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Page 1&2: analysis on Twiligt and background story
Page 3: Fun Facts on Jacob, Bella and Edward
See translation below
English translation page 1:
Vampires, Love and Worldsuccess
On friday the vampire movie "New Moon" has it's premiere. When SF (Swedish Film) started the ticket sales their website crashed. It's common. All over the world Stephenie Meyers book "Twilight", that the movie is based on, set teen hearts on fire. Why do female readers love the lovestory between Bella and the vampire Edward?
It all started innocent with that Stephenie Meyer a mormon, housewife and mother of three, woke up in her bedroom, with the dream from the night still in her mind. The dream was about a vampire who falls in love with a girl. Meyer, who'd never written before, sat down by the computer and started writing. Three months later "Twilight" was written.
Encouraged by her sister she searched up addresses over the internet and sent the manuscript to 15 publishers and agencies. Nine of them answered with a "Thank you, but no thank you", five didn't respond at all and one agency, Writers House, would consider a meeting. Writers house held an auction and the publisher Little & Brown & Company bought the rights to a trilogy för 5 million sek.
Today the Twilight books has sold 85 million copies. Breaking Dawn, the last part in the Twilight series, sold 1,3 million copies during the first 24 hours in USA; the small town of Forks, Washington, where the story takes place, is overflowing with young tourists, barack Obama reads the saga with his daughter and Meyer has an annual income on 350 million sek. One can assume that the 14 publishers that turned down the offer the first time around feels like Dick Rowe at Decca Records felt after turning down the Beatles.
The Twilight books are about the teenage girl Bella who moves to Forks and falls in love with the schools hot guy, vampire Edward. Their relationship gets complicated by the fact that he is afraid he might bite her. The more complicated it becomes when Bella's friend Jacob, a werewolf, is also becoming fond of her. Twilight is a languishing triangle.
The success of Twilight is a fact but the question persists: what is this enormous popularity of? What is it that has made millions of girls around the world to read through the series, adult women too, just look at the website twilightmoms.com?
Why is the combnation vampires and teen problems such a winning concept? The explanations are several. Johanna Lindbäck, one of the bloggers at Bokhora.se, thinks that the temptation lies within that Meyer drags the lovestory to the edge. In other teenage novels the girl always asks themselves: "did I say something strange, do I have ugly clothes, will his friends like me?". In Twilight Bella ask herself: "Are we going to be able to live together or will he eat me up?".
Yvonne Leffler, professor of literature at the university of Göteborg, says that theese kind of books largely corresponds to our existential concerns. She is now working in a research project that examines how mass media forms as romance fiction, horror, fantasy and crime fiction can serve as a place to which we turn for "answers to our questions in life and for help with making the right life choices".
The Twilight-saga is about standing on the edge to adulthood, to approach the sexual, but it also concerns the classic teen issues such as: "what is the meaning of life?", "what happens when I die?", "Is there something supernatural?".
A more obvious temptation with Twilight is of course the beautiful vampire Edward Cullen. He manages the trick of being the suave older man (he is over 100 years), considerate of the young high school boy and the animal operating-headed beast in the same person. He is also because of his love for Bella, prepared to override his own instincts.
-It is an attractive feature in a time when young women feel compelled to be physical and sexual, while they're fed with stories of physical violence and rapes.Here instead, it is about love, the soul's communion, which perhaps is what you crave.
If they're is something Meyer has succeded with, it is to find the balance between security and excitementwhat you crave, says Per Magnus Johansson, Associate Professor of Science and Ideas History, psychoanalyst and president of the Swedish Psychological Association Ethical Council.
- Edward is a moderate danger, with just the right tenderness. And the history offers some danger, some confusion, but we know it will go well in the end. Here you can move closer to the adult life's dangers in a comfortable chair in time, " says Per Magnus Johansson.
A more comprehensive explanation for the success of Twilight is the part of the triumphal march as a serial format, made during the 2000s. Harry Potter, the Millennium Trilogy and the Twilight series has hit down like bombs in the publishing world. In the same spirit, the American TV companies has chosen to invest their money in television shows rather than feature films. Thousands of pages or 50 episodes offers greater opportunity to bond with the characters and go up in the world that is theirs. And escapism is, for those who do not understand it yet, the 2000s absolute fashionable drug.
Somewhat revolutionary is the fact that the Twilight series gives us the story of the cheesy girl who's entangling the popular guy. Stories on the contrary, were the male nerd may get the cheerleader, we've almost seen to much of .We've seen it in lots of American movies, like "American Pie," "Knocked Up" and the new "I Love You, Beth Cooper" . And, not least, in a more sophisticated version, all Woody Allen movies.
- All our female readers who ever feel half cheesy can identify with Bella, "says Johanna Lindbäck.
Bella is the person to whom it is most divided on among fans. She arouses bad blood among some . "The most unrealistic of the series are not vampires, it is that Edward can fall in love with someone like Bella," says a friend jealously. "If she could at least be funny or clever. Or cool as Lisbeth Salander. But she is thankless, boring and grumpy. A real SOP."
Page 2
The psychologist Per Magnus Johansson find it fascinating that Bella's character is so complex that it lends itself to multiple interpretations.
Yvonne Leffler thinks, unlike my friend that Bella is brave, that she is "the girl who can".
"She dares to associate with vampires, she dares to go against her father when he forbids her to meet Edward.
She takes responsibility for her choices and she is more mature than her mother, who can not take care of herself.
It is not just Bella's character that divides the readers in to camps. When the books style and IDEA-CONTENT was debated here in the Swedish Dagens Nyheter (Daily News) last year there was angry voices.
Books were subversive or sexistic? Were they pretty wellwritten or stylistically abysmal? are they chaste or erotic?
"It's the duplicity that makes the series so exciting. The books call for discussion of gender roles both negated and affirmed. It reflects our complex lives, "says Yvonne Leffler.
And of course we live in an age where feminism is more widespread than ever, while reality shows Barbie and Ken defile past the long lines. That the books of Stephenie Meyer would be mocked by critics, was almost given.
Mixing horror with romance, two genres with low status, is making it difficult for yourself.
And littratur that appeal to a female reading group, like romance and chicklit, automatically becomes disparaging, sometimes undeserved, sometimes not.
-In this case, it is only to compare with Harry Potter, which in my opinion has less literary quality than the twilight series, but nevertheless has become more reputable, "says Yvonne Leffler.
Regarding the possible harmful in reading the twilight series it is far from over.
Adults have always been concerned about the young people's consumption of everything from comic books to horror movies and video games. Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard, examines the book "A clean sheet and other myths about human nature" (Nature & Culture), the research carried out on junk culture and its possible effects on children and adolescents. He doesn't finds any convincing evidence that such consumption by the culture of violence would make us violent,but sees instead the claim that an unusually vibrant myth in an otherwise so-statistics-based world.
Johanna Lindbäck is not the least bit worried that young readers might be damaged by reading the twilight series.
Young people are much smarter than that, she says. Lindbäck compare with her watching a romantic comedy on channel 5 one Sunday evening, relaxing, easy to digest and not very depraved.
When Johanna Lindbäck read the first book with a high school class last year she tried to discuss the dubious elements,such as Bella's helplessness and Edwards strength, but students felt that they belonged to the document.
It would have been a different matter if Edward was a man, they said, but he is a vampire and vampires are strong and sometimes involuntarily heavy-handed.
-Most people learn to differentiate between fiction and reality in three age of four, "said Yvonne Leffler.
Lotta Olson, DN's children's culture editor, is more critical. She finds it hard to believe that adults would be equally enthusiastic about the kids devour in the twilight books if they would read them themselves.
-In the first parts Stephanie Meyer conceal her right-Christian views, but the act in the last book is to say the least indigestible with such violence, and an extremely distasteful anti-abortion view.
While discussions about the books continues Stephanie Meyer writes on. She is now 35 years, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, do not drink alcohol and have never seen an R-rated film. She doing in her home by the tree sons running around the legs. No single room is here.
Her husband, "Pancho", as she has been married since they were both 21, have resigned from their accounting firm and become home-husband.
And productivity is nothing wrong. A sequel to her new adult novel, "Through your eyes" (B Wahlströms) is already on its way, and she has written the first chapters of a ghost story during the working title "Summer house".
As part of the longed-for "Midnight Sun" that would give Edwards perspective on the twilight story,leaked on the net, Meyer was so hurt and upset that she postponed the release indefinitely and instead added some parts of the text on her website.
The new movie, "New Moon", will premiere on Friday, both here and in the United States.
John "Chris" Weitz (who made "about a boy") is the director and Kristen Stewart continues to play Bella and
Robert Pattinson Edward. Meyer says on her website www.Stepheniemeyer.com she withdrawn from the press, but last Friday she made an exception to talk about the movie with Oprah Winfrey, to Meyer, her bombastic language faithful, are so "happy and ecstatic and surprised" by the film version.
Keeping the fans happy is difficult, "says Stephenie Meyer. "Whatever I do, people will get mad at me," she told Entertainment Weekly. But it tends to resolve itself. She recalls that the network was boiling with anger when Robert Pattinson got the role as Edward, but that bloggers now write things like
"When God created Robert Pattinson was just to impress."
Pattinson has since the premiere of the previous film taken Twilight hysteria to a whole new level. He is said to be horrified by all the attention. Wherever he goes there are teenage girls screaming, "Edward" and pulls and tugs at him until he bleeds. On an inoficilla list over celebrities most pressed in the world Pattinson would end up on a steady second place behind Barack Obama.
To say that there are as many interpretations as there are readers is in this case perhaps an exaggeration.
But it is obvious that there is more to get than stylish vampires and stumbling teenagers.
The phrase most often recurred during my interviews is: "She is smart that Meyer .."
Page 3
Everything you need to know about Twilight
The four books takes place in the small town of Forks up in the forests of north-west USA. We meet Bella, Edward and Jacob in a passionate triangeldrama. Here is DN's guide to the Twilight world.
EDWARD-VAMPIRE
Edward Cullen 17 years (104 years) is one of five siblings in a vampire family living in a large house just outside Forks.His father, a doctor, has created the family by biting already dying people. Edward is supernaturally beautiful, with marble skin and topaz-colored eyes, and likes to dress strict and classical. He is very romantic and overprotective. When Edward and Bella just met he rescues her from being hit on the school's parking lot. It is the start of their love story.
Image text: Topaz colored eyes that are black and shimmering red when he is bloodthirsty. Marbleskin.
Three things:
Edward has a white grand piano where he composes his symphonies. He writes a lullaby to Bella as a proof of his love.
His favorite prey when he is hunting is the pumas. He says that it is because the Pumas are most like him. Edward has a sporty silver Volvo with many features.
Vampire Facts:
In the Twilight world, vampires have no fangs, and prefer to bite on the wrist. The Cullen family aren't drinking human blood but animal blood. They call themselves "vegetarians". When they get thirsty, their eyes get black and darkened. Unlike traditional vampires, which is burned to ashes in the sun, their skin is glistening "as millions of crystals".
Forks:
The small town of Forks, located in Clallam County, Washington and has about 2 000 inhabitants. Following the success of Twilight there are a lot of tourists there to see the environments from the books. Forks has extremely few days of sunshine a year-thus a perfect place for sun shy vampires.
BELLA-HUMAN
Bella Swan 17 years, moving from her mother Renée in Arizona for her father Charlie in the small town of Forks. In the school cafeteria, she sees Edward Cullen and becomes instantly fascinerad. They sit next to each other in biology class, where he smells the scent of her blood. Bella is an ordinary girl, a little girl-next-door in jeans and blouse. She has pale skin, easy to blush and is described as the charmingly clumsy.
Image text: Broken fingernails because she has a nervous habit of biting them. Bella can hide her feelings, therefore, Edward can not read her thoughts .Halfmoon shaped scar on her arm after being bitten by James, a vampire hunter.
THREE THINGS
Bella loves Emily Brontë romantic 1800-century classic "Wuthering Heights". She reads them over and over again.
By Jacob she gets a bracelet with a small carved wooden wolf. Later Edward puts a crystal heart on it.
Bella's dad gives her a rusty old pick-up, a red Chevy, as housewarming gift. She calls it her "sanctuary".
JACOB-WEREWOLF
Jacob Black is 16 years growing up in Indian Reservation outside La Push Forks. He's family descended from wolves therefore he is a werewolf. He has long black hair, like tinkering with cars and is often dressed in dirty jeans and t-shirt. At first, he is a normal teenager. Then he grows abnormally and becomes strikingly muscular. He is Bella's best friend.
THREE THINGS
Around the ankle Jacob has a black band, which he lace his denim shorts when he turns into werewolf.
When Bella visits Jacob, he offers a warm soda that had been in a paper bag. It is one of Bella's recurring memories.
Jacob has half miserable car which he has built of old parts.
Werewolf Facts:
Mind reading: In wolf form, werewolves in the pack can hear each other's thoughts - on more than fifty miles away.
Striking: Each wolf has a soul mate - a person who is the "stamped on". Werewolf is what that person needs to be - a friend, a sibling, a lover. When the wolf sees him or her, it is described as if "a blind man can see the sun for the first time."
Image text: As a werewolf Jacob fur is thick and reddish brown. He is huge - it is said that he is as big as a horse - and he can not talk.
BOTTOM PART PAGE 3
Stephenie Meyer
Stephenie Meyer was born in 1973 in Hartford, Connecticut.June 2nd 2003, this housewife and mother of three woke up after having dreamed about a young woman who falls in love with a vampire. During three months she wrote the first book in the Twilight series. Then she had never written before. 14 of the 15 publishers and agents who looked at the script said no. Stephenie Meyer currently lives with her husband and three sons in Phoenix, Arizona, and writes full time.
Twilight in the figures:
750 000 : Number of dollars that Little & Brown & Company paid for the rights to a trilogy.
85 000 000 : Number of copies of her books sold worldwide.
70 000 000 : number of dollars that Twilight movie pulled in the first weekend in U.S.
Sales in Sweden:
Twilight: 182 000
New Moon: 152 000
Eclipse: 160 000
Breaking Dawn 80 000
Books:
Twilight: Bella moves to Forks and meet Edward for the first time, they become a couple. Jacob is still a supporting character.
New Moon: Edward leaves Bella, for fear of harming her. Jacob and Bella become friends.
Eclipse: Edward returns to Bella and now starts the big triangle drama between the three.
Breaking Dawn: Two of the three are finally a couple. Further, we will not.
In courtesy of Dagens Nyheter Kultursöndag
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