BLOGGING TWILIGHT, part 1: Seriously, I am going to read Twilight

I’m a person who is interested in culture. High culture, low culture, the distinction is really unimportant. I’m also very much a dilettante, and I know that in part because I had to look up how to spell dilettante. I skirt over the surface of most current events, because I don’t have the time to sit down and read a newspaper. Most people don’t, which is why we will all secretly be relieved when print journalism dies. We’ll be off the hook!

But I’m of the opinion that sometimes a man just has to sit down and do something. Something big. Therefore I am going to read the Twilight Saga, all four books, from beginning to end. I am going to find out what all the fuss is about, and I am going to share my thoughts with you, the reader. Feel free to read along with me, like all those people who read Infinite Jest this summer. I don’t envy those people, because endnotes? In a thousand-plus page book? Footnotes would have been easier, right? I love footnotes. Some of my favorite books have footnotes. I wish Heart of Darkness had footnotes, because then probably all of them would. I plan on reading Infinite Jest soon as well (although I have planned on that for a while) and I have spent more time that I’d prefer to admit thinking about how I’m going to deal with those endnotes. I’m thinking a multiple-bookmark scenario, but I might change my mind.

So anyway, TWILIGHT. Let’s do this thing.

Epigraph

So first of all, Twilight has an epigraph. I’m a little impressed. Of the series, only the seventh Harry Potter book has an epigraph, and let me tell you, when I saw it I was monumentally pumped for what I was about to read.

I bought Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows the Sunday after it came out, because I had actually only started the series earlier that summer. I read them all while I was living in Philadelphia in a month or so, during which I was very much underemployed. I moved to Boston a week or so prior to the book’s release, and went with a group of friends to the release-night celebration in Harvard Square. There were hundreds of people there, including Potter-themed bands playing in Harvard Yard and some kind of caroling Quaker sect by the train station presumably on hand to persuade us from our pagan ways. It was of no use. People were already lined up at every bookstore we passed, casting spells and being otherwise blasphemous. Those lines were part of the reason I waited a few days. Both the length of said lines and the people contained therein were a little off-putting. I mean, I loved the books and all, but my affection for JK Rowling doesn’t extend to Harry and the Potters.

But mostly I just didn’t feel the need to read the book right away, rushing through it in a night or so. I wanted to take it slow and try to enjoy the reading experience. It might have been easier for me; I was new to whole scene. I didn’t have to wait years between installments. It must be hell to do that, actually.

Twilight feels like a recent phenomenon, but presumably at least some people have been interested in the series since this book was published in 2005. Breaking Dawn was only four years later, but there must have been some anticipation in the run-up, right? Did people line up at bookstores on the night before? I never heard about parties in the streets or anything. I have enough of a grip on the zeitgeist to know that when Breaking Dawn was published, fans were underwhelmed. I suppose we’ll see how I feel eventually (if I can get past the epigraph of the first book).

I don’t know if people felt that way about Harry Potter VII, because absence of urgency aside, I nonetheless went on media blackout for the week I was reading.

There was some talk when Michael Jackson died about the death of the monoculture; as our media markets fracture and splinter off into ever smaller pieces, people just aren’t experiencing media en masse anymore. Cass Sunstein was one of the first scholars to warn about the filtering effect of the internet—with so many options for what we can read and watch we eventually start closing ourselves off from information we disagree with until our media experience is self-congratulatory feedback loop. This is how birthers happen.

So the notion goes that Michael Jackson’s death was one of the last things we would all experience together. This might be upsetting for people, but there’s a silver lining. I had to ignore virtually all passing conversation for the week I was reading Harry Potter. I heard more details about The Dark Knight than I would have liked to hear by the time I finally got the money together to do see it. If we all close ourselves off and only experience what we want to experience, at least we won’t have to deal with spoilers. I guess that’s too high a price for some people, but I rarely have unadulterated experiences with narrative forms of media.

That’s true for Twilight, too. I’ve seen the first film, and I’ve read enough review-wise about the New Moon film adaptation that I have an idea of where it is going. I even feel like I may know what happens in the fourth book, but it was long enough ago that I can’t be sure. The blank spot is Eclipse, but obviously we’ll be getting to that.

I’m still stuck on the epigraph, 800 words into this post. It quotes the Bible. Genesis 2:17, in fact. It’s a pretty fucking bland sentiment. Eat of the tree of knowledge, and die. Is this supposed to be ominous? I never understood original sin. What riles me up is the idea that God would say “Hey there’s this knowledge over here, but I don’t want you to have it." (It's not like Adam fucked a goat or something - what's the big deal?) Why do you have to be stupid to love God?

The epigraph feels tossed away. Part of the reason the Harry Potter 7 epigraph was gratifying is because it was the only one, at the conclusion of the series. The books were sneered at in some circles as children’s books, which was one of those things that was ostensibly true but not really true. 5 year-old kids lugging around copies of The Order of the Phoenix were maybe identifying the words on the page, but they’re not seeing the Orwellian parallels. So that epigraph was a signal to the older generations of Potter fans—this book is for you. Shit is getting real.

So what does the Twilight epigraph signify? Those of us who have eaten at the tree of knowledge aren’t welcome? Only the stupid need apply?

Next Time: I deal with the Preface and Chapter 1 of Twilight.