Something to sink your teeth into. . . .

[Days 5, 6, 7--Pop Culture. This isn't working very well, is it? Maybe two to three entries a week would be a more realistic goal.]

So, I’m not usually one to jump on the adolescent/young-adult literature series bandwagon. I missed the whole Lord of the Rings phenomenon completely, until the movies came out, at which point I drove my better-informed coworkers nuts with plot-related questions and things I didn’t understand, like:

*Why do so many of the characters have two names? Aren’t the names themselves difficult enough without everyone having two?
*On that note, what’s up with Sauron/Saruman? Why give two different evil characters such similar sounding names?
*Still on that note, why do many of the boy Hobbits have girly names? (e.g., Merry, Pippin)
*Speaking of Hobbits, what’s up with the huge hairy feet? Is that necessary? It’s pretty gross.
*Why does that big evil tower look like a giant vagina?

And so on. They say that you don’t really have to have read the books to understand the movies, but with stuff like this, it really couldn’t hurt, could it? Same thing with the Harry Potter series. I did in fact read the first one, but then I lost interest, despite assurances from everyone that the books got more intricate and interesting as they went along. I did, however, see a few of the movies—but not all of them, and not necessarily in order. (I don’t really remember.) And while I could pretty much figure out what was going on, some of the plot intricacies were lost on me.

However, I did recently get sucked into the newest craze—the Twilight series. In fact, just last night I finished the third humongous book. And I gotta say—maybe I’ve been missing out by eschewing such adolescent/young-adult fare before.

Not that I’m comparing Stephenie Meyer, the Twilight author, to Tolkien or even Rowling. Frankly, the Twilight series is not very well written. Most of the characters are rather flat and stereotypical, and the dialogue is often forced and fakey-sounding. The whole series drags out way too long. I can’t stand the main character—her neediness, her whininess, the way she completely defines herself by one or another male character, her tiresome self-martyrdom. It’s too tame, too watered-down, and the actions of most of the characters are not at all believable, even for a vampire story. It didn’t help, at all, when I learned that Meyer is a Mormon . . . although it did pretty much explain the complete lack of sex or even any serious fooling around amongst raging-hormone-infested teenagers in a small town where there is virtually nothing else to do.

Regardless, I CANNOT put these books down.

I really don’t get it. I don’t know why I’m so sucked in. I guess maybe Meyer is better at subtle plot development than I’m consciously aware of—I absolutely have to know what happens next, even if, in my opinion, it should have happened around 324 pages previously. (Seriously, how many times have I just stopped reading, put the book down, and barked out, “Just bite her already, dammit!”? I don’t know, I’ve lost track.) Meyer has certainly mastered the Dickensian art of dragging out a story long enough to bleed (no pun intended!) as much money out of the helplessly addicted reader as possible, so I'll give her props for that.

Case in point—I know for a fact that sometime over the upcoming long weekend (like, tomorrow, probably!) I will go out and buy the fourth book, in hardcover no less. Because I must. Because I can’t wait.

But hey, at least I’m reading for relaxation, instead of watching endless Law & Order reruns. That’s still an improvement, yes?

(As a side note, another prop I'll give Meyers is that she does manage to effectively weave references to Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights into the plot, which may actually induce some teenagers to read a classic now and then. And there's no doubt that a lot of teenagers are reading this series. In my experience, teenagers do not want to read most literary, allegorical, preachy young-adult novels--if you don't believe me, try getting a class of 9th graders to read Lord of the Flies or Catcher in the Rye. But they eat this stuff up . . . and at least they're reading. Just like me!)