Yes, I Really Did Read Twilight

Yes, I recently read Twilight. The whole thing. Every single word.

I know you are eagerly awaiting my evaluation (what could it be?), but first a word of explanation. Why did I read this book?

I had a reading group last semester. Five students, all amazing. It was supposed to be a reading group funded with money from the Koch Foundation; I had been running reading groups with money from that Foundation for years, and so put together this set of students for the year, but then, alas, the Koch Foundation changed their funding priorities to large projects only and thus funding for small reading groups like mine went by the wayside. Sigh.

But, we decided to go ahead anyway, because, well, reading and talking about books is fun. One of the students, the clever snarky one (well…come to think of it, they were all clever and snarky…) decided the group needed a name and came up with the Dead Koch Society. The name stuck. They have had a group chat all year to which I was not invited, presumably because they spend much of their time mocking me.

There we were merrily reading and arguing all year when Coronavirus came along. But, fear not! The virus could not kill the Dead Koch Society. It moved to Slack. We finished the semester. Then the students decided it would be fun to keep going since nobody has a job anyway. So, they came up with a book. Yep. Twilight. I suspect they picked this book because they knew I would never agree to read it and then they could mock me for refusing to read a book. I called their bluff. I read it. Every word.

The quick evaluation: other than the prose, the plot and the characters, it was OK. The paper was really good quality. Very sturdy paper.

The book is really awful. It’s not just that it makes no sense, is written horribly, and has massive plot holes. It is a very trashy pre-teen romance novel. There is a scene in a glade with our Heroine Bella and the Super Hot Vampire Edward that may well be the most cringe-inducing pseudo-sex scene in literature. The ending of the novel is extraordinarily disturbing: an Evil Vampire traps Bella in her childhood ballet studio (yeah…), ties her to a chair, turns on a video recorder, and starts explaining how he is going to make a snuff film. Kids read this? Fortunately the Hot Vampire shows up in time to save the day.

I thought about quoting a few random passages to demonstrate the prose, but I will spare you. You may thank me, Dear Reader.

What I learned in the discussion we all had about the book:

1. To say this book and its sequels are popular among pre-teen/early-teen girls is an understatement. Why is it so popular? After talking with my former students, I think I get it. According to them, the book was really only popular with girls. That makes sense.

Bella (the heroine and narrator) is smart and likes to read. Bella is also, alas, incredibly awkward, both physically (she falls a lot) and socially. She is slightly older than the readers of the book, so this is exactly how a 12 year old girl who reads would see herself.

As the novel begins, Bella has just moved to a new town to live with her father. She shows up at school, knowing nobody. And suddenly, within a day, this awkward, smart, bookish girl has three different boys madly in love with her because she is so amazing. You can begin to see why this book is so popular with awkward, smart, bookish girls—and “bookish” is the key; they are the ones who read, you know, books.

But wait, there is more. There is also an ultra-hot, sexy, gorgeous, cool, sophisticated, aloof boy at the school. Oh, Edward. Be still my beating heart. Bella is instantly attracted to Edward. (Did I mention he is really good looking? Meyers point this out on just about every other page.) But, Edward sometimes acts like he can’t stand Bella and sometimes acts like he likes Bella. He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me…

Rest assured. Edward does love Bella with an intensity rivaled only by Bella’s intense love for Edward. There has never been a love in all of the history of literature as intense as the love between Edward and Bella. But, there is a problem! Edward is a Vampire! (Ooh! Shocking!) So Edward is torn between his love for Bella and his natural desire to consume all the blood in Bella’s circulatory system. This puts a damper on the relationship…but fear not, Edward is Strong! Strong enough to resist his desire to drink all her blood! So he can kiss her. Hooray! Sex is out, however. If they tried that, Edward might lose control and eat her.

Why is this book popular? It’s really obvious when you think about it. The awkward bookish girl has every boy in the school wanting to date her, but she is able to attract the mysterious hot boy with whom she falls madly in love and finds herself willing to give up her very soul to be with him forever. The hero saves her at the end. This is the perfect fantasy for pre-teen girls who like to read.

It even has an edge. Because Edward is a vampire, there is a very dangerous edge to this relationship. Edward is a modern day James Dean.

2. In the discussion with my former students, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out if Vampires had Human Rights and needed to follow Human Moral Codes. (Did I mention these former students are really nerdy?) It turned out to be a difficult question to answer because (surprise) Meyer is a bit vague and inconsistent on the details of vampires. They evolve differently than humans, but they cannot reproduce naturally, so you get more vampires by biting humans to poison them but then refraining from drinking all their blood. So, vampires are separately evolved creatures who cannot reproduce, leaving one to wonder about how they evolved, because they sure seem to be just undead humans.

Ah, but while a male vampire and a female vampire cannot have children, we learn in later books (so the students told me—I have not read the rest of these books) male vampires can impregnate female humans, but (alas) when the female human gives birth, she will die. Fear not, when this experiment is tried and Bella is about to die, Edward decides it is OK after all to turn her into a vampire. She lives! (Sorry, I have no idea which in volume of this series this exciting tale can be found.)

As a result, it is really not clear whether vampires have human rights or not. Do they have to follow human moral codes? Is it morally wrong for a vampire to eat a human? Here again, Meyer’s work is lacking a consistent narrative. We applaud Edward for not eating Bella (if he had, there would not have been any sequels!). But it is in the nature of vampires to feast on human blood. They can survive on animal blood, but that is like humans surviving on tofu or something. (My suggestion that vampires could enjoy the Impossible Burger was met with disdain—apparently it is not exactly the same thing as beef.)

But, since Edward is in love with Bella, is it wrong to turn her into a vampire? Bella wants to be a vampire—that way she can also always be young and hot like Edward! But Edward says it is wrong to do so. Why? Not clear. One would think vampires would not object to reproduction. It turns out only Evil vampires do not object to reproduction, well except when good vampires decide to take dying humans and make vampires, but promise to teach them how to be good vampires. What is a good vampire? Good vampires don’t eat people…except obviously the people they turn into good vampires. Or something like that.

If a group of seven vampires moves into town and five of them start attending the local high school because, well, it’s fun to go to high school or something, are humans supposed to welcome them into town?

It is really not clear how to sort out these ethical issues in Meyer’s book. After discussing these sorts of things at length, I am afraid I have to conclude that the Philosophy of Vampires is not well-explained in Twilight. Have to look elsewhere to answer such questions.

3. And finally the epigraph. I’ll admit, when I picked up the book I had low expectations. Then I saw the epigraph and wondered if maybe there would be something here after all. Nope.

Why this epigraph? Best guess: Bella is faced with a choice of whether to love a vampire. Edward is the forbidden fruit. Bella can taste the forbidden fruit and if she does, she will then know both good (being human) and evil (being a vampire). But, when she does that, she will die. Well, she will sort of die, she will become an immortal vampire. And vampires aren’t all evil, right? Isn’t the whole point? But it is definitely wrong to fall in love with a vampire, right? Well, except the book argues that it isn’t wrong to fall in love with a Really Hot Vampire if he is Mostly Good and promises not to suck out all of your blood.

So, what is the epigraph doing at the outset of the book? It is almost like Meyer wanted to add some literacy cache to a really trashy book so she tossed in that epigraph assuming nobody would actually spend any time thinking about it.

I really want to say something nice about Twilight. But, honestly, this book is worse than Jane Eyre.