Part of my aim in reading and reviewing the book was to ascertain whether my bitter, cynical sixteen-year-old self had missed something. Maybe, I thought, there was a deeper beauty in the book, and the series as a whole that I, in my contempt, had failed to comprehend. After all, I was young, and no sparkly vampires had ever swept me off my feet (a fact that, I should point out, has not changed since.) Though tempted to review The Twilight Saga as whole, I realised this would mean subjecting myself to the entire series again, and I was not sure my brittle student mind could handle that much pressure. So, like many a modern reader, I opted to skip to the end and jump right in at Breaking Dawn. Thankfully, I do recall the details of the earlier books from a brighter age, when, in a frantic effort not to be the only one of my friends who wasn’t madly in love with either a vampire or a werewolf, I was forced to read this series. Never mind smoking or drinking, this was the kind of peer pressure my parents should have warned me about.
To sum up the plot of Breaking Dawn as swiftly as possible, the novel is about a teenage girl finding her one true love, marrying him and having a baby. There are complications, however: the man of her dreams is a vampire; she is still being perused by a lupine shape-shifter and her baby is slowly devouring her from the inside. And this is only the first part.
The second part of the novel is arguably the least deplorable. Meyer decides to be bold and approaches the middle section from the perspective of Jacob, the shape-shifter who, though fairly nauseating, is almost likeable. Moreover, this section contains rather less cliché and admittedly amusing chapter titles, such as Waiting For The Damn Fight To Start Already, a sentiment I shared throughout the novel. Though I have yet to see it, I believe the conclusion of this part is where the first Breaking Dawn film ends, as the baby Renesmee (an absurd portmanteau of the two mothers’ names, ‘Renee’ and ‘Esme’, proving once and for all that teenage parents should not be allowed to name their own children,) is born, and our favourite wolf “imprints” on her. This process means eventually Jacob and Renesmee are going to get married and have their own little puppies. Meyer decides it is a good idea to give the child accelerated aging so that Jacob does not have to wait as long, allowing him instead to be able to pursue her romantically when she is fully aged at six years old. This storyline extends further than the scope of the book, but I expect there is a sequel brewing.
Thus, we are brought to the conclusion of this novel, or for those watching the movies, the big fight scene. Unfortunately, we are earlier told that the antagonists of the series, The Volturi, are planning to kill Bella’s daughter, for several rather nonsensical reasons that would be easily solved with a nice chat over a cup of blood. Instead, our heroes decide to gather an army of their own to meet what we are led to believe is a group of the deadliest vampires you can imagine. This, you say, is where it is bound to pick up. Here we will finally have that epic battle that will make the novel worth reading. Not so. Instead, after all that effort, the enemies march up to the heroes, are repelled by Bella’s new power (a force field that makes little sense due to its shoddy explanation) and proceed to listen as the Good Guys explain the reasons behind the whole predicament. Naturally, being reasonable vampires, The Volturi ignore them, and decide to kill the child anyway, but thankfully another Good Guy swoops in and saves the day with a crucial piece of evidence that had not been hinted at even once throughout this 700 page novel. We are left awed by the lack of climax and wonder why exactly there could not have been a fight scene. Is Meyer simply inept at writing them? Or perhaps the moral lesson of this book, besides ‘don’t have sex before marriage’ and ‘don’t sleep with werewolves unless they were previously in love with your mother and are twenty years older than you,’ is that violence is simply not the only option. Of course, this all seems a little hypocritical coming from a group of people who hunt down and tear apart forest animals with their bare hands for food.
But this is all on a general note. It is very easy to mock Twilight as a whole on account of its film, fanbase and amusing plot holes. What I want to look at now is why this particular book fails to meet even the low standards I set out.
On a very basic level, it is the lack of conflict that makes the story mundane, which is perhaps ironic considering Meyer herself stated 'Stories need conflict.'[1] Breaking Dawn is, if you will excuse the vulgarity, like very unsatisfying sex; all foreplay and no climax. There is the suggestion of conflict, but it is usually resolved before the reader gets a chance to fully emotionally react. Examples of this are scattered around the book, culminating most evidently in that “final battle,” which instead becomes an anticlimactic peace treaty. But here we look at the very first chapter, Engaged. Bella is faced with what she views as the most horrifying of situations, yet one so amusing that her father ‘busted into loud guffaws’: she has to tell her mother about her and Edward’s engagement (thus, the inventive chapter name.) The reader begins to have an emotional response of anxiety whilst we wonder what consequences will arise. Will Renee reject Edward as a suitor for Bella, or will she refuse to come to the wedding as an act of defiance? Unfortunately, no. Instead, the reader is shot down; Renee is happy for her teenager daughter and reassures both her and the reader that Bella is beyond the scope of age and most certainly not a teenager. Possibly this Meyer’s way of justifying Bella marrying a ninety year old to her young and impressionable audience. Like so many other instances in the book, Meyer gives herself the scope and premise for a believable conflict that amounts only to a painful, unrealistic anticlimax. Perhaps the people who keep reading are those who truly believe that Stephenie Meyer will, at some point, deliver. Those of you who have not actually read the book will be shocked to discover she doesn’t.
This brings me to the deduction that the whole of Breaking Dawn is no more than a very long, convoluted deus ex machina, only with sparkly vampires. As soon as a problem arises, the readers worry for several chapters, only for it to be solved with often illogical solutions. The heroine has an unwanted love interest? No worries, he will later magically imprint on someone else, despite earlier stating how uncommon this phenomenon is and how ridiculous it would be. The heroes are going to war with the most dangerous group of vampires in the world? It’s fine, because the heroine will develop powers that just so happen to be their only weakness. The bad guys want to kill the child anyway? No problem, that character we have not seen for a few chapters is going to appear with concrete proof that the child is not dangerous. In fact, the entire conflict of the first three books is that Bella did not want to become a vampire for two reasons: she would not be able to have children, and she would become a soulless, bloodthirsty monster. Conveniently, both of these problems are solved in Breaking Dawn.
Why then, are Breaking Dawn and its series so popular? In 2008 alone, the book sold over six-million copies, and the recently released film was trumped only by the final Harry Potter in box-office ratings. It seems that Twilight has excelled in the art of communication with its target audience. Whilst many a reader may be put off by the clunky prose and repetitive style, perhaps this is exactly what appeals to this audience. Take this passage as an example:
The story would be tragic – Bella lost in a horrible accident. Victim of a mugging gone wrong. Choking to death at dinner. A car accident, like my mom. So common. Happened all the time.
Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn
Here, Jacob contemplates how Bella and Edward plan to fake their deaths, so they can avoid telling Bella’s father the truth, thus leaving her minus any familial ties besides the Cullens. This, too is a conflict that is resolved without climax: upon Bella’s pregnancy, they decide to tell her father the whole story. Jacob’s narrative is both simple and repetitive, with short, snappy sentences and a catty sarcastic tone that, whilst possibly irritating to a lot of readers, appeals to the modern day teenager. The immediacy of the style offers instant gratification and effortless reading that is more akin to watching a film than reading.
On the other hand, perhaps I am being a little harsh. There are upsides to the phenomenon that is Twilight. Like Harry Potter (loath as I am to compare the two, since Stephen King already did that so wonderfully,) this series reaches out to a mass of pre-teens who are glued to their Nintendo DS or Wiis and encourages them to read. Much like cannabis, I suppose that Twilight could work as a gate-way book, and that after getting a glimpse into this edgy new concept of reading, said pre-teens may in fact pick up another novel. Hopefully, a better novel. Either way, if Stephenie Meyer can reduce the number of teenagers who cannot understand the difference between ‘you’re’ and ‘your’, then I am happy to give her due credit. Of course, teenagers could just attend their English lessons, but let’s be realistic here.
- By Camilla Masterson
[1] Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn FAQ at stepheniemeyer.com. Retrieved 03/11/11
