How I Met Edward Cullen

Over a year ago, a friend introduced me to the books she claimed were a global phenomena. The hype claimed "the Twilight series does for teenage girls what Harry Potter did for boys".

Huh.

Firstly, I had no idea that Harry Potter was considered a "boy-only" phenomenon by anyone. Every literate person of my acquaintance, regardless of age or gender, has read Ms. Rawling's series at least once. The books, as well as being consistent and enchanting, are a boon to writers everywhere. They show publishers that yes, books can make money! They also shatter industry standards/rules about the marketing niches, genre limitations and other pigeon-holes that authors frequently find their novels shoved into.

It's easy to see why any successful series that follows Harry Potter, owes him something for the path-blazing those books did.

But Meyer's Twilight novels have more in common with the tsunami of paranormal romance novels that adult women (and others) have thrust into the bestseller list. Writers like Laurell K. Hamilton (the Anita Blake or Merry Gentry series), Kim Harrison (The Hollows), Kelley Armstrong (Women of the Otherworld), Jasmine Galenorn (Witchling) and Tanya Huff (Blood Ties).

If you think only women are writing paranormal romance-mystery hybrids, check out Jim Butcher's (Harry Dresden: Wizard) books. The delightful series has become an even more delightful cable TV show, The Dresden Files. Tanya Huff's vampire sleuths have also hit the small screen with Blood Ties. Prolific and talented, Huff has written a number of other stellar fantasy series.

So why the need to link the magical landscape of Hogwarts et all to the story about an otherwise normal family of vampires living in the overcast town of Forks, Washington? One reason. One word. Sex.

Harry Potter may have struggled with how to ask the girl of his dreams to a formal dance (scarier than Voldemort!) but you won't read about him searching for a condom. (Unless you surf that sort of fan fic sites.) Paranormal romances are fraught with sex. Good, bad, ugly and magical. The leader of the pack, Laurell K. Hamilton, borders on pornographic. Lyrical porn but still fairly explicit.

Don't worry, Moms, the Twilight novels are sex-free. Aren't they?

While the physical contact between Edward and Bella is fairly tame, the sexual tension is relentless. He insists she must touch him slowly, because the urge to attack her is so strong. The innuendo there is not covert. While the pair wait until marriage to consummate the deal, Stephenie Meyer spends a lot of time on the nuances of their skin, their smell, etc. There is nothing innocent about a boyfriend who never sleeps and sneaks into your room to watch you or stalks you everywhere. Can you say "restraining order"?

Oh, yeah. He's just being protective. Uh huh. Tell it to the judge.

The Twilight novels are literary crack. Not good for you and very addictive. I hated what they said but loved reading them. I consumed the first two books like potato chips. (Let's drop the drug metaphor for the PG crowd.) I got halfway through the third book when my metaphoric stomach rebelled. I could not consume one more word.

That's true to this day. The story has a number of compelling characters. They drive the action of the plot. Unfortunately, Bella is not one of them.

Bella is selfish, obsessive, brooding and suicidal. It's difficult to understand what the more interesting characters, Jacob (the werewolf) and Edward (the vampire) see in her. Edward's sister, the psychic vampire, Alice is the most fascinating creation in Meyer's entourage. Yet she is relegated to nothing more than a plot device. She sees or mis-sees where they need to go but nothing that helps anyone avoid a series of dramatic, life-threatening (and completely avoidable) mishaps.

The author of the Twilight series admits to writing them quickly and as these are her first books, its fair to say that a number of writing nuances escape her. The stories have plot holes you could drive a convoy of city buses through.

She must be doing something right though or why would so many readers swoon over the sexy and complicated characters like Edward and Jacob?

First let me point out that this love triangle -and a hundred just like it owe everything to Laurell K Hamilton. See my point here.

Second, there is nothing sexy or complicated about the descriptions of Edward or Jacob. It is their vacuity, a certain blankness in the prose that makes so much seem possible. These two characters are archetypes. Sexual archetypes.

Edward is Dracula and Angel and every movie vamp that ever made you squirm in your seat. The original Bram Stoker story is an undisguised sexual allegory. The hypnotic, lonely predator. Jacob is every werewolf from the granny-tranny pedophile wolf that stalked red riding hood to the Teen Wolf movies that liken puberty to just another awkward transmogrification.

We live in more sexually permissive times than Bram Stoker or the Brothers Grim wrote in, the stories meant to terrify us about the dangers of women's sexuality awakened. (Yes, it will turn the anemic virgins like Lucy into ravenous monsters who suck the life out of men and just can't get enough. Note that in Stoker's Dracula both women are on the verge of their nuptials before the Count "corrupts" them.) Because we are less afraid of awakening the animal passions within, what do we do with the mythic specter of sex as a wild, out of control beast?

We romance the beast. We tame it with true love.

Unfortunately it is the very vagueness of Meyer's prose that gives her characters so much appeal. Fill in the blanks from a wide menagerie of pseudo-sexual possibilities. Don't underestimate the desire inherent is all us beasts, gregarious animals that humans are, to be part of something larger than ourselves. Hence the cult of Twilight. This is the history of all religions, republics, beanie babies, football fans, fads and movements. Young women are excited (yes, excited) to celebrate (in the guise of Edward Cullen worship or Stephenie Meyer's fan base) their own emerging hungers. A perfectly natural hunger for the supernatural, for immortal passion.