I’m a bad, bad blogger.
I could give you a line about how September and October are my busiest time of year at work (which would be entirely true), but honestly, I’ve been gone due to a mixture of business, job dissatisfaction, distractions, general malaise, and lack of inspiration. I’ve been thinking that eventually, something would happen that would inspire me to pick back up and post again.
This week, it finally happened.
So, you may ask, what have I run across that caught my attention so powerfully that I was compelled to put fingers to keyboard again? I finally got around to reading Twilight.
As usual, I’m a bit late to the party. I didn’t read Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone until July 2000 — the same week that Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in the series, was published. But, much like my experience with The Boy Who Lived, Twilight has become an instant obsession for me.
At first, I wasn’t terribly excited. I’ve read and seen a lot of vampire stories. And as a veteran Buffy/Angel fan, I assumed that as far as the star-crossed vampire/human love story goes, I’d been there, done that. Plus, I’m still a bit irritable about the whole Harry Potter being pushed back thing.
Sometimes I’m very pleased to be wrong.
Twilight is told from the point of view of Bella Swan, a 17-year-old in the process of moving from her lifelong home in Arizona to live with her father, Charlie, in the sleepy (and annoyingly rainy) small town of Forks, Washington. Arriving in town, Bella finds Forks to be exactly what she expected from her sporadic visits growing up — a small town where everyone knows each other, everyone already knows more about her than she would like, and a school curriculum that runs a couple of years behind her school back home, leaving her completely bored. However, she also finds several surprises in her new home: good friends, a better relationship than she expected with her father, and a lot of male attention.
The biggest, most life-changing surprise of all, though, comes in the form of her new lab partner in biology class — Edward Cullen. At first, Edward confuses Bella. She doesn’t understand why she is attracted to him, especially when he alternates between being interested and friendly one minute and cold and angry the next. Even more puzzling is the fact that Edward always seems to be there at the exact moment that accident-prone Bella needs help. As Bella begins to discover Edward’s secrets, he can’t help but let her in. As their story progresses, their lives become inextricably intertwined, their relationship growing stronger and more powerful than either is prepared for.
In describing Twilight, I hesitate to use the word “epic” — at best, it’s overused. But I cannot think of another word that accurately describes the relationship between Bella and Edward. (It reminds me of a quote from “Veronica Mars” — “I thought our story was epic, you know. You and me…. Spanning years and continents... lives ruined, bloodshed, epic.”) You understand from the beginning of their story that their lives will never be easy again. There will be angst, and pain, and yes, considering that Edward is a 107-year-old vampire, there will most likely be bloodshed. But you also know that their connection is so strong, so undeniable, that it’s already too late to turn back.
Twilight is marketed as a book for kids and teens. But that label doesn’t do it justice, any more than it did for the Harry Potter series. Even at my advanced age of close-to-40 (although I’m not quite there yet!), the themes and characters are completely relatable. (And it’s not just that I refuse to grow up.) I felt immediately connected with Bella, in particular. Brainy, sarcastic, and terribly clumsy, Bella has a difficult time believing that she is particularly attractive. Part of her journey involves trying to truly believe that anyone as physically and intellectually spectacular as Edward could possibly be interested in her. I suspect that struggle to believe in yourself, to see what others see in you, is something none of us ever completely outgrow. I know I haven’t — that feeling can still be just as strong now as it was when I was Bella’s age.
And even if you don’t identify with the clumsy, brainy girl who fully expects to be unpopular, you can certainly identify with the story of two people in love who were never meant to be together. True, Bella and Edward have bigger problems that just being incompatible — their relationship exposes them to literal danger, in addition to emotional danger. But their connection is so strong that it’s irresistible, undeniable. They can’t live without each other. They have the kind of connection that we all crave, in theory, regardless of whether it would truly be healthy in real life.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong with a little obsession. At least, that’s what I’ll be telling myself when I buy the soundtrack and tear through the rest of the books in the series, immediately after I see the movie on the weekend it opens.
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