Twilight: preliminary thoughts

So, I’m reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyers, to try and figure out what makes this book work.  It’s been a really interesting experience so far, but I’m starting to understand why Brandon Sanderson called it “a book for 14 year old girls, or anyone who’s ever been a 14 year old girl.” It hearkens back to a conversation I had with a friend about monkeys and computers…

…namely, on the spectrum between monkeys and computers, guys’ rational thought processes tend to fall in the mid to high range, whereas girls are right down there with monkeys: irrational, emotionally-driven, and sometimes downright schizophrenic.

Here’s what bugs me:

First of all, Edward is kind of an annoying character.  Every time Bella looks at him he’s got some kind of a smile or a smirk or a sarcastic laugh on his face.  I don’t understand it.  Is this somehow supposed to make him attractive?  It just makes it harder for me to see him as a character.  What kind of a person always has some kind of a cynical smile on their face?  Meyers mentions it so much it’s almost like it’s been surgically implanted there.  The only way I can explain it is that this somehow makes his character more sexy.

Second, Bella is driving a car to school, has taken care of her Mom for all her life, practically lives on her own and likes it…and yet whenever she’s around this Edward guy, she acts like a 14 year old.  She’s not only irrational, she’s either on an absolute high or a terrible low.  I can grasp the fact that girls are more like this than guys, but still, she’s so extreme that I’m having a hard time swallowing it.

Then, there’s the whole thing about her attraction to Edward.  As a disclaimer, I should say that I don’t believe in falling in love–I believe in growing in love, but not falling in love–but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief, so long as the writer makes it seem like it’s possible.  And either way, I totally believe in falling into infatuation–that’s happened to me many times before, after all.

But the way she just falls for him…I don’t get it.  She’s angry with him one moment, then slavering like a dog the moment he looks at her.  And she doesn’t even consider the other guys (though honestly I don’t blame her–and I can see a little bit of myself in the annoying Mike character that follows her around)–it’s just this Edward guy.  Once the thought enters her subconscious, he’s the only one that matters.  And yet…why?  What does she see in him?  Someone who abuses her?  Does she want to be abused?

I guess none of these things in itself is all that problematic–it’s just that they’re all skewed out of proportion.  Edward smirks too much for me, Bella becomes infatuated too quickly, her emotions are too extreme, etc.  As a guy (and a cynical one at that), I’m having a hard time suspending my disbelief.

But other than that, I can say the first hundred pages has been an interesting experience.  This book is completely different than what I’m used to–where relationships drive the plot instead of characters, ideas, plot, or some kind of quest / war against the dark lord.  It’s definitely holding my interest, if not for the love (?) story, then for the feminine perspective on things, and the other elements of the story as well.

I don’t know if I’m going to get the next hundred pages any better than the first, but I’m going to find out soon.