All things 'Twilight'
One day, a year and a half ago, I was sitting in my living room watching CNN. There was a feature about this book called Twilight written by some Stephanie Meyer on TV. They were just talking about the craze surrounding the book that is about a normal high school girl falling in love with a vampire and also that a movie is now being made based on this book. I didn't really care about it at the time, but the name stuck in my head. A few days later when I was scouring the 'fremdsprache'(foreign language) corner of the book store for some English books I came across Twilight. I thought to myself, "if it has become so famous it must be quite a thrilling book so why not pick it up"?
I had no idea what I was getting myself into. To be very honest, it was a very poor piece of literature. The characters are unnatural, of course, how can vampires be natural? But there was something, something that makes you want to find out what happens at the end. It's like an old fashioned harlequin romance with a vampire in stead of an arrogant, ruthless, manly man! And they are teenagers!!!
I just read a blog post on blogher.com by Rita Arens who read the book persuaded by her sister and this is what she wrote:
"So I actually did start reading Twilight, and, like my sister, I remembered the yearning that is high school romance. I remembered how exciting it was, but I also remembered how horrible it felt."
Her blog is basically about marriage and how true love that lasts 50 yrs is not the kind of love which constitutes The Twilight Saga.
There are some cultural differences that become very prominent in her comments.I am an Indian and I can say most Indian girls would not identify with any horrible feeling in High School unless they have anything to do with grades and assignments. There are very few Indian high school kids who go through experiences like 'yearning' for a boy. 80% of them do not even have boyfriends. Also there are many marriages in India that last 50 years provided the couple stays alive for so long. But who knows about love? Those couples who celebrate 50th anniversaries maybe hating each other for all you know.
Love is different for different people... the types of love can be as numerous as there are human beings.
Rita Arens quotes other women in her blog, one of them say that better conditioning in her teenage years could have prevented her from choosing a wrong man to marry.
I do not think things are that simple after all. People usually learn from situations that surround them. What attracts a girl to a particular man is difficult to understand, but if friends or family mention that they do not have a good feeling about the man or warns the girl, she will not believe them. Any amount of instilled morality or lessons in class will be forgotten when one is 'in love'.
Teenagers are surrounded by all kinds of media that denounce domestic violence, emotional abuse and infidelity, then how is it that educated girls get trapped with the wrong kind of men?
And if the man you marry is not really 'bad' in that sense of the word, only that there are compatibility issues then that is not something which can be corrected by any amount of conditioning and education.
Finally, I am of this opinion that if teenagers do not go through the slightest bit of yearning or the feeling that they are in love and nothing can deter them from it then as adults you remain with the inexperience of that feeling.
Love that constitutes of mutual respect, deep understanding and trust is a part that should come as a natural progression of a relationship but not before the yearning!
I am still mystified by the success of Twilight. It's a forbidden relationship, perhaps that is the reason. If I am to consider the vampire as a symbol of the wrong man, who can destroy you or kill you then the book sends out a very wrong message. But I suppose that is not what the author is trying to do. She probably doesn't even understand what she is writing about.
Trust me, stick to Harlequins and Silhouettes, at least it will help you increase your vocabulary.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into. To be very honest, it was a very poor piece of literature. The characters are unnatural, of course, how can vampires be natural? But there was something, something that makes you want to find out what happens at the end. It's like an old fashioned harlequin romance with a vampire in stead of an arrogant, ruthless, manly man! And they are teenagers!!!
I just read a blog post on blogher.com by Rita Arens who read the book persuaded by her sister and this is what she wrote:
"So I actually did start reading Twilight, and, like my sister, I remembered the yearning that is high school romance. I remembered how exciting it was, but I also remembered how horrible it felt."
Her blog is basically about marriage and how true love that lasts 50 yrs is not the kind of love which constitutes The Twilight Saga.
There are some cultural differences that become very prominent in her comments.I am an Indian and I can say most Indian girls would not identify with any horrible feeling in High School unless they have anything to do with grades and assignments. There are very few Indian high school kids who go through experiences like 'yearning' for a boy. 80% of them do not even have boyfriends. Also there are many marriages in India that last 50 years provided the couple stays alive for so long. But who knows about love? Those couples who celebrate 50th anniversaries maybe hating each other for all you know.
Love is different for different people... the types of love can be as numerous as there are human beings.
Rita Arens quotes other women in her blog, one of them say that better conditioning in her teenage years could have prevented her from choosing a wrong man to marry.
I do not think things are that simple after all. People usually learn from situations that surround them. What attracts a girl to a particular man is difficult to understand, but if friends or family mention that they do not have a good feeling about the man or warns the girl, she will not believe them. Any amount of instilled morality or lessons in class will be forgotten when one is 'in love'.
Teenagers are surrounded by all kinds of media that denounce domestic violence, emotional abuse and infidelity, then how is it that educated girls get trapped with the wrong kind of men?
And if the man you marry is not really 'bad' in that sense of the word, only that there are compatibility issues then that is not something which can be corrected by any amount of conditioning and education.
Finally, I am of this opinion that if teenagers do not go through the slightest bit of yearning or the feeling that they are in love and nothing can deter them from it then as adults you remain with the inexperience of that feeling.
Love that constitutes of mutual respect, deep understanding and trust is a part that should come as a natural progression of a relationship but not before the yearning!
I am still mystified by the success of Twilight. It's a forbidden relationship, perhaps that is the reason. If I am to consider the vampire as a symbol of the wrong man, who can destroy you or kill you then the book sends out a very wrong message. But I suppose that is not what the author is trying to do. She probably doesn't even understand what she is writing about.
Trust me, stick to Harlequins and Silhouettes, at least it will help you increase your vocabulary.
Comments
About choosing the wrong guy....how do you know somebody is going to turn out right or wrong later? and when you are 'in love', you are not making decisions, your hormones have taken charge.
I completely agree with you, yearning is must, before all that serious stuff 'right or wrong', 'compatibility', 'adjustments'.....
Ar about choosing the wrong guy niye o amar o oi ek e proshno, you never know! The blog against which I wrote this post mentions certain things that I do not agree with. Tar modhye chilo ei shob kotha, je better conditioning hole naki thik lok choose kore biye korten ekjon mohila!