The Classics

One of Sean's favorite ways to poke fun at me is to call me an literary snob. We both read "The Kite Runner" from Khaled Hosseini waaaaaay back in undergrad and when it came up at dinner one night I said something to the effect of its foreshadowing crossed the lines from hinting to clobbering, and that the ironic twists were no longer tantalizing but gut-wrenching. I'm not one to mince words. I finished the tirade by stating it had clearly been written for the masses. He's followed that up by never letting me live my "nose in the air" moment down. Ah, well...

So imagine his shock and surprise that I, for one, LOVE the Twilight series. Talk about written for the masses, and not just any masses, but the 13-17 year old masses. I know I've mentioned its downfalls before, but I can't help it... they just suck me in. I own all four books, have read them each several times now, have already seen Eclipse. Twice. (A few of my students work at the local movie theater and one young man took my ticket at both showings. His response: "Seriously, Shoe? You seemed smarter than that.") I've downloaded all three soundtracks. I'm mostly team Jacob-- and I am SO thankful Taylor Lautner is finally 18 so I feel a little less like a pedophile as I ogle him.

All of my Twilight-lovin' aside, however, I had a disturbing thought yesterday:

Jane Austen is often touted as THE author of the 19th century, as a beacon for the advent of the woman writer. After all, she wrote under her own name in a time when women were best seen but not heard (or read). But when Jane Austen was writing, she was perhaps the Danielle Steele of her era. Ok... that's a bit harsh... maybe the Jodi Piccoult of her time. A fantastic author, yes, but again-- no contender for the Booker here. She entertains us. That's why we remember her now.

But what about William Shakespeare? The Bard of Avon. The hero of hopeless romantics everywhere, the plague of high school English students. We collectively revere him now as the best playwright of all time, but hunt through that iambic pentameter and 16th century English, and you've got smut! Attending The Globe was the equivalent of turning on a sitcom. He wrote to please the masses, literally. The nobility in the box seats, the peasants in the penny pit, he had to entertain them all. And entertain them he did. This is why we remember him now.

Here's where I'm going with this-- what if in another century or two, generations of teenagers and college students pour over the Twilight series. They'll complete a literary analysis of biblical allusions (particularly from the LDS standing, these continually surprise me); pull apart the tenuous ties holding Bella to both Edward and Jacob; and wonder-- what elements of "human" nature transcend all beings? Who do the Volturi, with their power hungry ways, truly satirize? What is the author trying to tell us? "Meyer" will become as common as "Hemingway" or "Byron".

Not to knock ol' Stephenie, but this makes me a little worried. Of course, it won't stop me from re-reading Breaking Dawn by the pool today. Ahhhhhh, summer.