OMG!!!

So, I’ve just started Stephanie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn, fourth book in her Twilight series. And while I’m not blindly adoring, I am really admiring on more than a few points of the series. Here are a few thoughts:

Positive Stuff:

1. Evocation of place – The description of setting and the moods created by it are concrete, palpable. Great set-building! By far the best thing in the series is the setting.
2. Observation of character and relationships – The teenagers act like teenagers. The relationships (bar some aspects of the main one) really are believable and complex. In addition, there is such a range of relationships depicted – different sorts of love, based on different sorts of people – that there’s quite interesting psychological explorations at times
3. The range and complexity of the moral, ethical and spiritual dilemmas worked through by the characters – and there are a lot – add meat to the bones of this series. Especially in Book 3, Eclipse.
4. Building of tension – Only at the start of books two and three did I get the feeling that the pace was lagging. But the really good stuff here is that there’s a great intensity to and engagement in the emotion whenever there’s action happening or threatening.
5. Surprisingly enough for a teenage vampire romance novel, oh wait… that’s a spoiler. Read the bits below the cut if you want to know more!

Negatives:

1. The obsessive, all-consuming, self-harming nature of the romance. For me, the story falls down in one area. It aggravates me for one of the same reasons Romeo and Juliet aggravates me. Not so that it inhibits the enjoyment of the novels. I can suspend disbelief easily. But so that I, with a bit more perspective than the teenage protagonists (not much, but some), can look at the romance and how it is written and roll my eyes and say, “Yeah, I get the point. Move on,” rather than the intended, “Wow! Edward is so perfect!” Whenever the suicidally obsessed and histrionic main characters launch into speeches about how glorious the other one is and how they can never, ever match up, “and have you seen how gorgeous Edward is?” I can see why the relationship is like this – they’re teenagers, of course it’s dramatic – and the teen readers want that stuff too. It’s undoubtably why it’s popular. But whether it’s one of it’s genres coming through (I don’t read enough of YA, vampire or romance novels to know) or whether it’s poor writing to keep harping on about it, I can’t figure out. I just get bored with the frequent descriptions of Edward’s sculpted marble chest. And whether it’s consistent with their humility or again, a tad overdone, Bella and Edward’s continual insecurities despite the level of commitment they’ve demonstrated to each other many times, seems a bit odd. But then again, maybe I’m showing my ignorance: never having been in love, perhaps I’ll leave it up to more experienced minds to decide that one. ADDED LATER: Bella matures and improves out of sight in Breaking Dawn. Yes!

So: I will add to this when I’ve finished the book, which has taken an unexpected turn. But I’m fairly sure how it’s going to end. Things aren’t looking good. But I do have marking to do before I finish it…

(more…)

Conversation regarding Season 4 of Doctor Who:

Fans: “It’s perfect! We especially love that you’re bringing Rose back and Donna is the best thing to happen to Doctor Who since The Doctor!”
Writers: “Why thank you. Ooo! Look! What’s that?”
Fans: “Cannon.”
Writers: “What about that? It sparkles!”
Fans: “The new bits we especially like.”
Writers: “Can we blow them up?”
Joss Whedon: “Why, yes!”
Writers: “Goody!”
Fans: “What the hell?”

Fans in Australia: “What the hell? And I can’t lobby or do ANYTHING to stop them because it’s already FINISHED?!”

The Smith household is occasionally a torturous place:

• Kim has seen the final episode. I have sworn her to secrecy but she has taken to chuckling evilly when we talk about possible plot developments. She says the ending is good, then laughs.
• Dad knows more than I do and he also knows all the rumours. He keeps passing them on before I can stop him.
• Kathleen (honorary Doctor Who family member) knows what happens. She is frustrated by the end.
• I don’t want to know but really, really want to find out via the ABC having a brain explosion and putting all remaining episodes on NOW so I don’t have to wait.

No, not really. Waiting is fun. It is fun. It is. It…

PS. I have a theory about Professor Moon.
It’s really good.
But it probably won’t outlast next episode…

PPS. Dad reckons if they don’t do an episode where Jenny comes back and someone says, “Jenny? Jenny who?” they’re all missing the bleedingly obvious. Hee hee! (Spoilers after the tag)

(more…)

I bought three books:

1. The Travel Book, by Lonely Planet, a big, glossy, coffee-table book with pictures and brief synopses of all the things to see/do/eat/say in every country of the world. Yay!
2. Once, by Morris Gleitzman, which is the story of a young boy escaping through Nazi Germany. Brilliantly written in the voice of the eleven year old, it is deeply moving, funny and harrowing. Everyone should read this YA book.
3. Then, by Morris Gleitzman. Sequel to Once. Just brilliant, again.

And then Kim and I squealed and shrieked through* four boxes of books, wiped the poo off them, repacked them and put them (and another bag of books from the house) in my car for taking home. Kim gave me heaps for my collection of Star Wars novels and made off with all my Diana Wynne Jones books. I marvelled at how many of my collection are children’s books and how many of them I could actually give away or store for later generations. Today, at home, I unpacked them. They are very pretty and do not all fit onto the bookshelves. I was sure I had more of them somewhere, too. Where is my Lord of the Rings, for example? Robin McKinley’s Beauty? Oh, and I bought the dvd of Life is Beautiful, so maybe I will finally get to see it someday.

___

* De-cockroached. This means: Kim, having been bribed and bullied, joined me in the garage and was given Slayer status, all the while declaring this to be “Men’s work! We need a man!”. She poked around in the box with a stick, screamed when she discovered a new one, or when a dead one twitched, then gassed them within an inch of their life for me. For some reason, I preferred poo duty to watching can-canning cockroaches wave at us. We tallied seven vicious, man-eating beasties, which we both agree could have grown fifteen feet tall and torn our heads off. Easily.

This weekend was the last without marking for the rest of the year, I fear. I went home to the parents and watched:

1. Mansfield Park (lovely – Billie Piper is so sweet)
2. Northanger Abbey (even lovelier – such satire of gothicism, such a cute ending! Kept us guessing too)
3. Emma (not as lovely as hoped, unfortunately, though quite good – mostly just a glaring absence of Jeremy Northam and the fact that Emma bores me)
4. I Am Legend (fantastic, different, Will Smith is an excellent actor)
5. Doctor Who (Yay! I do love Donna* and in-jokes**. And then there was the preview for next week, which will mean I’ll drift off to sleep tonight thinking of all the ways The Doctor could possibly have a blonde daughter. – I have a whole week to be a shipper, before the reportedly*** disappointing episode.)

I also started to read Odd Thomas to my mother, ready for the newest Odd Thomas book, from Dean Koontz. And I discovered there’s a website for the series – with a serialised short film of an in-between-the-books adventure! Woohoo!

Night night, don’t let the Sontarens bite.

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* Unrelated, but was that a deliberate Stargate moment between the two UNIT characters? Kim and I both laughed.

** “Are you my mummy?”

*** Neil Gaiman said something about not merely needing to suspend disbelief, but to forcibly restrain it in iron chains and hang it over a vat of boiling cheese. Or something.