Dusk, or something like it.

The problem with Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire is that it became an inspiration. I’m not talking about a few books, either, but a whole genre devoted to exposing the ennui of the modern vampire. Because as we all know, eternal life, youth and beauty, and the ability—hell, the (super)natural mandate—to stay up all night, every night, and party is absolutely the worst thing that could happen to anyone.

In all seriousness, it would be perfectly fine if there were only one or two books of that sort. But Ms. Rice herself has made the idea the crux of her career (well, until recently), and there is no shortage of people who think this genre is just about the best thing ever.

True, I’ve been known to indulge in a little bit of this Sympathetic Vampire phenomenon myself. I enjoyed the Interview With the Vampire movie (never read the book), and Robin McKinley’s Sunshine is fairly excellent as well.

Then there are the Legacy of Kain games, although those aren’t so much interested in giving you sympathetic characters as they are in giving you characters interesting and cool enough that you don’t care that they are Magnificent Bastards, one and all.

All of this is what’s meant to pass for a preamble of some kind.

I’ve been reading Twilight lately.

Maybe you’ve heard of it? Series of vampire-and-werewolf romance novels by Stephenie Meyer, set (or at least begun) in high school? This couldn’t possibly be a bad idea. Not at all.

You may well ask why I’m doing this to myself. It’s all part of a Faustian deal I made with my sister, a deal brokered by my girlfriend. I wanted my sister to try reading The Hobbit a year or so ago, when she was twelve. This was about the age I was when it was first recommended to me. I’m twenty-seven now, and she’s thirteen. I loaned The Hobbit to her, and she returned it after about a month, saying it was too long. Then she turns around and reads all the Twilight books. Considering that the first of those is 498 pages long, this seemed a little ridiculous to me. You can argue that The Hobbit is a more difficult book, I guess, and I was (and am) a lot more inclined to read than my sister is, but still. So the agreement suggested by my girlfriend is that I read Twilight and my sister reads The Hobbit.

Now, I’m about 120 pages in, and these are some of my thoughts so far:

Isabella Swan is the main character. She prefers to be called Bella.

I loathe Bella.

She starts off bitching about having to go live in Forks, Washington, which is apparently the ass-end of nowhere. Of course, we’re supposed to understand that, since Bella grew up in warm and sun-drenched Arizona, this exile to Washington is completely unjust. There’s also the minor fact that she doesn’t have very many happy memories of Forks, but that tends to get buried under complaints about the weather (not enough sun, too much rain, too cold), the people (how could anybody possibly want to live here? How can anybody manage to be happy here?) and the overall inconvenience of the place. Apparently, the library is so poorly stocked that the only solution is to go to Seattle, never mind that both Olympia and Tacoma—decent-sized cities—are mentioned as being on the way. No, no, only Seattle will do.

Then there’s the issue of Bella’s complete and total lack of anything vaguely resembling physical coordination.

Bella is unrealistically clumsy. She is seriously concerned about falling over herself wherever she goes, and her frequent and innumerable spills apparently result in injury for herself and others. Now, a good writer (Robin McKinley, maybe) would play this for the occasional laugh, understanding that even a perfectly serious story has room for a reasonable amount of comedy. But no, Stephenie Meyer plays it completely straight. She evidently thinks this makes Bella more endearing to us in some fashion, probably by making her seem more vulnerable. Personally, I’ve never found poor motor skills to be a turn-on, but I’m strange that way. I also hesitate to make such direct connections between vulnerability and desirability, but I don’t want this to devolve into an argument on feminist theory. This is the Internet. I’m sure somebody has already done that by now.

Anyway, Ms. Meyer seriously expects us to believe in a girl who cannot manage anything faster than a brisk walk without tripping and falling at least a couple of times on her way from Point A to Point B. This is part of why she feels she shouldn’t have to participate in P.E. The other part of it is that, back in Arizona (here we go again), two years of P.E. were the only requirement, yet four years of it are required here. Clearly, this is a hideous injustice.

I am very strongly reminded of Sarah, from Labyrinth. “But that’s not faaaiir.” At least that movie had Muppets and a David Bowie soundtrack going for it.

And then there’s Edward Cullen. He starts off being a creep in order to distance himself from Bella, a measure apparently calculated to keep her safe in some way. Then he decides, nah, fuck it. It’s too hard to exercise restraint, so he’s just going to give in and do whatever the hell he wants. It wouldn’t be a bad thing, I guess, except he seems thoroughly convinced that he will be a danger to her. He’s just stopped caring. So, as of about a quarter of the way into the book, he’s a cryptic, self-indulgent bastard masquerading as an aloof and still-cryptic jerk-ass.

And girls like this?

Oh, wait, how could I forget? He’s beautiful. Never mind, then. All is forgiven.

By way of justifying all of the above, my sister tells me that this is a book meant for teenage girls. I suppose that works, so long as you view “writing for the teenage demographic” as a perfectly acceptable excuse for featuring complete assholes with faulty reasoning (who are meant to be likeable and sympathetic) in both of the most important roles. Personally, I’m of the opinion that just because you’re writing books for children or teenagers, you don’t have any less an obligation to tell your story well. But that’s just me. I’m old-fashioned like that.

Will I finish Twilight? Sure. I want my sister to read The Hobbit, but that’s the only reason. The rest of Stephenie Meyer’s “work” can go take a long walk off a short dock for all of me.