Twilight, Wuthering Heights & Celebration Love

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger"

- Emily Brontë

 
Recommended tea: Love & Tea Company's Celebration Love

Recently, I was visiting the old bookstore where I used to work. 

Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you know that the newest movie in the Twilight saga New Moon just came out. Seriously,  you would HAVE to be living under a rock because everyone on the planet who owns some kind of business is using the success of Twilight and the release of New Moon to sell sh*t. And it is exactly that - sh*t! 

New Moon 3-D puzzle balls:

Sneakers (care of regretsy):

BAND-AIDS!

The dress that Bella wears in the new movie (which is actually really cute...did I say that?):

 

So, obviously, no one can resist jumping on the Twi-wagon (twagon?) to make a buck... not even (gasp) Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Emily Bronte?!

I walked into the bookstore, expecting to see hundreds of mass-market copies of New Moon, tables dedicated to it, vampire merchandise galore (which I did) ...but THIS? The classics re-released, endorsed by Bella and Edward?

And then I thought "Holy crap... is it true? Are people REALLY not reading these books anymore?"

In this day and age, does Shakespeare need Stephenie to sell?

So, after I stopped twitching and regained consciousness, I thought "Hey, Stephenie... Suck it! I just bought an awesome new version of Wuthering Heights with cover art by Ruben Toledo (see the picture at the top of this post... GORGEOUS!) and I'm gonna read THAT and NOT New Moon (more like New Schmoon) and you're not getting any of my money and I'm gonna show you HA!"

So I started reading Wuthering Heights, what I have been told is Bella and Edward's very FAVORITE book of all tiem for reelz guyz, for the first time in a long, long time. 

Guess what I realized? Cathy and Heathcliff... um... not much healthier than Bella and Edward.

Edward is a vampire. Heathcliff digs up Cathy's corpse (years after she has died) and cuddles it.

Bella hangs out with Jacob for awhile (I assume?). Cathy MARRIES someone else.

Bella tries to kill herself so that she can see Edward. Cathy...um... actually kills herself. Albeit in a roundabout way, but she does. AND, she kills herself just to piss Heathcliff off.

And then Heathcliff prays that she will not go to heaven, but stay on earth as a ghost, haunt him, and drive him mad so that they won't be separated (you would think that if they loved each other THAT much they would've found a way to be together... yes? But I digress).

So yeah, Bella and Edward are in an abusive relationship (yes, this has been confirmed). But if Bella and Edward are in an abusive relationship... Cathy and Heathcliff? They're on a whole other level of abusive that hasn't even been named yet. Like, worse that Jerry Springer abusive if you really think about it.

So what's the deal here? I was thoroughly, honestly confused with myself. Why, you ask?

Because I friggin LOVE Wuthering Heights. I eat it up. I think Heathcliff (that JERK Heathcliff) is super duper dreamy. 

And at the same time I loathe a book like Twilight because I'm afraid it will send young girls the wrong message about relationships.

So what sets the two apart? What makes one a classic and one brain candy? What makes one thrilling and the other sickening?

I could think of only two explanations:

• Emily Bronte is a darn good writer. Stephenie Meyer is not.
  

Emily: "My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."

Stephenie: "Fall down again, Bella?'
'No, Emmett, I punched a werewolf in the face.'" 

(need I say more?)

• Heathcliff and Catherine are equals in their relationship. 

Yes, Heathcliff, like Edward, yells at the girl he loves and tells her what to do. But you know what? Catherine yells right back! She doesn't say, "Okay, now will you please chew my food for me because I lack the ability to do anything myself? Oh! And did you remember that I'm clumsy?"  

Other than abusive relationships, there is one other thing that they have in common. These books - Twilight, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet - reinforce the idea that there is such a thing as enduring, everlasting, life-shattering love. Love that makes everything else unimportant.  We all want to believe that there is something bigger out there - that there is that one person who will make all of the trivial things... trivial. In Wuthering Heights, the power of their love destroys them and (almost) everyone around them. In Twilight, I think it destroys Bella and her ability to be a free-thinking, powerful woman.


So yes... to me, even though there are similarities, Twilight still equals suck and Wuthering Heights still equals awesome. But the way my heart leapt watching Cathy and Heathcliff made me understand why, to some people, Twilight equals awesome.

But, on a completely different note, these new "Twi-classic!" covers brought something else to my attention. 

If Stephenie Meyer hadn't told these girls to read these classics, would they ever have done it?

How many of us Twi-haters have so often said, "GRR, Stephenie! We hate you! Why are you making our poor children read crap when they should read literature?" 

But I think the reality (albeit, the sad reality) is that these children would be reading crap regardless of whether or not Twilight had even been published. And that crap would probably not make them want to read Wuthering Heights or Pride & Prejudice. This crap does. They could be using their gazillions to endorse thousands of things, but to endorse some of the best books of all time? Books that these pre-teens would otherwise have no desire to read? That's pretty awesome.

Stephenie, I still hate your books, but you've definitely earned some points with me. 

Now go roll around in your pile(s) of money. 

Hey! Look at this! 

• Nightlight: A Parody 
• Kristen Stewart bites her lower lip a lot
  

Reading Rainbow & Cherry Apple

"When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, 'Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.'"
- Virginia Woolf


Recommended tea The Republic of Tea's Cherry Apple

My mom has been a teacher for over 30 years. She loves helping children discover that reading is wonderful, and that it is something that they can do well. 

Some mornings, my mom would arrive at her school a little early. There would be parents there, with their little children, before the school had even been unlocked. 

"Why?" I asked her.

"Because the kids haven't eaten anything all weekend. They get all of their food at school because their parents can't afford to buy it for them."

Forget about buying picture books at $17.99 a pop - some of these parents can't even afford to buy their children food. When our nation is made up of five year olds who have to focus on keeping their stomachs from growling, and parents who have to focus on feeding their kids, how can we expect them to focus on learning? Or even excelling? 

Imagine, then, my lack of surprise when I learned that Reading Rainbow had been cancelled. Lack of funds is stated as the reason for the cancellation, but the Wall Street Journal adds, "Pointing to changes in educational programming funding... the Department of Education and PBS are spending more money on teaching kids how to read, not on teaching them to savor the act itself."

Our children aren't learning how to savor the act of reading. They're not making it that far. Now, apparently, we're happy if we can just get them reading at all. 

Coincidentally, the Wall Street Journal had another article on their website called "Good Novels Don't Have to Be Hard Work." The article talks about how modern readers are putting down James Joyce and (blasphemy!) Virginia Woolf in favor of Stephenie Meyer. 

Lev Grossman writes, "You'll find critics who say they have bad taste, or that they're lazy and can't hack it in the big leagues. But that's not the case. They need something they're not getting elsewhere. Let's be honest: Why do so many adults read Suzanne Collins's young-adult novel 'The Hunger Games' instead of contemporary literary fiction? Because 'The Hunger Games' doesn't bore them."

But is that really why? Are we putting away Woolf and Joyce because we're bored, or is it because our culture is slowly but surely being trained to turn our brains off? To do what we think is easy instead of trying to do what might be a little more difficult? To focus on just learning how to read instead of learning how to savor it? 


My BFF (BFF here is a technical and absolutely appropriate term) Lindsey pointed out that this might seem like I'm implying that young adult literature is not valuable. Lindsey is usually right about most things, so I definitely take her opinions to heart. 


I can't stress this enough:  The Hunger Games is brilliant, and young adult literature is incredibly valuable! 


If you haven't read The Hunger Games, I encourage you to do so (then read the sequel Catching Fire!). It is thematically challenging and thought-provoking. I do not have a problem with The Hunger Games or with young adult literature. 


What I DO have a problem with, however, is the generalization that contemporary literary fiction (in the article he sites Woolf and Joyce specifically) is a "boring," and therefore not valuable, genre. In fact, I have a problem with anyone saying that any literary genre should be completely ignored in favor of another genre.


I adore young adult literature. Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite authors of all time (read The Truth About Forever and Someone Like You right now), right up there next to Ms. Woolf, and Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. But that's exactly my point - that Sarah Dessen and Virginia Woolf and Laurie Halse Anderson belong NEXT to each other on the shelf rather than having one on the shelf and one in the wastebasket. 


Teachers should say to their students, "I'm glad that you enjoyed Twilight. You should try Pride and Prejudice" or "You should try Wuthering Heights." 


Teachers should NOT say to their students, "Wuthering Heights is boring. Never read it. Here's Twilight."

There is something intoxicating - miraculous, even - about discovering not only that you can do something difficult, but you can do it well. It is vital in our development as intelligent, well-rounded human beings. Similarly, there's something divine about picking up a complex piece of literature and ANALYZING it. Go ahead and hate it, or go ahead and love it - but the important thing is to read it in the first place! And after you read that classic, read a biography. Then read a young adult book. Then read a science fiction novel. Then read a book of poetry. 


Just don't buy into the idea that your brain is too small to handle or appreciate any collection of words. OR the idea that every book doesn't have something valuable to teach you. Sometimes, that takes digging - but the dig is worth it.


As a child, there is nothing better than that moment when the words on the page turn from gibberish into WORDS! When "C" and "A" and "T" become "cat!" 


When faced with the task of reading for the first time, it seems daunting. It doesn't make sense (much like, some would argue, Joyce). But you keep picking away at it, syllable by syllable, and after all of the trying, nothing is more rewarding than the moment you realize that you can actually do it (much like, some would argue, JOYCE)! 


I remember running into my living room, waving my picture book over my head like a flag, yelling "I CAN READ! I CAN READ!" It was like finding Narnia at the back of the wardrobe. I felt the same way after I read The Iliad for the first time. 


A whole world that I had never seen before was now opening itself up before my very eyes. The world where I would meet my best friends - Anne (with an "e") Shirley, Jo March, Harriet the Spy, The BFG... and later Hector, Lizzy Bennet, Atticus Finch, and Orlando. Can you imagine being deprived of that world?


Similarly, as an adult, there is nothing better than wrapping your whole brain around a difficult  or different book and discovering that you can relate to it or that it stirs something in you. It's like trying sushi for the first time - it seems crazy at first, but once you get your first taste you wonder how you lived without it. 

We're accepting value meals instead of home cooked meals, e-mails instead of letters, and Cliff's Notes instead of the full text. Now, we're even accepting the idea that books that hurt our heads are not worth picking up.

When did we forget what life was about? When did we forget how to savor, and start doing just enough to squeak by? When did we lose faith in our brains and our ability to make the unknown knowable?

Reading equals freedom. Reading equals empowerment. Reading lots of different things equals tolerance. Loving reading equals loving life.

What will the world be like when no one loves reading?

Twilight & Om

"Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man, at twice its natural size."

— Virginia Woolf

Recommended Tea: Tazo's Om Tea

(because if you're like me, you'll need something to calm you down after you're done with Twilight)

I work in the kids department at a bookstore. "Kids" doesn't just mean Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss - it also includes the "Young Adult" section - Tamora Pierce, Sarah Dessen, and (shortly after I started working here) Stephenie Meyer. I began my job at the bookstore a few months before Twilight hit the big screen. My first week there, I shelved two carts of Twilight books. That's two FULL carts of just Twilight.

My first thought was, "Geez, this Stephenie lady is rolling in the dough."

My second thought was, "What the crap is this series and what makes it so popular? And why can every book in this series also function as a door stop?"

Seriously, we had so many of these things, and they were so brick-like that I literally constructed a house out of them when we ran out of shelf space. "Just build something with them," my boss said.

"OH," said one of my co-workers. "Twilight is the most popular book right now. Think about when Harry Potter was at its most popular. That's Twilight now."

"Is it good?" I asked co-worker.

"It is the worst thing that I have ever read in my life," she replied.

Week after week, I watched eight and nine year old girls (and 50 and 60 year old moms) run into our department.

"DO YOU HAVE TWILIGHT?" they would scream.

I would start to lead them towards the shelf, when said co-worker would gain on us.

"NO! Nononononono, you don't want to read that. Believe me. You don't. Here, read this!" she would say, picking up a copy of Graceling or A Great and Terrible Beauty. "It's so empowering!" Sometimes she was even so desperate to keep these little girls from reading Twilight that she would work on the moms.

"It's inappropriate. Believe me."

Then the moms would nod appreciatively, dragging their girls away from the pictures of Robert Pattinson with copies of Graceling in their shopping baskets.

I would sit in the break-room and complain about it. "I mean, if the customer wants to buy the book, why talk them out of it? If they want it, what's the big deal? Stop being such a book snob! It's just good fun! You shouldn't expect these kids to be reading Jane Eyre. At least they're reading!"

Kids AND their mothers would GUSH to me about Twilight at the registers. After telling them that, no, in fact, I had NOT read it, their reply was always "WHAT!?!?! You have to!!! It's the best thing that you will ever read. I read the whole series in thirty minutes and then re-read them all in twenty. It's so much better than Harry Potter. It's the best thing that I have ever read."

Now that I'm not constructing Sphinxes and Taj Mahals out of copies of Twilight (in fact, we only order about four or five copies of each book in the series now), I decided to bite the bullet (or the neck), sit down, and read the damn thing. After all, it's kind of like a job requirement, right? How can I be a good employee if I am not knowledgeable about one of the most popular books we sell?

So, I checked it out at the library, cracked the brick open, and started reading.

About 100 pages into it, I was hooked. "Wow!" I thought, "This book is really enticing! I can't put this thing down." I went to work and gushed about it. "I'm sucked in! Why was co-worker so anti-Twilight? It's good fun!"

And then, Edward and Bella started dating.

All of my thoughts of, "it's just a fun book!" and, "at least kids are reading," flew out of the window. My copy of the book ALSO would have flown out the window, but I resisted destroying it because it was library property.

Here - one of the bestselling books of, well, NOW - is one of the most disgusting, sexist, chauvinistic things that I have ever read.

I hesitated to write ANYTHING about Twilight, because (a) I know that a billion things have already been written about how bad it is (b) some of my friends loved it and I don't want to question their intelligence (and I don't) and (c) I'm so angry about it that I don't want to waste anymore of my time doing anything that has anything to do with it. But never in my life have I had such a violently negative reaction to a book, and to me that justifies at the very least a blog entry.

This is not fluff, this is not fun, this is damaging, dangerous literature. Not that I'm pro-book-burning or pro-book-banning. I AM, however, pro-empowerment and pro-feminism.

The reasons that this book scares me are the following:

• It encourages dangerous, unhealthy relationships

The relationship between Bella and Edward literally goes from first date to, "I would rather die than live without you," in about five pages. She says on several occasions that life would not be worth living without him, which to me is a fairly risky sentiment to be placing in the minds of young girls who are prone to obsession.

• It encourages weakness

Edward is interested in Bella because she smells good and because he can't read her mind - not because of her intelligence, her convictions, her beliefs, or her abilities. He carries her - literally CARRIES her - everywhere that they go, as if she's incapable of even walking. In one scene, he seduces her into doing what he wants her to do. He yells at her, he tells her what to do, he treats her like she is five years old.

• It sends the message that it's okay to leave your life behind for a man

Bella's life BECOMES Edward. She ignores her friends, her family, and good advice because "they just don't understand!" Her every waking moment is now centered around him - not developing herself, forging her own independence (which is such an important thing at that age), or embracing her individuality.

Essentially, Twilight's message is "You're nobody until a guy likes you."

Not that having a man in your life ISN'T great, but a real man wants you to be strong, wants you to improve yourself, wants you to stand on your own two feet, know what you believe in, and stand up for it. A real man loves your mind. A real man loves your independence. A real man gives you strength, he doesn't take it away.

What has happened to our society that has changed our heroines from people like Jo March and Elizabeth Bennet to Bella Swan? Anne Shirley broke a slate over Gilbert Blythe's head for calling her "carrots!" What would she have done if Gilbert tried to carry her everywhere? Why are we glorifying a weak, unintelligent lemming?

Bella's narration is very real, very much like the way an actual teenage girl thinks, and I will give Stephenie Meyer that. I felt like I was inside the mind of a 15 year-old. She is insecure, obsessive, and willing to please. Yes, this is what most teenage girls are actually like. BUT, does that mean that she is worthy of being looked up to? I remember admiring strong women and longing to be like them, but what happens when girls start admiring and emulating weak girls? Should girls strive only to find a man who will protect them, carry them, and tell them what to do and what to cook instead of developing their own abilities?

"Well, at least young girls are reading." Why is this our reaction? Why do we think so little of the younger generation? Why do we praise them for merely being able to pick up a brick book and read until the last page? Where have our standards gone?

What Would Virginia Woolf Do?

"Hey, 8 year-old customer, I know that Robert Pattinson is dreamy and all, but have you ever heard of A Room Of One's Own or The Second Sex?"

"I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh."

- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

Hey! Check these out!

• Bite Me! (Or Don't) - Bitch Magazine
  
• The Secrets of the Sparkle
  

Also, watch this! Patti Smith and Virginia Woolf. Strong women of the world, unite!