Ok, so 9:15 on Thursday morning.  As soon as I finish this post, I'm going to start working on my conference talk.  I don't know why, but it's like I have to write myself into writing.  Did that make sense?  Yesterday was a good day in terms of getting work done.  As a reward, I bought some wildflower seeds to sprinkle in the wooded area around the perifery (how do you spell that?) of my lawn.  I'm pretty excited.  Spring in New England is a much bigger deal than in central or southern CA, let me tell you.  I remember my first spring in Vermont thinking, "Oh, I finally get it.  I understand what spring really is."  And seriously, after such a long, cold, relentless winter, spring is a big relief and so joyful all at the same time.  And after it's been in the 20s for so many days 45 or 50 feels really good.  There are days when I take the dogs outside for a potty break, and Guinnie especially just wants to lay on her back in the grass, sunning her belly.  And it's like I know how she feels:  Your enitre being wants to soak up warmth and sun all the way to your bones.  I'm hoping that today it won't rain so that, even if it's only high 50s, I can sit on the deck and read and listen to my iPod.  It's just so wonderful.  Ok, so maybe I should move on to Twilight, which isn't so spring-timey.  In fact, it's set in a particularly dreary part of the Pacific Northwest.  So far, I'm finding the writing of this whole thing less a chore than I was expecting.  And in spite of dispising the novels, I'm rather enjoying thinking about them and analyzing them.  I feel like I'm mostly doing a close reading and that I should have some sort of theoretical framework to which I can refer.  I've never been very good at that.  And I'm sure that the paper will work well enough for this particular conference, so I guess it's fine, but I kind feel like it's really not much more than a glorified undergrad paper.  Glorified only in the sense that I do speak with authority.  Oy.  What would Eco do?  As you may know, chatting with Umberto Eco is my big fantasy.  Maybe it's like porn for academics--I really don't know.  And normally, I really bristle at the use of "porn" as metaphor anyway.  But seriously, I often think my way into papers or talks or just topics by this whole imaginative game of what Eco would say and what I'd say and how he'd think I'm just dazzlingly clever, or at least "adorable."  (As me later about the whole "adorable" thing.  I'm not sure it belongs on my blog.)  And sometimes I wonder if Eco would be at all weirded out if he learned that he's the nexus of my fantasy, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't think of himself that way.  Ok, I really need to get to work.

New Moon

Yesterday, I finished New Moon the sequel to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.  And I think that the best I can say for it is it's really kinda uninteresting.  I mean, it's like Bella is all torn:  should she be true to Edward, or should she move on to Jacob, who is not terribly interesting, as a character, but is certainly more age appropriate as a boyfriend.  And that's about all there is to it.  I have to admit that I enjoy a good YA high school-romancy novel; I'm all for that.  And, at least so far, that's about all that Meyer's Twilight Saga is.  The vampire / supernatural / pseudomythical stuff reads like a veneer and nothing more.  And as YA romance, it's OK, not great but OK.  But I really can't see that it's anything more.  And really, silly YA romance novels are A-OK.  But why are we pretending that this is something more profound?  I don't get it.  Interestingly, there are moments where the novel could become something more.  Bella, for example, faces several moral delimmas--her values come into conflict, and it starts to look like she's forced to make an ethically complicated, difficult decision.  But in the end, she doesn't really agonize over these decisions; they come easily.  And she often doesn't have to make these difficult decisions--the plot somehow intervenes and makes them for her.  And I have to say that there's nothing especially interesting (and certainly nothing sexy, IMO) about the Byronic, brooding vampire, caught between his bloodsucking nature and his revulsion over this nature.  This is somehow so passe.  I want to say, "Dude, you are a vampire.  Deal with it."  I guess that this conflict, again, could allow for something more profound to happen in this work, but Meyer never really commits to "going there" and dealing with difficult questions.  And still, noone seems interested in the fact that, at the end of it all, Edward is basically very controlling and even manipulative when it comes to Bella  Given current statistics pertaining to relationship violence, especially among teens, isn't this about the last thing our society needs?  I mean, here we are, encouraged to really romanticize the relationship between the 17-year-old female mortal and her 110-year-old vampire lover, when it's just a repackaging of the same old controlling boyfriend.

I've Been Bitten

Ok, I finally broke down and purchased a copy of Meyer's Twilight.  First, I should say that I read it quickly over one weekend.  This illustrates that it is entertaining enough.  It's a quick read, and although there wasn't all that much suspense, I felt like I wanted to keep reading.  In spite of all that, I have to say that I don't get what all the hype is about.   A couple of my students informed me that it's really "deep" and "profound," unlike much YA fiction that simply deals with high school boy-girl relationships.  But that's just not the case.  I mean, Twilight seemed to me like more of the same--the melodramatic, angst filled, fraught 17-year-old relationship, with a vampire thrown into the mix.  But the vampire angle felt almost arbitrary (should I say "random"?).  But seriously, I found the book troubling in ways that have nothing to do with vampires.  What I think bothered me most is that the book, of course, is set up such that we, the readers, want Bella and Edward to be together.  And you know--this is fine, I guess.  Whatever.  I mean, it's like Harlequin for teens, but fine.  But Edward is so controlling of Bella.  And he really doesn't allow her to assert her opinions.  And when he wants something that she doesn't, he just kinda forces her.  I am NOT referring to sex (although the book was more sexually suggestive than I expected).  It's like Edward wants to go for a walk; Bella says no; he just throws her over his shoulder and carries her off.  And Bella, who is also our narrator, doesn't seem to see that this is a problem.  Nor does our author seem to see it.  And that's kinda what bothers me.  I don't expect Bella to be especially perceptive or mature.  She is, after all, 17.  But the writing seems to lack depth.  Meyer doesn't encourage us to perceive the world with more maturity than Bella does.  And this is troubling, in part, but it mostly marks the work as superficial and not terribly literary.  There's just not a lot of substance there.

I will spare you any sort of rant about the film.  I've not seen it and probably won't.  I have nothing against the film, per se.  I do, however, wonder about the mothers who allow their 10 year olds to mob the poor actor who plays Edward, as they scratch their necks in hopes of drawing blood.  Of course, this is no reflection on the film or the actor, but it's just kinda creepy.