By Stephenie Meyer
I just finished re-reading the four book Twilight Series by Meyer this past weekend. When I read the series originally, each book was read with several months if not years in between. This time I went straight through from Twilight to New Moon to Eclipse to Breaking Dawn. It was also interesting that the weather cooperated with me -- two books for the rain and two for the snow!
I am assuming most of my readers are somewhat familiar with the story even if you have never read the books as the last of the five movies based on the books just came out this past December. I got interested in revisiting this series after watching the Twilight movie again recently and trying to recall how the book compared with the movie. I can say that the writers of the screenplay did an excellent job of telling the story in a way that made sense and saved lots of time. In addition, there are so many "copycat" novels out there that it was good to go back to where it all began.
Here are some of my observations from my reading:
- It seems as though Meyer's original book must have actually been a combination of Twilight and New Moon. There is a Romeo and Juliet theme that runs through both novels and I could tell how it was possible for the editors to ask for additions in order to stretch out the one story. Eclipse has a Wuthering Heights theme. However, I didn't find much of a literary theme in Breaking Dawn.
- What is so attractive about Bella? She is an absolute whiner. She is shy and lacking in self-confidence that I find these things about her to be unattractive. She is not a girly-girl (neither am I) but she has no real obvious talent or abilities. And to have not one but two guys after her....
- And while we are on the subject of Bella, why does she think she can save all these super powered creatures with her self-sacrificing? Makes me want a psychologist to get into her brain or something.
- Wouldn't it be great to have a family like the Cullens? Everyone seems to really get along with everyone else, even as they are all adults in the same household. Please. At least in normal households you can escape the others you live with when you sleep.
- The switch from first person point of view to Jacob's view really bothered me when I first read Breaking Dawn. However, when reading it this time I really felt like it worked. Otherwise, there would have been a lot of explanations needed for what was going on in the La Push world.
What does this series have to do with my faith? There are so many issues with the desire to become a vampire: eternal youth, becoming incredibly attractive, living forever, super strength, not needing to sleep (more time to do as one desires), being somewhat invincible and having power. The biggest attraction seems the concept of living forever eternally young. Yet, our Christian faith tells us that Jesus has given us the gift of living forever. Paul tells us that we are going to get new bodies as well. Why would a Christian turn away from such a gift to look for that which has an evil component? What are we really afraid of?
No answers at this time but much to think about!
What books or series would you like to have the chance to revisit?
Happy reading!
Amelia
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