"Twilight", the movie - Joy Vyoral

I attended an opening day screening of Catherine Hardwicke’s film, “Twilight”, based on the Stephenie Meyers novel of the same name. That screening was attended by a theater full of teenage girls, a scattering of teenage boys and quite a few adult women.

Before the lights went down, the audience as a whole was very noisy with occasional outbursts of hysterical laughter and even shrieking. Remembering a discussion overheard in the crowd entering the theatre about the hotness factor of the young actor playing the film’s character, Edward, I wondered if we were in for nothing more than a fan-fest and I’d end up having to rent the movie when it came out on video in order to really see it. Save a couple of shrieks when the actor Robert Pattinson first appeared on screen, the crowd settled down to be very mannerly and attentive.

The film moved very quickly through the events of the first book seeming to attempt to cover most of the major points of the story. Unfortunately, it gave a quick nod only to the character of Bella’s friend, Jacob, and failed to even hint of his importance in the over-all story-line. Since Jacob is a major factor in the first book, setting up his place in the later books, I found it odd. I felt the director could have left out some of the time devoted to Edward’s vampire gifts which served only to cause the audience to laugh, something I feel certain the director hadn’t intended. The time would have been better used to set up Jacob’s character.

I also believe the characters of Edward and Jacob were miscast. Pattinson didn’t come close to the “beautiful Edward with the marble smooth skin” of Bella’s constant rhapsodizing in the novel. Taylor Lautner, as Jacob Black, though very attractive, is not physically large enough to portray the hulking 15-year old who eventually becomes the Alpha male wolf and the third side of Twilight’s romantic triangle.

Distracting to me also was the amateurish look of the vampire make-up of the characters. This was especially problematic on the character of Carlisle, Edward’s adoptive father, but startling also on the other male vampires. In the extreme close-ups of Bella and Edward, Edward seemed to have on more lip color than Bella.

I was disappointed in the special effect that was Edward’s “sparkling skin” when he was exposed to direct sunlight. On the screen, it was barely anything to see, totally unlike the description in the book of reflected light dancing in the meadow. Really, it should have been more dramatic.

In spite of my disappointments in the movie version of “Twilight”, I have to say it was very interesting to see the interpretation from the book. Seldom is a movie able to do justice to the book and this one probably didn’t do any worse than most. Factor in the record-breaking (opening weekend for a movie with a female director) $70.6 million ticket sales and you have to figure this movie is absolutely done a great deal right. I’m very interested to see how subsequent film versions turn out.

"Boomer Lit"

Jordan E. Rosenfeld’s On the Edge column in Writers Digest magazine this month is titled “Boomer Lit”. The subject of this article is the emergence of the over-50 female book buyer and the kind of fiction and non-fiction this group is reading. The article notes the Boomer demographic is interested in and increasingly demanding age-relevant material tailored to mature women and closely mirroring the lives and life-styles of this age group. The article pronounces this a “trend” and calls it “Boomer Lit”.

The premise is that the female Boomer reader wants stories that address the realities of her life set in familiar settings. I cannot embrace that premise. I do not subscribe to the premise that a large portion of my demographic is most interested in stories built around illness, second romances, unpleasant relatives and the politics of the PTA life. While I’m sure there is a segment of the group that is interested in those things, I know there are many more who still read mystery and adventure, fantasy and the mystic. And as important to writers, they are still buying those books.

The most polite thing I can say is I’m not sure “Boomer Lit” is a term with any lasting relevance. The women of the Boomer generation line up with everyone else to buy the latest Harry Potter book and to purchase non-fiction like Tipping Point and Beautiful Boy. They continue to read the classics and great historical works. Magnifying a narrow branch of reading interest in an enormous demographic does not make a trend.

Joy Vyoral

"Blame It On Jimmy Buffett" - Joy Vyoral, HFC Member

Blame it on Jimmy Buffett. Yes, Mr. Margaritaville himself. He’s finally done with his book A Salty Piece of Land something a parade of less-than-gifted fiction writers haven’t been able to do. I officially gave up on a book for which I had paid my own hard-earned money. After reading almost nine chapters of his 2004 novel about Tully Mars and his trek to the tropics from Wyoming, I can’t force myself to go any further. I’ve cried “Uncle!” and tossed the book into my holding box destined for resale at Half Price Books.

I wish I could justify my having been disappointed in this book by saying it is the first of the King Parrothead’s books I’ve read. It’s not! Four or five years ago I read Where Is Joe Merchant?. Early on, I became disillusioned with the pace of the novel and the lazy meanderings of Buffett’s storytelling style. I kept telling myself he would pick up the pace and get to the point soon. It didn’t happen. I slogged onward to the end, doggedly adhering to my personal standard of never giving up on a book I’d started.

A Salty Piece of Land landed on my http://www.goodreads.com/ ‘to-read” reading list at a time when I’m pressed for time in all areas of my life. Work, family obligations and an on fire need to write leaves me with little time for reading, a pleasure that I’ve enjoyed since I was a child. Thanks to Jimmy Buffett’s book, I’m no longer an official member of the Finish What You Start Book Club.

I feel so liberated!