Life and Death: It’s No Twilight
The tenth anniversary edition of Twilight arrived on the shelves several months ago containing the bonus feature of Life and Death, a gender swap retelling of Twilight.
The tales are identical aside from the gender swap and an expedited ending. It’s odd to have such divergent feelings after reading essentially the same book but those are the feelings I had after finishing them. The story works when it is Edward and Bella and falls apart somehow when it is Edythe and Beau. Amazon reviews show the same response from many other readers.
For those who don’t know the basic story line, here it is: Bella/Beau Swan moves from Phoenix, AZ where he/she lives with her/his mom (Renee) to Forks, WA to live with her/his dad (Charlie). The move is not necessary but a charitable act done by Bella/Beau so that Renee can follow her husband, a minor league baseball player, when he’s on the road.
Bella/Beau’s introduction to Forks High school is where we get the first inkling of how significant the move is. Bella/Beau is instantly popular. The opposite sex all want to date them, people of the same sex all want to be their best friend. The main reason this is significant is that that was not Bella/Beau’s life in Phoenix. In fact, she/he seems to have no connection to Phoenix or her/his previous life outside of her/his mom. This is a common writing trick in science fiction/fantasy novels to let us know the character has arrived at where they are destined to be. I thought it worked well here.
Bella/Beau’s love fest with the student body only lasts till science class where her/his lab partner, Edward/Edythe treats her/him like a person with a bad odor or communicative disease or possibly both. The lab partner disappears for a few days, then when Edward/Edythe does return to school they play a cat and mouse game of friendly/unfriendly with Bella/Beau. One fine morning Edward/Edythe saves Bella/Beau from what was certain to be a fatal accident. Bella/Beau is convinced this was done using super human speed and strength, which sets them on a quest which leads to them learning their love interest is a vampire.
The first time I read Twilight I knew nothing about it. It was sitting on a table with several other YA fantasy/paranormal/science fiction books and I picked it up because I was intrigued by the cover and back blurb. Since the store was having a buy four get one free sale I grabbed it as my free book. I don’t have the other four books anymore but I have multiple versions of this one.
There are several reasons why that is. The first is I love a good Beauty and the Beast story when it involves an actual beast and not some poor misunderstood beta hero. Edward is a beast; he’s a mass murderer who on more than one occasion has seriously considered killing Bella.
Until the end of this book this desire is very much a concern for him and his family. They know how frail Bella is, how difficult Edward’s desire to hurt her is to resist and how a simple mistake can result in a split-second action that there will be no turning back from. Edward literally has to fight his instincts in order to keep Bella alive.
This is a feat much harder than it sounds. Destiny has a sort of storm spinning around Bella with several forks in the road of her possible future. The first and most prominent fork is death. As she says to Edward, “Did you ever think that maybe my number was up the first time, with the van, and that you’ve been interfering with fate?” He tells her that she actually came close to dying that first day in science class. Her blood smelled abnormally intoxicating to him and he’d wanted to kill her in those first moments as she crossed the room. So–she has a top tier predator fixated on her but beyond that Bella has at least three other brushes with death in her first few months at Forks. She is almost run over by a van. She takes a trip to a nearby town and is accosted by a dangerous group of young men. She makes several dangerous supernatural enemies. Edward not only has to keep himself from killing Bella, he has to keep fate from doing so as well.
Bella’s near death experiences underline that a big change has to occur for her to remain among the living. We already know that like Edward, she is unnaturally pale. We also know that she is unnaturally clumsy, as though she is not at home in her current body. That’s another trick I am very familiar with from sf/fantasy/paranormal reading and was basically handwriting on the wall saying “She’s meant to be a vampire!” I like stories of destiny so this was a plot element that (since it was done right) worked very well for me.
Another thing I liked about Bella was her ordinariness. Science fiction/fantasy/paranormal books tend to be about the making of a hero. Typically, they start with someone ordinary and build them into someone extraordinary. In Twilight Bella sees herself as ordinary. Since the book is in first person it would be easy to accept that as simple fact. But Bella is above average in the best ways. She’s an excellent student–we know how much she loves to read and she was in advanced classes in Phoenix. She mentions this very briefly and in a way that would be easy to overlook but it’s a piece of her that is true. Bella also has a very helpful nature. She moves for her mom’s benefit, she is a caregiver to her mother and becomes one for Charlie. Much of her interaction with her friends involves helping pick prom dresses and putting away the rejects or playing matchmaker for them so no one feels left out or hurt. Ultimately she literally offers to die for someone. I love heroines like Kate Daniels or Mercy Thompson, both of whom are very kick ass, but I also admire quiet courage. Bella does the latter very well.
I also like the specific type of love story this is–a pairing of alpha male and beta female. Many call this an unequal partnership and in some ways that is true. Edward is like the bionic man–better, stronger, faster. The vampires in Twilight are super smart as well as gifted with super natural abilities, so Edward outshines Bella in those areas as well. But I don’t think equality should be viewed as matching apples to apples. I like an apple/orange pairing and that is what Twilight offers. Bella isn’t just a foil for Edward, she helps him (and his family) expand their lives. The Cullens very much want to live like humans. Bella provides that; they join her friends at the lunch table, there’s the graduation party, there’s unity with the super natural community in the form of the Quileute alliance. They had friends before but she adds a richness to their emotional lives which was previously missing.
So why do I love Twilight but not Life and Death?
Beau’s life mirrors Bella’s in several ways but somehow I received less of a sense of urgency or destiny from the exact same experiences happening to him. Maybe because the author quoted paragraph upon paragraph verbatim and exchanged only the names so she lost the element of surprise.
But I don’t think that’s it. Where Edward presented a real threat to Bella, I just didn’t get a killer vibe off Edythe. She seemed like a genuinely nice vampire whose primary desire was to not hurt Beau (or anyone else.) I didn’t get a sense she was so desperate for his blood she’d kill for it. I did get that feeling from Edward. And where Edward’s stalkery tendencies reminded me of a predator tracking their prey, Edythe’s came across like a mom’s watching over a particularly accident prone child. In my head I could hear her telling the other vampires something like, “Everyone else can go to the playground and be fine. My kid manages to fall off the monkey bars or the swings or the slide. You just can’t leave him for a minute.” Edward’s desire for Bella’s blood, the potential harm he presented to her physical being, was a large part of what gave Twilight its sense of destiny. In Life and Death, the lack of a sense of eminent danger makes the relationship feel a bit lame. It also kills the romance in that I thought of Edythe more as a mom than a lover.
One of the reasons Ms. Meyer gave for writing Life and Death was she felt Bella got a bad rap as being a weak character, specifically being a weak female. She wanted to show that Bella being a boy wouldn’t have made any difference to the story; Edward didn’t rescue Bella because he was a big, strong male but because he was an incredibly strong vampire. Having Beau rescued by Edythe may have accomplished that for some readers but it didn’t work all that well for me. For starters, I never doubted that it was Edward’s vampirism that enabled him to rescue Bella. Had Mike or a pre-wolf Jacob been standing beside her when the van came flying at her they wouldn’t have been able to stop it. Edward’s inhumanity is pivotal to the tale and to his ability to be a rescuer for Bella. But I think Meyer’s may have made a mistake in making Beau as physically unintimidating as Bella. I believe her point would have been better served by a strong, athletic, agile Beau who still couldn’t accomplish what a vampire could. With Beau being as clumsy and inept as Bella, it seemed the character, regardless of name and gender was weak. In other words, not that the character was weak because they were human but weak because they were Bella/Beau.
The writing in the two books was different in a subtle way as well. This scene shows a bit of what I mean. Here it is from Life and Death:
JEREMY DROVE FASTER THAN THE CHIEF, SO WE MADE IT TO PORT ANGELES by four. He took us to the florist first, where the glossy woman behind the counter quickly upsold Allen from roses to orchids. Allen made decisions fast, but it took Jeremy a lot longer to figure out what he wanted. The saleswoman made it sound like all the details would be really important to the girls, but I had a hard time believing anyone could care that much.
Here it is from Twilight:
JESS DROVE FASTER THAN THE CHIEF, SO WE MADE IT TO PORT ANGELES by four. It had been a while since I’d had a girls’ night out, and the estrogen rush was invigorating. We listened to whiny rock songs while Jessica jabbered on about the boys we hung out with. Jessica’s dinner with Mike had gone very well, and she was hoping that by Saturday night they would have progressed to the first-kiss stage. I smiled to myself, pleased. Angela was passively happy to be going to the dance, but not really interested in Eric. Jess tried to get her to confess who her type was, but I interrupted with a question about dresses after a bit, to spare her. Angela threw a grateful glance my way.
In the Twilight scene we see Bella’s enjoyment of girl’s night, the type of music they listen to on the drive, what they talk about and how she views Angela and Jess. In Life and Death that little bit of character building is missing. That happens in many other scenes. The end result is that we never really know Beau. The lack of destiny combined with my lack of knowledge of the character equaled me not really caring about his fate.
It’s rare that we get to see so clearly how the minutiae of storytelling–the character building, writing style, mood setting–affect our response to the tale. Many times when we say we liked or disliked something we offer up generalities like “It’s got really good world building” or “The character lacked all agency”. In this case the character and world building were almost exactly the same. Yet the subtle changes made a substantial difference to my enjoyment of the book.
There’s a final element that I think makes Twilight better than Life and Death and that’s the appeal of the bad boy. Psychology Today writes, “From a Darwinian point of view, females are the choosier sex, and males compete for their attention. The result of this competition is that men have evolved strategies such as seeking alpha status.” Edward is an alpha male and, in my reading life, I like alpha males. They make a nice contrast to the lovely beta I have at home. Edward is a bad boy and (according to that same article in Psychology Today), “good women are indeed drawn to bad boys despite their emotional and sometimes physical unavailability.” Beau is not a bad boy – he brings out the mothering aspect in women, not the amorous one.
We’ve talked about it before but chances are that what makes many of the bestselling books bestsellers is the heroes’ ability to walk the line between complete jerk and alpha dreamboat. According to Psychology Today, “A clue to female psychology emerges in a study examining the cheesy best sellers that set millions of women on a Harlequin high. The male protagonists are invariably studs on steeds who morph into devoted dads by novel’s end. That is, the women get the best of both worlds.” If we ignore the nasty–and unneeded–slur of cheesy, this statement makes an interesting point; most romances novels do give us the best of both worlds–the bad boy hero at the start, the loving, gracious committed man at the end. In Twilight, when Bella becomes a vampire in the final book, Edward is no longer a threat to her. He goes from being a fanged (metaphorically) menace to being a dad, husband and protector.
To sum up, I liked Twilight for its alpha, bad boy hero; sci-fi fantasy elements of the hero’s journey and destiny; better writing/characterization. I disliked Life and Death for (among other reasons) its weak hero, mommy heroine and the fact that it lacked any sense of danger or destiny.
AAR’s Maggie
Maggie…””However, my point was that there is a strong argument that it is less an issue of socialization and more an issue of biology or something else driving the interest.””
Sorry, but I do not believe in essentialist arguments that biology drives human behavior. Yes, long before Disney in the West, many societies (not all!) were patriarchal and princess narratives were normative, but that’s social and historical. I am a deep-rooted cultural and social historian and especially where gender is concerned, I believe it is socially constructed. In that respect, we’re talking almost two different and oppositional languages here.
@erika I had great real life role models too and my parents encouraged us to read non-fiction so that I knew that success was rarely as easy as it looked in fiction.
@Blackjack I do wonder about the many tweens and teens that gobbled up those stories and what sorts of thinking they are doing about the messages they are viewing/reading. Well, hopefully in real life they won’t meet many werewolves or vampires. :-)
Coming to it from an adult woman’s perspective I was more appalled at the parents in Twilight (and Harry Potter or even Little Women for that matter) who so blithely let these kids run their own lives. I hope young girls reading these books will at least think, “”I could never get away with that.””
Yes, there’s all kinds of interesting messages in the Twilight books for kids to ponder, including absentee parents (which is not uncommon in youth literature, including Harry Potter).
I do believe though that fiction is a powerful medium for ideas to be expressed and consumed. It’s not at all a mental health issue about readers who cannot determine reality from fantasy. Instead, it’s a literary interpretative act in which we are taught (hopefully) from young ages to scrutinize very carefully the messages we consume daily in entertainment, including advertising.. Disney, for instance, knows all too well how influential they are in shaping young girls’ dreams, otherwise we would not be inundated with so many princess stories.
Blackjack . . “”Disney, for instance, knows all too well how influential they are in shaping young girls’ dreams, otherwise we would not be inundated with so many princess stories.””
Is that Disney, though? Long before they created the movies the stories existed and were popular enough to endure through many generations. These stories tend to be cross cultural as well – even cultures without the European aristocratic governing mechanism to fall back on will have daughters of chieftains or tribal elders be the main character in stories, which is their own form of the princess motif.
Oh, for sure, fairy tales have long existed! Disney just was tremendously successful at capitalizing on them and distributing to audiences and made an industry built on selling princess conventions.
The main point I was making though is that children are conditioned very early in life via fictional stories to imagine and fantasize social conventions that are deemed normative in a society, hence the the power of critical thinking to interrogate and question all forms of entertainment. It’s not that people are mentally ill and cannot differentiate real from imagined, (except in extreme cases), it’s whether people are taught and develop skills to think critically about messages in our culture. My niece (age 12) could have watched the Twilight movies on her own, but I watch with her and discuss so that I at least can get her talking and thinking about what she’s consuming.
I understand what you are saying and agree that getting teens to discuss what they are consuming is important. However, my point was that there is a strong argument that it is less an issue of socialization and more an issue of biology or something else driving the interest. For example, long before anyone sold us pretty clothes humans, especially women, were decorating their clothing. Long before Disney came along to sell us the princess theme cultures had princesses starring in their narratives. The idea that messages in our literature carry such weight with readers that we must be careful of what messages are out there to me is placing too strong an emphasis on the power of what we read. (With the exception perhaps of religious texts but those tend to have an entire system designed to reinforce them.) Many of the themes people complain about in books do not originate in the books but come from society or biology or familial structure and are then incorporated into our narratives, not the other way around. In other words, there are tons of narratives with possessive men as romantic heroes. I don’t blame Harlequin or Twilight for that. I agree with Nancy Friday – the theme is one women like to explore in the safe place of fantasy.
I came late to Twilight fandom. It happened when I saw Twilight when it first aired on Showtime. What made this book work so well for was the ordinariness of Bella. She wasn’t this superwoman who’s beauty draws males to her but she doesn’t notice it.
I have this Twilight re-make but am sooo nervous about reading it afraid it won’t live up to theTwilight original.
Unlike most here, I don’t look to romance to affirm feminism. And I really enjoyed that Twilight had an average heroine who grew into who she became.
Unlike most here, I don’t look to romance to affirm feminism. And I really enjoyed that Twilight had an average heroine who grew into who she became.
I’m always surprised when people seem to be uncomfortable with reading about characters who hold different belief/value systems than they do. I enjoy reading about different cultures and faiths and people who make different decisions than I do.
Maggie…””I’m always surprised when people seem to be uncomfortable with reading about characters who hold different belief/value systems than they do.””
I’m not at all uncomfortable with characters that have different values. Many authors have a wide range of characters in their writing that articulate all sorts of differing belief systems. I’m critical though (rather than “”uncomfortable””) with authors that are endorsing beliefs that are harmful through characters that appear to be mouthpieces for certain ideologies that the fiction ends up supporting. That would be my distinction.
I didn’t see Bella as a mouth piece. She made choices but she never said someone else’s choice was wrong. For example, with Renesme (hate that name) she chose to keep the baby and possibly die for it. But she felt the risk was worth it because she was confident the venom could save her and she knew this would be her only chance to have a child. Edward and Jacob, the heroes of the books, both advocated for abortion. This was never made into a villainous position and I found the discussion more balanced than what I’ve seen in many books.
On the flip side, one of my favorite authors, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, uses her characters to tell others that if you aren’t accepting of homosexuality you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Suzanne Brockmann does the same thing. I agree with many (not all) but most of the points made but feel very uncomfortable at having my novel interrupted by public service announcements. I also find the presentations very unbalanced – no “”good”” character ever advocates for the other side of the issue.
Most people (any people?) won’t meet and fall in love with a vampire. Bella made some unique choices based on her unique circumstances but I feel that many times people judge her decisions like she isn’t in a sci-fi fantasy novel. I think if they are concerned that young readers will replicate Bella’s behavior they have far bigger issues to manage. The question shouldn’t be finding the girls proper role models but why the girls are turning to fictional role models to begin with and why they can’t separate fiction from reality. The latter is very important. People get diagnosed with schizophrenia on their ability to do just that.
I always had strong females to admire in real life. My grandmother, my mother who’s a doctor and had many female doctor friends so no need for me to insist fiction had role models. I read fiction to escape from real life.
It always amazed me some insist fiction always have strong female characters. To me thats insulting women. As if women can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality and must always see strong women to reinforce that.
Maggie…””I agree with many (not all) but most of the points made but feel very uncomfortable at having my novel interrupted by public service announcements.””
Well, I think though there needs to be a distinction between overt and subtle ideologies in any fiction writing. A “”public service announcement”” sounds jarring and didactic and awkward and could well put readers out of the story if not handled well. On the other hand, all writers insert ideologies into fiction and how those ideas and values are perceived depends very much on reader biases and values.
I’ve only seen the _Twilight_ movies and not read the books, but the movies had some endorsements (i.e. romantizing and glamorizing) of stalking and violence against young women that was troubling to me. I do wonder about the many tweens and teens that gobbled up those stories and what sorts of thinking they are doing about the messages they are viewing/reading.
I appreciated Bella as a heroine as well. I certainly could have identified with her in my teen years, which I think is much of her appeal to the audience. She’s bookish (most readers would likely identify with this quality) and gym was one certainly of my least liked periods of the day.
I never had the problem with her so many others did. If you actually read the books you see it’s Bella who consistently gets her way in the end. She has an almost unbreakable will and despite all of Edward’s super human strength and years of experience, she is the one who truly knows what would suit her best. Their conflicts always come when he tries to decide what is best for her against her wishes, and to my recollection he is almost always the one who caves or gives in the most.
In the end it’s not phenomenal strength, speed, beauty etc. that causes everything to work out in the end. In a lot of ways it is Bella’s incredible will (her vampire gift is her amazing control and the ability to block the powers/intrusions of other vampires) that saves her time and again.
I’m not sure how in an age of increasingly complex teen and YA titles that deal with heroines who have every kind of issue or problem Bella has gotten such a bad rap. If young women can read very realistic books about teens who cut, have eating disorders, suicidal tendencies, drug or drinking problems etc. why is a fantasy book about a girl and a sparkly vampire held up as the end to feminism as we know it? If young women can read about a number of important topics and social issues without the fear it will “”indoctrinate”” them to follow the behavior why does “”Twilight”” and Bella strike such fear in people that consumption of it must be “”discussed”” and “”monitored”” so much? I can honestly say I read pretty much without boundaries or control my entire youth and teen years (despite having very old fashioned parents and a more controlled physical upbringing) simply because it never occurred to them that a book of fiction would somehow “”influence”” me in some nefarious way.
Caroline wrote “”it never occurred to them that a book of fiction would somehow “influence” me in some nefarious way.”” This never really occurred to my folks either. I think it is great that we as a society are protective of our children but when that protection leads us to keep them from experiencing anything that could be even a little harmful we have gone too far.
Well, I am an unlikely Stephanie Meyer’s audience for a number of reasons. I don’t buy into the Psychology Today notion that women are “naturally” choosier and men are “naturally” competitive for female attention if that notion supposedly descends from a biological (essentialist) view of gender, which I suspect it does given the source. I’m a cultural reader and look at the ways in which culture, society, and history have divided groups of people, not biology. I also don’t subscribe to conventional stereotypes that good women are drawn to bad boys, (or, for that matter, that bad women are drawn to good boys, bad boys are drawn to good women, etc., etc…).
But that leads me to one big problem I had with the Twilight stories. I watched (not read!) the Twilight series with my niece. I honestly did worry a little about the romanticizing of the stalker-boyfriend representation as well as the romanticizing of domestic violence and how young girls might be conditioned into accepting such troubling messages. One of the reasons why I watched the movies with my niece therefore was so that I could talk to her about the ideas being put forth. She’s at an especially important age where these kinds of stories and their agenda can be very influential.
I haven’t read Meyer’s recent revisionist stories though it sounds as if the author continues to be stuck in problematic stereotypes around gender. A mommy heroine is another conventional representation given that women are far too often represented as “naturally maternal” figures looking for outlets for their boundless maternal instincts. Despite the large number of women that choose not to pursue motherhood, it’s very difficult to find romantic stories not trying to sell us that message.
Maggie – I’m very interested by your perception that while Edward came across as a strong caretaker, Edythe came across as a mom. When I read an alpha male, I think of him as a character who directs power and resources at protecting and caring for the heroien. When I read an “”alpha female,”” I think of her as someone who directs power and resources at an external goal, such as a career or a cause (like Courtney Milan’s suffragette Frederica). I think I would also find an “”alpha female caretaker”” to be neither fish nor fowl.
I also typically want to “”want”” the hero for myself (it’s possible for the author to sell me on a hero I think is right for the heroine but whom I don’t find attractive, but that’s harder to do). I would definitely not find Beau appealing – the last thing I need around here is someone else trying to toddle into traffic!
Now, I haven’t read m/m or f/f. So it would be interesting for me to look at a same-gender story which includes the same dynamics.
I like that term “”alpha female.”” It takes the term away from men who are associated with positive traits such as strength and power, and allows women to share in them. On the other hand, I might worry that some already have deemed the alpha female a “”B__ch”” though because our society generally does not look kindly upon strong and powerful women who focus energies on something other than caretaking. Sounds as if Meyer’s alpha female is just a ramped up caretaker though, which is far less interesting or innovative.
I didn’t get a mom vibe at all from “”Edythe”” in fact to me she came across as much flirtier with Beau than Edward ever did in the beginning with Bella. I got an old school femme fatale feeling from her and her interactions with Beau. She seemed much more coy and cat and mouse while Edward just seemed tortured. But again, this is my interpretation based on a fresh reading of “”Life And Death”” and not having read “”Twilight”” in a while.
While I will agree there were instances where Meyer’s mindset came through, (such as when the gender of Billy Black was changed to female and she no longer had tuned the truck herself but “”had it tuned””) I think the main disappointment with “”Life And Death”” is that most readers of this and the romance genre in general don’t want a female character who is the alpha and a male character who is the beta. I’m not saying there isn’t a group of readers who do appreciate this, and many who read all types of romances and enjoy variation, just that there is a reason why the runaway best sellers have alpha males. It’s what a majority of the readers prefer.
What a fabulous evaluation- thank you!!
On another note: THANK YOU for reminding me to get back to reading Psychology Today! I actually studied psychology at university, and back then I had to go to the local library to read paper copies of previous issues. :)
Love Psychology Today. I almost always find their articles intriguing and enlightening.
I’ve not read this book and probably never will, but one thing I’ve heard from other readers is that Meyer kept the same mindset for her female vampires as she had for her female humans, and the same mindset for her male vampires as her male humans…??
I’m not going to try and analyse it, but for so many (including me sometimes) the appeal of the genre is the man who is so powerful and so sure of himself, with a woman (or teenager) who is the opposite. It’s a big part of the fantasy for many romance readers.
So, of course reversing the situation wasn’t going to work for many Twilight fans.
But, eh – I’m blonde and thin. Meyer devoted the entire final book in her series (with more subtle insults through the rest of the books) to blonde “jokes”. Which inspired the so-called “Twilight Moms” to devote a section of their site to jokes about so-called “dumb blondes”.
Which inspired Fifty Shades of Grey to pretty much do the same.
Which inspired the entire NA subgenre to be a cesspit of misogyny.
Meyer is a misogynist, who admitted in interviews she wrote the series as “revenge” against pretty girls.
So, yeah.
I’m a feminist. And she hates women who don’t look like her.