Breaking Dawn vs. Forever Dawn

With the release of the Twilight movie this weekend, I thought I would share another thought I had on Breaking Dawn (2008).

I already talked about the Twilight series here. Quiet some time after I wrote that, something Stephenie put in her Breaking Dawn FAQ finally clicked. In the FAQ she explains that she originally wrote the series as two books - Twilight and Forever Dawn. After the success of Twilight, she wrote two more books, bringing the total to four in the series (so far).

She also outlines the differences between Breaking Dawn as it was published, and as it was originally written (read after "How different is Breaking Dawn from Forever Dawn? What changed, what stayed the same, and why? Will you ever post extras from Forever Dawn?")

What I realized is Stephenie allowed her characters to grow organically as she wrote New Moon and Eclipse. But with Breaking Dawn she was trying to bring the many of the story elements back to what was in her original Forever Dawn. Many of the characters evolved and grew in these two books and wouldn't be the same as they were in her first treatment. Stephenie still brought these characters back to many of the same situations with the same actions in her original version. This resulted in deeper and more complex characters being forced into roles, reactions, attitudes and outlooks that probably made more sense and felt more natural without the middle two books. This explains the disconnect that I, and many other readers, experienced in reading Breaking Dawn.

Now enjoy the Twilight event of the moment and feel free to let me know what you think of the movie if you see it (and if you have any more thoughts on Breaking Dawn, now that more time has passed).

Breaking Dawn, Midnight Sun & Note to Stephenie Meyer

If you are planning on reading Breaking Dawn (2008), Stephenie Meyer’s 4th book in the Twilight Saga, you might not want to read any further as this is full of spoilers. Although chances are that if you are going to read it, you already have.

My cousins touted Twilight (2005) since it came out. After two more books [New Moon (2006) and Eclipse (2007)], and deciding to catch up on young adult fantasy written by authors with Utah connections I jumped in. I listened to the first three books (Ilyana Kadushin does a GREAT job with the audio versions).

I found the books full of intriguing twists on vampires and werewolves, quite intense emotional energy and engaging characters. I found Bella frustrating - I didn't agree with a lot of her decisions. I have never been a 17 year old female, but due to the response of those I talked with Bella Swan really resonated with them. So if you are looking for a window into the 17-24 year-old female psyche, this could be a pretty good one. I never really connected with Edward Cullens in the four published books, but I did feel for Jacob Black. New Moon, which focused more on Jake and Bella's relationship is still my favorite of the series.

Breaking Dawn started off quicker than I anticipated and ended up going in direction I didn’t anticipate. It was unexpected to switch to Jake’s perspective, but it made sense as Bella wasn’t doing or seeing much. I enjoyed the book, but I was disappointed.

Throughout the other books becoming a vampire is presented as a sacrifice – loosing connections with family and friends, the ability to have children, control for a year, freezing your character and development. Yet Bella manages to not only keep it all, she even manages to control her vampire urges from the beginning. In fact, with Jake imprinting nobody suffers at all in the book.
It just seemed that Meyer didn’t want to have anyone not have a happy ending. It is not that I wished ill toward anyone, but I feel that some suffering or sacrifice or pain could make the happy endings happier and more powerful. It was a lost opportunity, a chance to add some contrast to the story and make the ending more of a cathartic experience. This is something that J.K. Rowling didn't shy away from in the Harry Potter series, as a recently well known example. Well known and liked characters suffered and died. It made the eventual triumph sweeter - more meaningful, poignant and real. Decisions usually come with consequences, including potentially painful trade offs, but at this point in the Twilight world, apparently they don’t.

Besides the universal lack of afflictions, there were a few other small issues that prevented Breaking Dawn from being more than just an enjoyable story for me. Alice’s disappearance didn’t throw me (perhaps I have just read too many books with psychics), but the deus ex machina revealing of Nehuel was jarring. It also would have been nice to spend more time with some of the other characters, but I realize that would have made the book waaay too long.

The stand off of the Volturi and the Cullens (and friends) was disappointing, but Stephenie did address that in the Breaking Dawn FAQ on her site (http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bd_faq.html). The whole Volturi/Cullens collecting of gifted vampires (whether planned or not) started to remind me of the Magento/Professor X mutant gathering in X-Men.

I kept waiting for either the vampires or the werewolves to realized that none of them asked to become what they had become. In fact, Bella is the only one out of the multitudes of supernatural creatures that consciously decided her transformation. No one ever verbalized this though.

Do I still recommend Breaking Dawn? Yes, but not as not as strongly as I felt I could have. It does appear to be the end of Bella’s story as the uber-Bella is now immortal and unchangeable.

Luckily, Meyer opened up so many plot threads that I am sure she is planning to return to this world of sparkly vampires and werewolves/shape-shifters the size of buffaloes. First we have the introduction of several new and intriguing vampires. The Volturi are still in power. Then there is news of Johann somewhere in South America trying to create a super-race of half-breed vampires. (Do you think there is any chance he was involved with the Nazi’s?) Something is going on with Billy Black that was never explained. And while this is not the last loose thread, Edward commented that Jake could have competition for Renesmee with Nehuel. With all of these elements that Meyer can pick up and use in new stories, I would probably hold off on buying the forthcoming The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide (due out Dec 30, 2008) because at some point they will need to update it.

Meyer could use Midnight Sun (unpublished but available on http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html) to begin to address some of the shortcomings in the series by filling in holes and providing explanations missing in the other books. So far she hasn't, but in the dozen chapters available in the partial draft I finally began to identify with Edward. (Although I don’t buy it that after 80 years a mind reader doesn’t realize that he dazzles and overwhelms human females. Also, I must have skipped over it but when did Edward tell his family that he couldn’t read Bella’s thoughts? Let me know where it happened if you know. Thanks. It just seemed that this would have, or should have been quite a discussion among the Cullens. It intrigued the Volturi after all.)

I imagine that after things blow over with the Midnight Sun leak, and perhaps Meyer has written another book or two, she will come back to finish this. I would also be interested to get Edwards perspective on the New Moon events, especially the time he spent in South America after Victoria.

As if Stephenie Meyer would ever read this, my recommendation to her would be to take the opportunity in writing companion books to the original three Twilight Saga books to fill out the vampire characters some more, and to lay some background so some of the events and “revelations” in Breaking Dawn don’t feel like they are coming out of the blue just to help tie up the story line. If you are interested, Stephenie, just let me know and I can go over my concerns in more detail and even some possible ways you could address them. I will just wait for your email.

For those of you who can't wait for any more Twilight books, at least you will have the movie in November, and if that does well I am sure more movies will follow.

Parallel Stories

I have a brother in-law who collects versions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , the original version being A Christmas Carol: In Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843) illustrated by John Leech. Several years ago my wife and I gave him Marley's Ghost (2000) by Mark Hazard Osmun (currently out of print) which tells more about Jacob Marley's life and his activities behind the scenes getting the various ghosts involved with Scrooge.

Around that time, I also read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow (1999) which overlaps the award-winning story in Ender's Game (1985), also by Card, but from the character Bean's perspective instead of Ender's.

I have since then encountered several other classic or favorite stories with other books published telling the story from another character's point of view. Most of the time, the stories fill out the background on some of the minor characters, fill in gaps between events or give behind the scene activities, and then possibly carry the story beyond the end of the original - at least in regards to the originally minor characters.

In fact with Card, he has now created an entire Shadow series that continues the story of several of the characters introduced in Ender's Game, helping to bridge Ender's Game with Speaker for the Dead (1986) and other books in the Ender series.

I was aware that for Hamlet (ca 1600) by William Shakespeare, we have the parallel story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) by Tom Stoppard. While I researching this I discovered not one, but two books written with Ophelia as the principal character - Dating Hamlet: Ophelia's Story (2002) by Lisa Fiedler and Ophelia (2006) by Lisa Klein. (Is there something with Lisas and Ophelia?)

Fiedler apparently followed up her Ophelia book with a companion story to Romeo and Juliet (ca 1596) by William Shakespeare titled Romeo's Ex: Rosalind's Story (2006).

For Macbeth (ca 1605) by William Shakespeare, there is Enter Three Witches (2007) by Caroline Cooney.

I wouldn't be surprised if other authors haven't already tackled more of the Bard's work in this way, although there seems to be a recent surge in this type of novel and they seem to be targeted to young adults.

As the movie The Lion King (1994) is draws several plot elements from Shakespeare's Hamlet, perhaps it is not too surprising Disney did a direct-to-video prequel/mid-quel in the vein of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with The Lion King 1 1/2 (2004), showing that Timon and Pumba's lives intersected and inadvertently affect Simba's story before they actually appeared in The Lion King. (Both of these Disney movies are in moratorium at the moment.)

Gregory Maguire wrote Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1996) which is not really a parallel story to the The Wizard of Oz (1900) by L. Frank Baum and originally illustrated by W. W. Denslow, but rather a story telling the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West in an Oz that is an amalgamation of lands, creatures and characters from the other Oz books Baum wrote, with key elements from the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939), but I think it draws on enough of the original story it can be included here.

The last example I have is from the recent vampire novel Twilight (2005) by Stephenie Meyer. This is told from Bella's point of view. Meyer has started book chronicling this story from Edward's perspective which is currently called Midnight Sun. On Meyer's website you can download and read the first chapter by clicking on the links on this page: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/otherprojects_midnightsun.html.

With the exception of the stories by Card and Meyer, the parallel versions were written by a different author. Most of these weren't done as a parody, but rather as a means of examining or enlarging on themes or plots covered or suggested by the original. Most of the time characters developed and grew beyond the scope their appearance in the first work allowed, increasing the depth of the original.

While Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a comedy, it stands on its own as it deals with some philosophical issues that the original really couldn't go into. (As does The Lion King 1 1/2, although from what I remember the additional themes it deals with are rather shallow.)

If any of you know of other parallel stories out there, please share them.