Twilight

Twilight
Stephenie Meyer
Atom Books

434 pages
2006

Firstly, apologies for the delay. I've found it a bit hard to get into meaty, gritty epic fantasy these last few weeks, and I found myself stalking bookshops looking, hoping, for something that would take my fancy. Nothing did. I felt a little burnt-out on reading and wondered whether I should pick up some DVDs instead. And then I heard a plaintive chattering from behind me: a man, old, with an anorak and a beard, a cliché with a temper, had entered the dingy, musty and damp Fantasy section, and was engaged in what looked like a fascinating and spirited conversation about the state of modern fantasy (how it was infested with vampire hussies, etc.), except there was no one else there with him, and he smelled of urine...

Eureka! Vampires. I needed something light and fun and engaging, something that I could whiz through with ease, with vampires in it ... Twilight. And I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I would, even, go so far as to say, I'm a fan...

As far as the story goes, there isn't much that stands out at first glance. A teenage girl, Bella, moves to a new town and, despite her fears of not fitting in, is soon hot gossip there. Far from being the plain, ordinary, boring girl she thought they would think her, though, she is made to feel very welcome, and it's clear that she's a lot more attractive than she assumed. Well, of course. Only the strange Cullen family -- in particular, Edward Cullen -- are distant, cold, aloof, and perforce, this is a vampire novel after all, all also happen to be extremely, inhumanly attractive. Duh.

Edward varies between being distant and extremely close, warning her, as he picks her up in his arms and carries her to the nurses' office, for example, to stay away from him, as he is very dangerous. He's extremely fast, impossibly strong, with skin as pale as semi-frozen water moulded into the shape of snow-flakes, and he's totally, dazzlingly irresistible... And that's all good fun. Bella, our first-person narrator, isn't whiny and has a sharp, often sarcastic, sense of humour. She doesn't sit around moaning and sighing (much).

There were a few parts of the story that made me frown, however. Bella describes her search online for the characteristics of a vampire, as she tries to find out what Edward is (while she bethinks herself mad for doing so). Apparently, she finds no record, even in fiction, of a vampire that matches Edward's description: Handsome. Pale skin. Fast. Strong. Possibly reads minds. Speaks with strange turns of phrase that might be from the previous century... Come on! That is the description of a vampire. Still, that niggle is ignorable.

A lot of the first part of the novel is a build-up to the romance between Bella and Edward, and not that much action (i.e. guns and big explosions) occurs. Nonetheless, Stephenie Meyer writes very fluidly, in a style that draws you in: the writing was good, compelling and seductively dark. Later on in the novel, it builds to a large climax, as we realise that not every vampire is like Edward, some are like animals, animals that won't give up the hunt, and they are hunting Bella...

I got the film tie-in cover (the movie is out soon, but the dates for the UK, at least, keep changing), but I do think the original cover (above) is better. Thoroughly good fun.

For more information:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

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