This month’s staff book club was free-style: share what you’re reading. I’ve been on a vampire quest and that’s what I talked about.
A couple of months ago I was surfing Netflix on hubby’s yoga night and came across Twilight. I try to keep up with YA culture, even if only sparingly, and I knew the name. I also knew that E. L. James had said she’s taken inspiration for her 50 Shades trilogy from Twilight and my curiosity was piqued on how a young adult saga could inform erotica. I decided to watch it.
I was completely turned off. First and foremost I didn’t find anything attractive about Edward Cullen and I was disappointed. I’m used to liking vampires. I was a huge Anne Rice fan as a teen. Twilight was mushy and angsty and unbelievable and most of all, just not sexy. How could E. L. James have been inspired by this mess? Because I admit, there was plenty about 50 Shades that I liked just fine. I’m not a proud person and my English degree doesn’t get in the way of my appreciation of erotica, which simply doesn’t have the same goals as, say, Jane Austen did.
I decided to read the audio book. Perhaps the movie adaptation was the problem.
And I hated the book.
The writing was repetitive and tiresome, the main characters unbelievable and not “admirable” in any sense. They weren’t rich or full. They were paper thin and boring. I couldn’t look up to them. I wasn’t learning anything from them. I have an Oscar Wilde quote in my bathroom that currently graces this blog’s masthead: “It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.” Oh boy, I was in troouuuuubbbbblllllle.
But something compelled me to keep reading.
I decided perhaps it was the narrator so I picked up a print edition. I finished Twilight and was really disappointed that there was no sex. I mean, vampires = sex, blood and death which = sex, right? What was I missing about the central “point” of vampires? These were virtuous, family-loving, virginal vampires. I was confused. I had noted that the author, Stephenie Meyer, was a graduate of Brigham Young University. I had decided not to hold that against her initially. I began re-thinking that.
I started the second book of the four-book saga. It was patently and unequivocally worse than the first book. Bella, the main female character, completely lost perspective on her own life and personhood and pined pitifully for her (temporarily) lost vampire Edward. This, I thought, is not what inspired E. L. James. Say what you like about 50 Shades but Anastasia Steele is no push-over incapable of living her own life. Steele shows backbone frequently. Bella folded at the least opportunity.
So, of course, I pushed through it and began book 3. I’m telling you, there’s something compelling about the Twilight saga! I still can’t quite put my finger on it but it may be the same type of compelling that had me sign up for the Duggar family newsletter.
I was prepared not to like book 3 either, a bridge book to the end of the saga. But by that point I really felt like I had something I wanted to SAY about Twilight. I wanted to lambast it for its sneaky, Christian-fiction themed promotion of abstinence and it’s absolutely reckless disregard for feminism. I was pretty well satisfied by own expectations. Book 3 wasn’t anything special. But I was determined to finish the saga so I could have my say.
Imagine my surprise when I got to book 4 and actually found things to like. What I liked most was the fact that as soon as Bella began exploring her sexuality (granted, within the safe confines of the bonds of matrimony), she went and grew up on us. While she hadn’t wanted to be “one of those girls” who gets married straight out of high school, she does and finds that she likes sex a lot. Well, what a shocker there Bella. We find out that the other vampire characters have actually destroyed houses with the power of their lust. Well thank God we can acknowledge someone is having sex in this world – and enjoying themselves at it! Bella moves on to motherhood and defending her family and other normal adult-type goals.
I was still disappointed by the saga over-all but I can’t deny that it was compelling. I can’t quite put my finger on exactly what had me keep reading. 50 Shades was about on par with the quality of the writing (low) but also compelling in it’s way. Of course, it’s not hard to figure out what made 50 Shades compelling. And I can see where E. L. James borrowed from the obsession Meyer plays with between her characters.
But I didn’t want the vampire genre ruined for me. I decided to go back and re-read Anne Rice to see if all vampire novels were inherently trashy? I began Interview with the Vampire a few weeks ago and found it met my original requirements for a high quality vampire novel. Good writing. And plenty of blood, sex, death and mature, adult angst over morality and in-front-of-your-face religion (as opposed to the behind-the-scenes morality that Meyer pedaled). And lovely, lovely death, sex and vampires. I’ve missed you, Anne. Welcome home!
P.s. My thinking on this matter has (belatedly) been informed by a librarian with actual experience with young adult literature. Super Ang reports that this series was particularly appealing to the young teen, 13-15. Because they’re not ready for sex yet and the story is a romance that doesn’t have sex, bad language, or violence. Parents can feel safe with it. That age set can explore romance with age-appropriate content. We both agreed that the message to young women about their role as young women in romantic relationships was appalling however. Women do not come across as equal sharers in this relationship.
P.P.S If i might be permitted a final word on this (i read 8 damn books for this single blog post people so I’m not quitting today until I ‘ve had my say) my standards for YA and erotica are quite different. I’ll totally call a YA author out for not being a pretty strict feminist in her or his writing but I don’t ask for heroines in my porn. Feel free to call me a hypocrite. It’s a truth I learned as a young librarian when folks would, in the span of a single conversation, tell you they wanted a “clean” story and then you find out they wanted a raunchy Bodice-ripper of a romance. People like their sex, strong language and violence the WAY they like their sex, strong language and violence. It’s very personal stuff.
Plum Librarian LLC 