulaic, cliched, and overly simplistic. They're probably right. But my bit of contention with them was that you still have to give Meyer a TON of credit.
First, not one of them (including me) would stop at anything short of sacrificing their sainted mothers to the ghost of the Venerable Bede in order to get published at all; let alone sell umpteen million copies. If we thought it would sell, we'd write a thousand pages of nothing BUT cliches, just to get our picture and a bio on a dust jacket. It's true.
Second, you can say what you want about her style, Meyer never forgot the first rule of good writing.
"KNOW THY AUDIENCE!"
While I cannot speak for her, I'm pretty sure that Stephanie Meyer could care less about what a bunch of pretentious, arrogant, twenty year old Harold Bloom wannabees have to say. In fact, she needs an accountant to keep track of all the reasons she doesn't care. She wasn't writing for them. She never intended to replace the Bard or Dickens or even JK Rowling. She was aiming her story at little girls, age 12 to 16 (and occasionally their mothers). And darn me if she wasn't dead center of the bulls eye. Kudos. I bow to her success.
No, I don't care for Twilight for the same reason I don't care for Jane Austin and the Bronte sisters. To much angst and hand-wringing and desperate cries for "romance" (whatever the hell that is). I don't say that it is trash or useless. I recognize the audience. It just isn't me.
I'd rather stick to what I like. It would be foolish of me to expect everyone to like Joyce and Yeats as much as I do, but I would certainly put up my dukes if someone were to dismiss it as casually as people do the Twilight books.
But like I said, It made Haggis happy.
Then yesterday, the Boss found out that Brandon Mull, the author of the Fablehaven books was in town for the release of the finale of that series. Now these I haven't yet read (I'm still trying to polish off Percy Jackson and the Olympians), but Moe's teacher read the first one to her class and she has been hooked ever since. Every day she'd come home from school and rehash the day's events to the Boss and I. She poured over every one of them and gushed on and on about how great they were.
So the Boss got off work and hauled Moe down to Deseret Book where Mull was doing a book signing. They got there just in the nick of time, and though they were among the very last in line, Moe got a personalized signing of the last book and a picture with the author. She was thrilled beyond belief and already to chapter three by the time she and the Boss got back home.
Pretty cool if you ask me. Well, Uncle C just got here to pick up Reaggers for school. Better go for now.
Twilightmay have a target of 12-16 year-olds, but you should be at least 21 before you read the last one! EB was so disgusted she gave away all her Stephanie Meyer books.
ReplyDeleteHooray for capitalism and long live Doug Adams!
I don't have a huge problem with Stephanie Meyer, although I think her editors did her a great disservice with Twilight which is the only one I managed to gag down and that only for a book club. There were some glaring grammatical/spelling errors. I think you're right and she was writing for a tween/teen audience. Although I agree based on what I've been told that the freaky vampire sex and vampire baby kicking it's way out of her womb is more adult fare. She definitely grew them up when she realized adults liked them. I have a HUGE problem with the cult of Twilight that has grown up among adult women, and specifically among adult LDS women. You're an adult. Stop fantasizing about this ridiculous teen relationship. It makes me angry to think about how many women over the age of 18 LOVE these books. One of the first activities I went to in my new ward was a girl's night out to see Twilight. I thought I'd try because I wanted to make friends even if I didn't want to see the movie. I realized it was a very bad idea on my part because I practically ran out of the theater when it was over while everyone was GUSHING over Edward because the most positive thing I could think to say about the film was, "I thought it was as good as the book."
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