Bite me. Actually, don't bother.

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while but I've never really got round to it. Now that I've overcome my inertia, here goes.

I've managed to wade through Stephanie Meyer's overwrought and insipid neo victorian 'romance' series, Twilight. It really pissed off the feminist in me. The misogynist subtext in the book was suffocating. Bella, the female protagonist is the bastion of anti feminism, vacuous and devoid of anything that vaguely resembles a personality. The plot revolves around the submissive 'lion and lamb' relationship she shares with the overbearing Edward Cullen, a caricature of Byronic hero slash teeny bop sex symbol. Bella is so infatuated that she disengages herself from the outside world. The have the stalker-saviour and damsel in distress dynamic going on. How erotic.

I read the second book clinging on to the dwindling and irrational hope that Stephanie Meyer would come to her senses and redeem herself. I couldn't have been more wrong. After Edward abruptly leaves Bella within the first couple of chapters, she disintegrates and enters an almost catatonic state. The only thing that can bring her back from the brink is, yes you guessed it, another boy. Namely Jacob Black. (In the next book he turns out to be a schizophrenic who sexually assaults her. Bella, despite her protests romanticizes the abuse and halfway through thinks she loves him, but I'm just digressing here). During Bella's short lived relationship with Jacob she was endearingly incompetent and we even see a glimpse of a personality. Then there's an inexplicable thinly veiled suicide attempt where Bella jumps off a cliff of her own volition so she can hear Edwards voice in her head. What kind of convoluted message does that send out?

There is an underlying 'forbidden fruit' message but that's pretty much the extent of the literary 'depth'. Besides Edward Cullen being an 'Adonis-like' physical specimen who exudes pheromones, from a literary point of view he is a hollow shell. Now the reader without much difficulty can superimpose her own interpretation of the 'perfect man' over the character. The actual quality of her writing is mediocre and she really doesn't understand the concept of 'less is more'. She embellishes her sentences too much and the plot progression is often stilted and formulaic. Another thing. Glittering vampires? Bram Stoker will be turning in his grave.

I just can't buy into the fanaticism. Two hundred years after Elizabeth Bennet, the early feminist who didn't submit to the patriachal society she grew up in, we have Isabella Swan. I don't mean to sound preachy, but we can't pretend we don't see what's wrong with the story of Edward and Bella. Stephanie Meyer has completely bastardized the story of star cross'd lovers. Personally, I don't want to grow up accepting violence in relationships and abuse while serving up dinner with a smile.