Stephenie Meyer and Twilight

I want to start this blog by stating how ashamed I am that I read the entire Twilight series. I should have known from the mixed reviews I was receiving and the scattered yet scathing reviews that I heard, just how bad these books were. I want to provide a caveat up front: if you have any dignity, DO NOT READ THESE BOOKS! The only Twilight book that is halfway worth reading is the fourth book, Breaking Dawn. Unfortunately, "halfway worth reading" is still infinitely better than my caveat, because the three books that build up to it are filled with drivel. Add to that a lack of knowledge of how to write proper sentences in the English language, and you have Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. I don't care how popular vampire books are these days, the Twilight series hardly even fits in that category; it completely distorts the classical image of the vampire into some hyper-sexualized creature that actually cares for humans.

So, now to my analysis of Twilight's popularity. My best analysis here has to do with the book's romance aspects. A huge portion of Twilight's readers are middle-aged women, and it is these readers that I wish to analyze. I don't want to over-generalize, but quite a few middle-aged women love reading romance novels. At the same time, there is a stigma associated with romance novels that cause a lot of women to avoid them, despite their enjoyment of the subject material. Twilight represents an innocuous novel that allows women to explore their romantic side.

I believe that teens feel the same draw to Twilight: it's a chance to read about romance without the stigma associated with romance novels. The teenager can dream about "true love", and the fact that you can truly feel like you belong with someone. But one of the biggest problems I have with Twilight lies between the two reader groups: teenagers and adult women. The characters in Twilight are 17 years old. In most states in the US, 17-year-olds are considered to be minors. I don't think any of us would ever expect to see a 40-something mother watching pornography involving 17-year-olds, and yet we constantly see them reading about it. What's the difference? The sex isn't explicit, but it's most certainly implied. Regardless, the sex is clearly there, and it seems to be this that middle-aged women are enjoying about the book. So let me offer another piece of advice: find romance books that are age-appropriate. If you're 17, then reading about 17-year-olds' romances may be appropriate; but if you're a 40-year-old mother, then sex between 17-year-olds is inappropriate. Please help us to remove Stephenie Meyer from the "canon" of modern literature. Relegate it to the list of authors who can't compose a proper sentence and whose stories are largely comprised of a moody, co-dependent 17-year-old girl and the boy who can't seem to get away from her, only because of his bloodlust. Since I can't think of a single other book that fits in this category, I'm going to place it in the broader categories of "I can't believe I read this whole series!" and "Make sure no one else suffers through this book like you did."

Dan Brown

One of my friends recently read The Lost Symbol, which he called a "Waste of my life" in a text message to me. I almost completely agree with him. I replied with the comment "Where is the Dan Brown of Angels & Demons?" I read The Da Vinci Code in December of 2005, and I was decently pleased with it. Not a bad read, although it didn't quite live up to the hype that it got through the media. It was good enough that I decided to read the aforementioned Angels & Demons, which was actually a very good book. I was impressed by the ambigrams, which were pretty cool. And the plot was engaging, keeping me rapt from one page to the next, from the beginning of the book to the end.

But once the movies started coming out for these books, I started remembering the faults I had with these books. Angels & Demons was faultless for me, but The Da Vinci Code is another story. There were moments I disliked in it (but being 5 years since I read it, I can't remember exactly what they were), and the movie only served to emphasize them. Add that to the fact that Tom Hanks was not the man I would have chosen to play Robert Langdon, and I was not at all pleased. But that's beside the point. I want to talk about the books, not bad casting directors.

I intend the main points of these posts to be a discussion of why I think these authors have become popular. For Dan Brown, I have little doubt as to why he became popular: he offered an alternative view of history in regards to some of our most beloved symbols, or even in regards to the symbolism that doesn't even register when we see them (I'm thinking of the all-seeing eye featured on the back of the dollar bill). In particular, he offered an alternative view of religious history, which is almost always a surefire way to gain an audience.

Now, I don't believe the stories told by Brown in his books. There is a reason that we classify these books as "fiction". But just look at the hype that has come out of his books: I consistently see shows on the History and Discovery Channels about "the truth behind the Da Vinci Code" and similar topics. People, particularly those with vested stakes in religion, feel the need to dispel any sort of rumor that might hurt the image of the church. I consider myself a Christian, but not a particularly devout one or even one who buys into the dogma of particular religions. But I don't care whether or not the stories told in Dan Brown's books were true; if anything, I think Jesus would be more relateable if he had had relations with a woman at some point in his life, even if it was Mary Magdalene.

But I digress. The reason I think that Dan Brown is popular is that he knows how to play on people's most longstanding beliefs, such as religion or American history. Those with the largest stake in the matter react almost violently to his assertions, which in turn makes people (like me) who don't really care about the topic that much, to read the books to figure out just why everyone is so upset about the content. Despite his shocking content, the most disappointing thing about Dan Brown is his inability to tell a good story. His decline has been progressive: he had me engaged throughout Angels & Demons and through most of The Da Vinci Code, but by the time I was halfway through The Lost Symbol, I was beginning to ask when the story would begin. A tip to all authors, and Dan Brown in particular: SPEND MORE TIME TELLING YOUR STORY THAN YOU DO SETTING IT UP!!! The background can certainly be important to a story, but it should not take more pages than the story itself; in fact, if you go above a 3:1 ratio of story to background, I would say that you have gone too far.

So there are my opinions on Dan Brown. A bad writer who has the knack for making people react to his controversial subject matter. Despite this dislike of Dan Brown's writing style, I still intend to read the rest of his books and any more that may come out in the future. He knows how to create a good story, even if he's terrible at telling it. I have Digital Fortress on my bookshelf to read at some point, and I hope that it will involve better storytelling when Brown is not trying to upset the foundations of Christianity and democracy through one of his Robert Langdon tales.