The Twilight Saga

[Silva]

I'm definitely not a fan and I'll leave it at that before I rant.

What do you guys think?

[alyoshka]

I assume most English majors share the same opinion as you.

[Silva]

I've seen that a few people on here who have read them and did not dislike them, so I want a full-out discussion, that's all.

[onlyaworkingtitle]

I think I'm in the vast minority here, in that I've never met anyone who took this series seriously. I read them, sure -- and finished the whole quartet in a sick sort of fascination over a weekend -- and, of the few people I know who read them, just about all approached them with a similar attitude. I think that, largely because of my isolation from Twihards, my hatred of the books is heavily laced with skepticism that anyone would honestly revere them.

The movies are a whole other realm of horrible; my mom and I go to each of them sometime during opening week, sit in the front row, and spend the two-plus hours loudly mocking everything about them. We call it "bonding." Luckily, we live in New York City (as opposed to a more rural area where Twilight is the only book most preteen girls have ever read), so the rest of the theatre tends to join in on the revelry.

[rayyychul]

I don't really understand how anyone can like them, let alone call them great works of literature. Plot aside, Stephanie Meyer writes as though she's in middle school - she definitely "tells" and doesn't "show," if you know what I mean.

I only read the first book, but it left me feeling rather indifferent to everything about it. I could not relate to any of the characters, because they were all incredibly flat and, well, boring. I could not relate to any of the plot, because she jumped from A to B to C to D in a matter of pages. She left absolutely nothing to the imagination!

Her vocabulary left something to be desired, too. I found she often made up words or used them in the wrong context (which made it seem like she was throwing around "big words" in an attempt to appear more literary than she is).

[brosephargh]

I completely agree with onlyaworkingtitle.

I read the whole series, taking it for its surface value. If you try to read it for its literary value you will be sorely disappointed. Reading it instead simply for enjoyment and the escapism that it provides can certainly be a totally different story. I would never call myself a diehard fan of the saga, because I'm surely not. But that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it and take fun in reading the books.

What I absolutely cannot stand, though, are pretentious English Majors who hate the series without even deigning to read them. You can't hate something you have no knowledge about. Hence why more agnostics and atheists have actually read the Bible than Christians.


Don't even get me started on the movies though. All I can say is that Taylor Lautner and Kellan Lutz are beautiful eye candy and I will appreciate them despite the shitty movie.

[alyoshka]

May 31, 2011 17:00:35 GMT -5 Silva said:

I've seen that a few people on here who have read them and did not dislike them, so I want a full-out discussion, that's all.

sorry! I didn't mean to seem rude or anything! :/

[rayyychul]

Reading it instead simply for enjoyment and the escapism that it provides can certainly be a totally different story.

I might be in the minority here, but I just couldn't enjoy it because of the poor writing. To me, literary value and enjoyment often go hand in hand.

[brosephargh]

May 31, 2011 17:20:17 GMT -5 rayyychul said:

Reading it instead simply for enjoyment and the escapism that it provides can certainly be a totally different story.

I might be in the minority here, but I just couldn't enjoy it because of the poor writing. To me, literary value and enjoyment often go hand in hand.

I certainly understand where you're coming from - but personally I just separated myself from the mechanics of it and took it simply as a story, regardless of how awkwardly it was told.

[invision]

I just finished reading the Twilight Saga, actually. I bought it on my Kindle so I could say I read Twilight in a psych ward, but then they took my Kindle when I checked in to the psych ward. So then I read it because I paid for it.

I remember trying to read it a few years ago. It was goddamn torturous. But now that I've read it more recently, it was... almost like Star Wars.

Very interesting, imagination-capturing concept; horrible, horrible execution.

Although that might just be me. *shrug*

James

[brosephargh]

May 31, 2011 17:30:55 GMT -5 invision said:

Very interesting, imagination-capturing concept; horrible, horrible execution.

Exactly!

[Lizzie]

I did read through all of them in a couple of days and I'm not going to lie and say I didn't enjoy the plot, but it is definitely a guilty pleasure series and not even a very good one, since I don't ever want to read it again. It's just so ridiculously poorly written and the characters are flat as hell, especially Bella.

[mapachita]

I didn't like them. I read the whole series, because everybody told me it was so good! Let's say that I ended up reading the four books just because I still had faith.
At first I thought it was a problem of the translation (I read it in spanish). But then I started following reasoningwithvampires and I realized that the bad writing wasn't a problem of the translator -it was Meyer's problem.

As for the movies, I haven't seen them. I prefer to spend my time playing with my daughter. I'm not going to be tortured twice with the same story.

[Lizzie]

mapachita: I love reasoningwithvampires, that blog cracks me up.

[Dodger Thirteen]

If people are willing to read a 13-page rant rife with profanity and violent imagery, then I will share my personal views. If not, meh. Until then, I leave you with this: The Twilight "Saga" is ignorant and incompetent in every way that matters and every way that doesn't.