The other night I finally watched the movie, Twilight. I never planned to watch it at all because I didn’t like the book, had to make myself finish it. I know that’s un-American, judgmental, prejudiced, and all the other tags you can think of to describe a person who admits a dislike for an extremely popular phenomenon. I tried hard to suspend disbelief and get into the story, but the basic premise of it, finding vampires irresistible, got in the way, though irresistibility is part of a vampire’s character.
Through the years, I’ve read vampire books, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, and others, but the whole vampire concept is repulsive to me. I only read the books to see why they are so attractive to so many readers, and that’s why I watched the Twilight movie. Stoker’s and Rice’s books made me a horrified spectator with never a touch of sympathy for the vampires and their sordid, nasty worlds. I had to admire the writing especially that of Anne Rice who made the vampire’s life so real.
Stephanie Meyer in Twilight attempted to make the Cullen vampires more acceptable by having them satisfy their blood lusts with animal blood, but they remained vampires, cold and unfeeling except for their beloveds. In most vampire stories the prey of a vampire is an innocent, unwilling victim. Not so in Twilight. Bella was attracted to Edward from first glance and desired him while Edward, though obsessed with her, controlled his lust for her blood to protect her humanness. Not typical vampire behavior.
In all the vampire stories I’ve read, vampires are magnets, sensual, attractive beyond resistance to their mesmerized victims. In one scene Meyer’s writing far surpassed the movie in showing this. That was the scene in the sunlight when Edward revealed himself in all his vampire glory. That was the only time in the book that I could understand why Bella was so attracted to Edward’s pale, cold vampire self. I was disappointed in the same movie scene and thought I should have experienced a feast for the senses in music, color, movement that made me feel a little of Bella’s fascination with the vampire.
The movie captured Bella’s fear of, Edward’s rival, the vampire villain with all the lust, instinct, and ruthlessness of the typical vampire we love to hate. The appropriately scary sights and sounds of the movie kept me glued to my seat at times, but other scenes like the ones of Edward zipping about with Bella clinging to his back made me want to laugh.
I will say about Twilight, both movie and book, I’m glad I saw and read them but won’t do it again. That’s what I said about the acclaimed book and movie, Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence. So what do I know?
Monday, November 28, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Back in the Here and Now
I have been lost in my novel for many, many months, neglecting family, friends, life in general, and especially this blog to spend my time with fantasy people in their world. Real time and place were almost dreams to me, and the people I know and care for were characters in those dreams. My life was in the words that poured out creating the story of love, struggle, perseverance, and hope that filled the pages of my manuscript while I secluded myself, allowing no distractions to entice me from my work.
Now, after the story is done, mundane words replaced with vivid words full of emotion, plot refined and honed to epitomize the theme, characters and setting grown familiar yet unknown, I step out of that world back into the real one that competes with my imagination. I left my desk this afternoon to drive through golden ginkgoes, maples of red, orange and yellow, multicolored trees wearing their autumn dresses. Glad to be alive here and now, I entered the recording booth of the radio station at the library to read a Christmas short story by Charles Dickens.
Everyone knows the Dickens story of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge and the ghosts, but his other Christmas stories were a revelation to me. Today I read What Christmas Is As We Grow Older, a very short one that took only fourteen minutes to read. I had read the story before and didn’t think much of it when I read it silently. It seemed to be merely a collection of the author’s memories. But when I read it aloud into the microphone, it came to life. I had never thought I’d like to read aloud the convoluted, multi-clause sentences of Charles Dickens, but I did. The music of the language and the richness of the words made those memories of Dickens come alive for me.
I can only hope my writing may some day enthrall a reader as much as I was captivated by the world and the writing of Charles Dickens. That would be more than full payment for the months and years I’ve spent closeted with my research, my creative muse, and my computer. Not that I regret any minute of the process. Nothing is more satisfying to me than creating another world peopled with characters who are part of me and everybody I know, people who meet the challenges of their world with hope.
Now, after the story is done, mundane words replaced with vivid words full of emotion, plot refined and honed to epitomize the theme, characters and setting grown familiar yet unknown, I step out of that world back into the real one that competes with my imagination. I left my desk this afternoon to drive through golden ginkgoes, maples of red, orange and yellow, multicolored trees wearing their autumn dresses. Glad to be alive here and now, I entered the recording booth of the radio station at the library to read a Christmas short story by Charles Dickens.
Everyone knows the Dickens story of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge and the ghosts, but his other Christmas stories were a revelation to me. Today I read What Christmas Is As We Grow Older, a very short one that took only fourteen minutes to read. I had read the story before and didn’t think much of it when I read it silently. It seemed to be merely a collection of the author’s memories. But when I read it aloud into the microphone, it came to life. I had never thought I’d like to read aloud the convoluted, multi-clause sentences of Charles Dickens, but I did. The music of the language and the richness of the words made those memories of Dickens come alive for me.
I can only hope my writing may some day enthrall a reader as much as I was captivated by the world and the writing of Charles Dickens. That would be more than full payment for the months and years I’ve spent closeted with my research, my creative muse, and my computer. Not that I regret any minute of the process. Nothing is more satisfying to me than creating another world peopled with characters who are part of me and everybody I know, people who meet the challenges of their world with hope.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Yann Martel
Yesterday I met Yann Martel. In a dimly lit studio at Radio WYPL 89.3, Stephen Usery interviewed Yann Martel as I sat there avidly taking in every word. I’ve been a fan of Martel since I read his Life of Pi a few years ago. The topic of the interview was his new novel, Beatrice and Virgil which somehow combines the story of Beatrice the donkey and Virgil the howler monkey in Okapi Taxidermy with the Holocaust.
I have not read the book but now have it and cannot wait to delve into it. As a writer, I was fascinated with what Yann Martel had to say. For one thing, he said he was a slow reader, reading a word at a time to get all the author put into a book. According to him, every book a person reads should give the reader a new or more complete understanding of life and the world and leave him or her thinking about it. Martel writes to give his readers the kind of experience he wants from any book he reads.
Before writing Beatrice and Virgil, he read about eighty new books and spent a tremendous amount of time in learning experiences and research as he planned, plotted, and lived the story. That’s why some people may have thought he suffered from writers' block; he said that was not the case. He had no problem writing when the book was ready to be written.
As a fan, I was glad to know Martel is a warm, friendly person. He appreciates all of his readers, especially women and their book clubs. Though he classified himself as a middle-aged man, he admitted that most middle-aged men do not read.
A silent listener to the interview, I think I learned more than I have in several day-long writers’ workshops I've attended. So many writers seem to whip out the books one after another that I had wondered why I was so slow. Now I’m glad to know that all my time spent in research and planning, several years of it for my current novel, would not be at all unusual for Yann Martel.
I have not read the book but now have it and cannot wait to delve into it. As a writer, I was fascinated with what Yann Martel had to say. For one thing, he said he was a slow reader, reading a word at a time to get all the author put into a book. According to him, every book a person reads should give the reader a new or more complete understanding of life and the world and leave him or her thinking about it. Martel writes to give his readers the kind of experience he wants from any book he reads.
Before writing Beatrice and Virgil, he read about eighty new books and spent a tremendous amount of time in learning experiences and research as he planned, plotted, and lived the story. That’s why some people may have thought he suffered from writers' block; he said that was not the case. He had no problem writing when the book was ready to be written.
As a fan, I was glad to know Martel is a warm, friendly person. He appreciates all of his readers, especially women and their book clubs. Though he classified himself as a middle-aged man, he admitted that most middle-aged men do not read.
A silent listener to the interview, I think I learned more than I have in several day-long writers’ workshops I've attended. So many writers seem to whip out the books one after another that I had wondered why I was so slow. Now I’m glad to know that all my time spent in research and planning, several years of it for my current novel, would not be at all unusual for Yann Martel.
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