Examples of the many pieces of flair surrounding Edward Cullen of Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” series.
This week I was on Facebook, searching for buttons to give to my friends as part of the new and improved Bumper Sticker successor, Pieces of Flair. I found a couple of good ones that referenced “Lost” or featured some sort of quirky catchphrase that only I would find hilarious. To my confusion, there were practically a trillion pieces of flair that mentioned the book “Twilight” or just the overall dreaminess of some supposed vampire boy named Edward Cullen. I haven’t been under a pop culture rock for the past couple of years, so when did Stephanie Meyer’s young adult vampire saga explode into mainstream teenage culture? I’ve seen the trailers for the upcoming movie that premieres December 12, 2008, and it looks genuinely intriguing. So far all of the signs are pointing out that I should read the books. After all, I’m constantly on the lookout for a new Harry Potter series. However, I can’t help but wonder at almost 19 years old, have I outgrown such things?
The last Harry Potter book severely disappointed me because of the rambling and over-extended camping trip that Harry and the gang went on in the middle of the book. J.K. Rowling is assuredly a good writer, perhaps the best children’s fantasy writer ever. How can Stephanie Meyer compare? I read the synopsis for “Twilight” on Wikipedia, and it sounds very melodramatic and juvenile, but more mature than the Harry Potter series. I guess I will have to read them to be in the loop, but I’m going to feel very conformist and silly in doing so.
Ashamedly, the book I’m looking forward to the most this summer is Garth Nix’s sixth installment of the Keys to the Kingdom, “Superior Saturday.” It happens to be a children’s fantasy series, and the language is fairly simple. However, the story is so complex and the fantasy world so intricate that I was easily absorbed into the series, even though I started reading it when I was 14. Honestly, the themes and some plot points are a bit on the mature side for the recommended middle schoolers, but overall I’ve found the books to be more engaging, surprising, and intelligent than even the Harry Potter books. I even re-read them today, and they still hold my attention.
Or maybe I should just pick up Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged,” two heavy tomes of classic literature that I was inspired to purchase after playing “BioShock” on the Xbox 360, a game surrounding an underwater utopia formed on objectivism. The two are coated in a thick coat of dust on my bookshelf, carelessly stacked along with “Crime And Punishment” and “Jane Eyre,” two other books I’ve never picked up. In my first year of college, I’ve had very little time to read- in fact, the only free reading books I completed were Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” (excellent- especially since I read it before the book-centered, “Lost” Desmond episode, “The Constant”), Jasper Fforde’s “First Among Sequels,”(I absolutely adore the wacky and intelligent Thursday Next literary detective series) and Stephen King’s “Duma Key” (okay).
However, I think the books that will probably define my summer are the Dark Tower books from Stephen King. Debated by many to be considered his defining works of art, along with “The Stand,” it surely will be amazing. I’m not the biggest horror fan, but I like some of his recent work. Admittedly, “The Stand” happens to be my favorite book- I read it in less than a week last summer. But perhaps the greatest indicator that the books will have an impact on me was when I picked up the first book, “The Gunslinger,” at Borders the other day. I had asked for the series for my birthday, which is in a few days, but I just wanted to read a bit of it in the store. I curiously flipped to the first page, and I was shocked to discover that the first chapter was entitled “On Being Nineteen.” And indeed, in just a short while, I will be 19. The odd coincidence still mystifies me.
