[Since I don't really say anything spiffy here, reading this is not terribly essential. If rambling is your cup of tea, though...]
Coupla things I want to establish here:
* I
write a lot. Some would say I write very well, but your mileage may
vary, so I won't assert it here myself.
* I
credit this to the fact I used to spend a lot of leisure time
reading. Since I now spend something like 60% of my waking hours
reading not
for pleasure, but rather for classes, I don't read much for fun
anymore. Unfortunate, but, um, school.
*
I would like to make it clear here that when I do read in my
occasionally-existent leisure time, I read stuff that's worthwhile –
when I was younger it was Harry
Potter
and the Redwall
books. This semester, I'm going to carve my way through the Sherlock
Holmes
adventures.
I
tried to read Twilight
a couple summers ago. I think I got about eight chapters in, and then
I just never came back to it. Looking back, it's not so much that I
hated the book – I embarrass myself in admitting that once I got
past the fact that I was reading Twilight,
I could coast through it. The fact is that the book simply. did not.
entertain. I was
bored.
I
dunno; maybe I was expecting it to actually sweep me away despite
everything wrong with it and I would suddenly find myself halfway
through it and wondering why I resisted its call for so long.
No
such luck; I got hungry and had lunch.
To
finish up a thought: I don't like to say bald-faced that I hate the
Twilight
series – how can I when I haven't even finished the first one? What
I can say with certainty is that I hate the hype
around it. I don't know what I think of the book yet. I'll find out
this semester.
So
my pre-visualization that I mentioned in the title of this post involves me
reading the book as objectively as I possibly can. The book has
to have merits if it's so popular that it has saddled thousands of
babies with the names of its three main characters... right?
My
mission: To read Twilight
this semester with the greatest objectivity I can muster. I will not let
preconceptions spawned from ridiculous hype / rabid fangirls/boys, inflammatory critique / rabid haters, nor the pressures of homework and the added
indignity of being required to read it for a college-level class,
distract me from giving as unbiased a commentary on the writing,
plot, characters, etc. as I possibly can.
On
pain of everyone protesting, "But you said--!" I promise
you this.
First
entry imminent...
~Sarah
Great to see your voice here, Sarah. I am so glad that you brought up the issue of hype for us to think about. Gothic fiction has always attracted a lot of hype (even when it first materialized in the 18th century), and that is one reason that it is interesting (in my opinion).
ReplyDeleteAlso, I feel that one clarification is in order from me (Prof. Chavez): My intention is definitely *not* to make grandiose claims for Twilight as a "great" work of literature. On the other hand, I am very, very interested in how Twilight relates to the acknowledged tradition of "great" works of Gothic literature (Sherlock Holmes included) and what its popularity tells us about *our* cultural moment. As we learned through Henry James's story, Gothic literature is often a pretty good vehicle for catching a glimpse of that elusive and maybe even hideous "alter ego." How can one turn away from that?!!!
I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on this.
I admit, I forgot the vision for this a little bit. To clarify, I could say that I will judge how 'Twilight' stands against the established "greats" of Gothic writing without being swayed by how in love or how in hate I am with the characters, the plot, the word choice, etc. Given how vehement people on both sides can be with this series, neutrality seems a rather daunting task.
ReplyDeleteI could say a -lot- about what its popularity means for our culture based purely on the hype, so I'll of course have to address that later once I have some context, won't I?
Hmm... Alter egos in "Twilight"... That... Hmm. Well, I'll have to see what happens when I read it.
Well I'm happy so far no one's bashing against the book because those are entries I won't take to kindly to because I do like the books and no one will be fangirling about it I'm sure because I dislike that as well. I can't wait to read your commentary.
ReplyDelete