Twilight's Fanfiction Style Has Serious Sex AppealYoo-hoo, Bella Sue!

When it comes to popular culture, I'm often behind the bell curve. I've reached an age at which I don't particularly care who dances with the stars or which American Idol candidate surly Simon Cowell makes weep on cue. That said, I pay close attention to the direction of literary trend; anything that makes the New York Times Best Seller List gives me pause to pick up a book and peruse the first few pages to get a general idea of what Americans are reading.

As usual, I took note when a book called Twilight ratcheted up the Best Seller List in astonishing leaps and bounds. Author Stephanie Meyer, an unknown in the world of publishing, seemed to blast her way into the coveted inner circle of Authors Who Write For Tweens by penning a very simple tale of a mortal girl who falls for an immortal boy. Conflict is obvious, yes?

Not being tween, teen, or enamored with teenage vampires who drive expensive European-made vehicles, I predicted that the topic matter of Twilight alone would make the book an egregious read, and I was right. What instantly struck me was that author Meyer's protagonist, Isabella ("Bella") Swan, was the ultimate Mary Sue. Egads. Insulting the injury, Meyer's prose was straight out of the fanfiction style manual. I imagined the author pouring over dreadful Harry Potter fanfiction sites, taking arduous note of the precise redundant adjective-to-verb ratio she could get away with: Snickered sarcastically ... cooed dotingly ... sobbed mournfully ...

Check, check, and check.

Bella Swan is a 17-year-old girl with a dreary life who transfers into a high school in a small, dreary Pacific Northwestern town called Forks. She is unremarkable in appearance and has no particular aptitude for anything except extreme navel-gazing and the ability to conduct Internet searches on vampires. Sullen, mysterious, uber-hawt Edward Cullen is attracted to her, intensely and inexplicably. Edward is also 17 years old ... and a vampire. (Edward will never be able to vote, get a bank loan, or sign a lease without his parents' permission. How much does that blow?) He is drawn to Bella because of her scent (his own "brand of heroin"). No, really. This compromises his politically-correct vampire ethos of "Do as thou wilt but do no harm." See, author Meyer is keen on disabling all the other creepy stuff commonly attached to vampire legend -- turning into bats, sleeping in coffins, spontaneously combusting in sunlight. Oh, no. Edward and his "family" hunt animals, not humans. I'm sure they recycle. Just what, I'm not sure.

The important thing to remember is that Edward loves the boring-as-toast Bella on sight for no particular reason other than he just does, and will go to every extreme to keep her safe, even if it means risking his own immortal soul. Because Bella is unequivocally "special." And that is the rule of Mary Sue fiction.

As I read Twilight, I wept for the future of young readers everywhere that such dreadful fiction actually sat on an editor's desk. Where are the Judy Blumes of our youth? The Norma Kleins? But after doing intense deconstruction of Mary Sue fanfiction and why in this particular case it holds such universal appeal, I think I found the answer. Somewhere in between the extreme parity of Homecoming Queens and the Bitterly Bullied is a large population of Bella Swans -- girls of average looks, intelligence and talent, who spent four years' worth of lunch hours in the cafeteria gazing from one table to another wondering, "Where do I fit in?" and "Why don't boys notice me?" These girls turned into women who wondered the same thing. Because as we all know, life after high school is ... well, just like high school.

(I'll say one thing for Stephanie Meyer: She knows a target market when she sees one. Ka-ching!)

I can criticize Twilight's unutterably melodramatic style and its plot, which is as thin as a Pier One room divider, but I gotta grudgingly give it serious props for appealing to so many females of all ages. And why not? Twilight invokes the inner fantasies of Bella Sues all over America and translates them into hyperbolic form. Girls -- women -- want to be noticed by someone really special, and in the case of Twilight that someone really special happens to have the body temperature of Michelangelo's David. (And let's face it, not that many teenage boys have that immortality thing going for them, either.)

Finishing the book was a task. For a month, Page 260 of Twilight remained dog-eared because each time Edward ran his "ice-cold" hand down Bella's cheek, I ran to the hall to turn up the thermostat. I blame myself for my own lack of appreciation for the Twilight phenomenon. Some of us gals just aren't born dreamweavers when it comes to our personal lives. As girls, we knew that teenage boys smelled like sneakers, had halitosis, and were driven almost entirely by raging hormones. As single adult women, we've been on the dating sites, and we've had to pay for our own coffee dates. There aren't any remote guestimations of the likes of Edward Cullen, not in the real world at least. Not even for prom queens.

No wonder female Twilight afficionadas left the table before that particular reality check.