I'm over a decade behind but I finally made it!

I have just now (well, in the last three days) finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

It wasn't for lack of trying. My friend, a huge HP fan, gifted me a hardcover copy of the book when I graduated from college. Now, I admit that I still would have been about a decade behind the original publishing date of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but still it sat.

And after reading it, of course, I'm sad that it sat unread or rather barely read for two and a half years. I had started it a couple of times, but my brain got sidetracked by a book that seemed more adult, mature...like something I really should have been reading as opposed to the children's book I was reading. But what I found when I read it is that it's really a novel for any age and that being a little bit older only meant I could get through it a little bit faster than any of my 8-year-old counterparts.

I had so much fun reading this book, maybe because it is a children's book, but it was so darn enjoyable that I'm pretty excited about getting the second book...and then the third...and the fourth, etc. I realized while reading it that my novels don't have to be as intense or grown-up as I thought they needed to be and I can still get all the elements that I wanted: good characterization, well-defined plot points, suspense, well-written relationships/friendships between characters.

Besides, being an adult is so overrated.

And in this vein, I wanted to start a Harry Potter Christmas List, but then I realized that after reading Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (which is what I'm currently reading) that I would want to add more than just Harry Potter related things so here's the modified version:

Fantasy-based Children's Literature Christmas List
Invisibility Cloak - enough said.
Owl and and Owlery to put said owl in - this also means Mogge and friends that you should expect your e-mail via owls now.
Quills - This is what you send your messages on with the owls, right?
Portrait - Of course this means that I would like a portrait where the person in it moves around. Next Christmas I'll ask for another one so that (s)he may have a friend to go visit.

The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes

I have been doing nanowrimo for the past two years. I can now say that I have written a novel twice over. As any nano'er can tell you, there is something amazing about giving yourself the freedom to write for quantity of words rather than quality. November is a magic time but once it is over, reality sets in. To complete a novel, you must actually make sure it is worthwhile for others to read.

I am afraid of becoming a trunk writer. Okay, I can assure myself that I will be a hard drive writer being as I lack the literal trunk. The fear still lives. For the past year, I have been sitting on a draft of a novel. My mom, dad and best friend have all read it and given varied levels of feedback. I have enrolled in two separate classes to help me polish the manuscript. I still haven't sent a single query letter. To say that Ralph Keyes' The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear struck a chord with me would be a understatement.

In the book, Keyes outlines the fear and anxiety shared by writers at all levels through comforting and reassuring anecdotes from some of the greatest writers in history. Every writer has to deal with fear and every page published is done in spite of that insecurity.

I recommend it to any writer. Somehow reading about the insecurities and failures of fellow writers simultaneously validates and negates the deepest fears of a writer.

Sense & Sensibility

Before I can begin a review of Sense & Sensibility, I feel as though I must mention a few things:

-I AM one of those girls who likes Jane Austen. I’ve embraced it and at this point you’re going to be forced to embrace it as well.
- While a fan, I have only read (and re-read in both cases) two of her novels, Pride & Prejudice being my first in high school and then later Persuasion. And I really love both of these books.
- I really like Emma Thompson.

So as I set out to read S&S, there was a high set of expectations, albeit Austen was competing against her own work, but nonetheless the expectations were high. I also read it knowing at the end of it I could reward myself with a viewing of the 1995 film adaptation starring Emma Thompson, whose work I generally admire, as our main character Elinor Dashwood.

The two other Austen novels that I’ve read have started off slow, solid, but slow. It took me about 60 pages, give or take, before I was really interested or invested. S&S was different. Perhaps this comes with age or being more familiar with Austen’s format, but I genuinely felt the book was just slightly more engaging from the get go. My theory is that the conniving, manipulative Fanny Dashwood and her too-easily-influenced husband have a lot to do with why it’s more interesting, but I could be wrong.

It might also have something to do with the relatable main character, Elinor. While I’ve always longed to be as spirited as Elizabeth Bennet or self-preserved as Anne Elliot, I’ve never been as much like them as I wanted to be. Having said that I’m not Elinor either, but her practicality and awareness of the brazenness of her sister’s behavior have me doing a double take at times.

So this makes me a fan of Elinor from the start. I like Marianne, too, but she’s a bit too blinded by her passion and inconsiderate of other’s to really win me.

There are lots of other players in this, which is par for the course. There seem to be more peripheral characters than there are in the other two Austen novels I’ve read, but the suitors are the most important. Here’s a quick break down:

- Mr. Edward Ferrars – a quiet, shy, very reserved suitor for Elinor. He’s a little bit like Elinor in his reservation, but he’s not as sure or confident of himself as Elinor is. He relies on his family to decide what career he will take and this makes him less appealing for me. It makes him seem weak. Now, I have to step back here and remember that this is how rich British people used to do it (maybe this is still how it is…I wouldn’t know because I don’t know any rich and/or British people). I always want to find him stronger than he really is in each scene, but it doesn’t happen until the end of the novel. However, when he finally does make a stand it isn’t for Elinor…it’s to prove his love of another woman (who, by the way, he used to love, but doesn’t anymore). So at this point he just seems silly, fickle, and still a little weak because he can’t bear to say “no” to the woman he no longer loves.

- Colonel Brandon – older, endearing suitor of Marianne. He truly seems to adore her. In the process of the novel he becomes good friends with Elinor as well which endears him to the reader even more, I think. He has a curious past, but one that actually makes him more attractive to Marianne. This little bit I won’t give away, but it’s good.

- Mr. John Willoughby – young, careless suitor of Marianne, and yep if you haven’t guessed it he’s our slightly less evil Wickham of the story. He’s sweet, well-intentioned at the time he falls in love with Marianne, but he has a truly shady past with one giant bad decision that puts him at odds with Colonel Brandon. It also sets him up to decide whether he marries for money or for love…guess which he chooses?

All of the predictable elements of Austen’s novels are there, but they are elements that I appreciate. There is a trip to London and one of the sisters gets sick. The trip and the unexpected illness set our ladies up for heartbreak as well as admissions from all interested parties about their past, their love, and inevitably their future together.

What I didn’t expect was that Edward wouldn’t be a likeable love interest for Elinor (at least he fell short for me). I didn’t expect that his love would seem fleeting or fickle. Ultimately his indiscretion make his feelings towards Elinor seem less genuine and makes me feel as though his character is more akin to Lydia Bennet. This is a huge character flaw. Don’t worry, he really does love Elinor at the end of it, but it’s less believable than Elizabeth and Darcy or Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth.

This flaw led me to something more I hadn’t planned for. I began rooting for Colonel Brandon and Elinor to fall in love. Here me out. It’s not so far fetched, really. They become friends while Marianne is off being heartbroken. And yes, Brandon looks at Marianne dotingly, but I keep hoping that he only looks at her in such a way because he’s afraid of how her behavior affects Elinor. Besides, he’s older than Marianne and Elinor is the oldest. Also, he’s very sensible, much more like Elinor. But alas, this doesn’t pan out for me. Perhaps I’m the only one who wanted this, but in my head that’s how this book would end.

This leads me to my final conclusion: with a strong start Sense & Sensibility is a solid Austen novel, but overall not a favorite. The female characters, especially Elinor, were very relatable, but the male characters were not nearly as strong or likeable as the ones I’ve read before. Darcy and Wentworth have no fear of being replaced.

And as for the movie, it’s enjoyable. I like Emma Thompson, I really do, but the movie wasn’t what I would have visualized after reading the novel. Hugh Grant is more of a Willoughby than a Ferrars and Alan Rickman isn’t what I would have pictured the older Colonel Branden to be. Nevertheless, Sense & Sensibility is worth reading.

Twilight Questions: Is it gross?

Okay, now I'd like to pose a question:

When I first read Twilight, the main thing that made me want to toss it across the room had to do with Bella's urgent desire for Edward to turn her. Into a vampire. Who drinks blood and can't go out in public in the sunlight. Or live a normal life. It struck me as a perfect reflection of Bella's immaturity and short-sightedness that she would effectively fuck up the rest of her life without grappling with the consequences.

Am I just a bigot who needs to open up to vampire lifestyles or is it as gross as my instincts told me?

Addendum: the begging to be turned thing also seemed like a thinly veiled and effed up virginity metaphor, was I reading too much between the lines?

Twilight: Mogge's Take

Yes, yes, yes! I must say that I agree with just about everything Keser had to say. Then again, I am pretty sure that I am the girl with matching opinions that she was alluding to!

As for the Angel comparison, I think having watched seven seasons of Buffy was a strong factor in my distaste for Bella. The romance between Buffy and Angel works as a tragic story in a large part because Buffy is already set up to die. Slayers don't retire; they die in battle. She is an extraordinary girl dealing with immense challenges. Angel's love for her is not just because she smells good or is a klutz. On that note, klutziness is one of the traits of Bella's that should have been endearing for me. I am utterly uncoordinated; especially in stressful situations. Or in my living room, where I have broken my pinkie toe four times. (No, that is not hyperbole). Even Bella's klutziness didn't work for me and that is mainly Edward's fault. He spent way too much of the book smirking at Bella indulgently or stifling his laughter at her behavior. That is not sexy. That is annoying. It is already kind of icky that this crusty old vamp is lusting after a sixteen year old, to have him act like she is a little girl rather than a grown woman is just disgusting. That brings up the main difference with the Angel and Buffy pairing. Angel respects her. He even admires her. She may not be his age or have the wide range of experiences that he has, but he never acts like her father. He wants to fight with her side by side.

Another human-vamp love that works in fiction is Sookie and Bill. In that case, Sookie's gift (and the danger surrounding her in her small town) pulls her toward Bill. Plus, Sookie is a grown up. I think the things about Bella that drive me insane are in some respects, the exact same things that annoy me about teens. She is self-centered and myopic. She focuses her life around some guy, who for the first hundred or so pages treats her like shit. She mopes around and usees the sweet little werewolf who just wants to be around her. I knew too many Bellas in middle school.

Twilight: Wake me up when Bella's done pouting...

When I borrowed Twilight from a friend, I did so because I wanted to know what all the hullabaloo was about. My friend from work who lent me the book didn’t always seem to be the most voracious reader, but yet here she was pouring through book after book and finishing the hefty series in about a week.

She gushed and gushed about it’s merits, but after hearing otherwise from a source whose opinion I likened more to my own, I wasn’t so sure about it.

And then one night at a bar, yeah…at a bar, I was surrounded by a group of women I truly like and respect. My friends found themselves in a thirty-minute discussion of the Twilight saga. I had nothing to add except the devil’s advocate opinion of the source I mentioned earlier. They went on to discuss Edward versus Jacob, how sexy they thought vampires were, the Cullen family in general, but no one could really repudiate the one opinion that I regurgitated from a friend: Bella is boring and lifeless.

So I decided that I would borrow the book from my work friend if not simply to give me something to do after I completed National Novel Writing Month. I convinced myself that after such a grueling month and after producing 50,000 words of my own drivel that I deserved a book I could read like a teenager and perhaps intensely criticize the writing (as I am now a veteran of NaNoWriMo with a novice amount of knowledge on the act of writing a novel). This surely gives me enough cred, right?

And so I read. And I read it quickly. I consumed it faster than books that I liked much more. It is important to note that I don’t read quickly. I’ve never been very good at skimming because I’m always afraid I’ll miss that one detail that will be important later. It’s the same reason I can’t crochet, craft or be in the same room with a loud breather during shows like Lost or Battlestar Galactica.

Being on the tail end of this phenomenon I tried to read Twilight with an open yet critical mind. I wanted to make up my mind for myself. And so I tried to ignore the positive and the negative I had heard. I think I did this with a moderate amount of success and here’s what I garnered:

If there is ever a book to skim, it’s this one. Trust me, you won’t miss a detail. In fact, I read every single word and what you will miss by reading every single word is well-crafted writing from the other novels that you’ve read. You’ll miss and want to reach for a thesaurus every time you read the word “icy,” especially in relation to Edward’s fingers. You’ll miss a protagonist you can care about, because you won’t find one here.

This is the biggest downfall to Twilight. Bella is boring. And while I like the alliteration, I think it is actually the most accurate way to describe her. She’s clumsy, quiet, socially inept, but she’s not so much one of these things that you feel bad for her. The author, Stephenie Meyer, writes her to be attractive, although I’m not led to believe she’s beautiful. She’s smart, but according to Bella her success in school as more to do with the fact that her last school was ahead of her new school in Forks, Washington. She’s awkward, but not so awkward that you feel embarrassed or sorry for her like you might for someone like Michael Scott on The Office.
And even though she likes to think that she doesn’t fit in, people, nay teenagers, actually want to be her friend. Normal teenagers (if those exist). The only really interesting thing about her is that the most interesting person in the book can’t hear her thoughts.

It’s not to say that Meyer wasn’t on the right track…I think she was. But she missed the target. Bella could have been a relatable or more likeable social reject that Edward falls in love with. She could have been a bookworm who wishes life or people were more like the ones she read about in books, but she doesn’t. She’s just insecure and oblivious that she does in fact fit in. And this is not even a bad trait. A good character always has his or her flaws and being insecure is not an uninteresting one. Meyer’s could have used this insecurity to make her angrier, bitter, or sassier towards her classmates (although they way her classmates are written they are really way too nice for her to be mean to them). But she doesn’t. Instead Bella exists under a pretense of social awkwardness because she thinks people don't like her, even though they do.

Meyer gets close to making Bella more remarkable in making her self-sacrificing by leaving her mom to live her life with her new husband. I mean…WOW! What a nice thing to do for your mom! If only she acted as though she actually chose that destiny when she got to Forks. Instead she acts like the martyr she is and refuses to make the best of it. Who likes a martyr who says, “Can someone at least say ‘thank you’ for God’s sake?!” The answer is no one. Because it’s annoying. Then again, Jesus kind of does it too with the whole “I died for your sins so now you need to live life they way I tell you to.” Come to think of it, he’s kind of a big deal, so perhaps that’s the same reason Twilight has developed into a phenomenon.

Bella goes on to like Forks, but only because she’s in love with a boy there. As a feminist, I have to say this was the most appealing character trait of all…or do I mean disgusting? Even after she decides she doesn’t hate Forks she mostly just stomps about the pages pouting or sulking about something Edward has said. And while she is but sixteen or seventeen in the book, so the stomping is somewhat expected, it just proved that she’s not an unusual or different person and therefore not a very noteworthy character. Of all the ways that Meyer could have gone with Bella, I think the role of petulant child makes her neither interesting nor likeable.

Don’t get me wrong. Bella is tolerable…when she’s in a scene with Edward. Even her brief time batting her eyes at Jacob to manipulate him is more interesting than her miming her way through the rest of the book.

What makes Twilight such a page -turner is the story between Edward and Bella. But their intense connection is mostly compelling because of the pains and sacrifices that Edward makes. I wanted more of the clenched jaw and hand in fists during Biology than I did of Edward saving Bella from creepy people in an alley. The scenes from Biology were great because they showed the complexity and restraint of his character. The smell of her shampoo and his guarded body language that sent her into a tailspin of anger and uneasiness was so enjoyable. And this is a book that you read not for it’s literary contributions but for how enjoyable it is.

So Bella is boring and Edward is the only exciting thing that has ever happened to her. As you can probably tell from above Edward is a character I can get behind. He has self-control that is literally inhuman. He’s practically perfect in every way, as Mary Poppins would say. He's a bad boy because he's dark, mysterious, brooding, and, oh yeah, a vampire. But he's good because he's not the kind of vampire that will kill you (unless you mess with his blah girlfriend). He also saves lives, does the right thing at every turn, and shows ridiculous amounts of physical restraint when his petulant child of a girlfriend can’t control herself. And have I mentioned that he sparkles in the sun?!

Having said this, I must mention a striking similarity between Edward and another famous vampire I am becoming more familiar with. I have recently started watching the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on recommendation of that friend I told you about whose opinion is very much like mine. And from the moment that Angel steps out of the shadows, it’s hard to know if you’re looking at David Boreanaz or Robert Pattinson. Although I suppose the similarity isn't quite that striking when you consider most vampires are written to be pale an beautiful. I don’t really mind either way.

If you can get past the boring protagonist and the repetitive writing then Twilight is a great read. Just remember that if you get sick of Edward being described as a Greek god or you get ill just thinking about how many times Meyer’s talks about his icy fingers, don’t say I didn’t warn you. In spite of it’s negatives, Twilight is a very compelling read. It is such a compelling read that it leaves me grappling with the ultimate question: Can I really stomach Bella for three more books?