Decoding the Twilight Bug

When you start with the first few chapters of the novel, Twilight seems absorbing and Stephanie Meyer's work continues to be in increasingly intruiging, well, until it hits a dead end by the two hundredth or so page.

The plot after that, comprises of a dully written prose of Bella Swan's escapades of marvelling at Edward Cullen's exterior beauty for a nice length of four books, and Edward asking Bella what she is thinking. Really, give me a break.

Neither Bella nor Edward seem to have a personality, so to speak of. Isabella is a quiet, painfully stuck in the damsel in distress rut girl, who simply cannot do without a bodyguard hired for the full twenty four hours of seven days in a week to make through alive. In a world where writers, in my opinion at least, should be promoting women's power, Bella is a celebrated anti-feminist, who absolutely cannot make do without her vampire boyfriend, and is as besotted and infatuated with him as a teenager is expected to be - so much for calling her 'mature' - that she is willing to give up her mortality, humanity, family, friends, her whole world in a matter of weeks of knowing Edward.

Which brings us to Edward Cullen. Initially, like the story line itself, he seems scintillating and exciting, until he falls in love with Bella. Its a downhill plunge after that. He seems to lose whatever character he had, and becomes flat, stiad and uninteresting. His only business in the world seems to be keeping his pathetic girlfriend alive and safe, and one tends to absolutely lose interest in him after that. Shouldnt there be something in their life apart from 'love'? Any motive, however inconsequential it might be?

Enter Jacob Black. He has a boyish charm, just like Edward, and a humanity that the plot line seriously lacks, something solid in him that actually makes New Moon worth reading.

But conduct a survey - and you'll see that New Moon - the second installment in the vampire fic - is the lowest rated. Why? Because you dont have much of perfect looking, perfect behaving, perfectly talented, and perfectly safe Edward Cullen in it. Thats all there is to explain the whole Twilight craze. Its Edward's absolute and sickening perfection that obssessed teens seem to cling to with their hearts, as it might provide perfect portals for them to build their imaginary Mr. Right.

Eclipse couldnt get duller. I suppose you do have to credit Meyer that she managed to pull of writing around six hundred pages worth a novel on absolutely nothing. Bella is downright rude to the one likeable character in the whol series - Jacob Black - who was the one who helped her out of her horrifying depression in New Moon when her perfect vamp left her. The single minded incentive of the newborn vampires to kill Bella isnt convincing, neither is any bit of the book hair raising in any world. Its just that the perfect Cullen kid has come back, finally.

As if this wasnt enough, Breaking Dawn was the limit. It started off nicely enough, with the promise of a new life for Bella, an eventful wedding, and for perhaps the first time in a long time, you may actually happen to relate to Bella all through till the first sex scene. It's downright gruesome that for someone who believes so strongly of saving human lives, Bella's then shamelessly gutting down human blood for the health of her growing infant within her, which may or may not be the worst kind of monster to exist - blood that is collected in the first place for human emergencies.

When Renesmee is born though, and Jacob imprints on her, it is impressing, and you expect the story to finally deal some thrilling cards. No such luck, however, as ultimately, there is no war, just a very settled and well reasoned talk between the vampire royalty Volturi and the sachharine Cullens and their friends worldwide. When you've collected so many vampires, and prepared so hard for a bloodthirsty battle, you expect a little colour in the final conflict. And you get nothing. A boring ending to the equally boring series, where Bella is gifted with an unbelievably happy ending, no casualities to make their hardships seem real, and everything goes back to its perfect normal state. Ugh.

What I did like though, about all four books, is the complete absolution of Bella and Edward's love. It gets sickening towards the end, but still. Bella and Jacob's friendship is refreshing, so is Meyer's new approach towards the whole vampire world - though that candy floss flavour could be considered its negative point too. It was something different, granted, and all said and done, it wasnt bad in the least. So up for some vampire fic, and in the mood to check out the much coveted Twilight? All I can say, is enter at your own risk.