Twilight is a series of four vampire-themed fantasy romance novels by American author Stephenie Meyer. Released each year from 2005 to 2008, the four books chart the next teenage years of Isabella "Bella" Swan, a girl who moved to Forks, Washington, and fell in love with a 104-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen. The series is told primarily from Bella's point of view, with the epilogue Eclipse and Part II of Breaking Dawn narrated from the standpoint of Jacob Black's character, a werewolf. Midnight Sun is unpublished from the first book, Twilight , from the point of view of Edward Cullen. The Second Life novella of Bree Tanner , which tells the story of a newborn vampire that appeared on Eclipse , was published on June 5, 2010, as a hardcover book and on June 7 as a free online ebook. The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide , the definitive encyclopedic reference with nearly 100 colorful illustrations, was released in bookstores on April 12, 2011.
Since the release of the first novel, Twilight , in 2005, the books have gained huge popularity and commercial success around the world. The series is most popular among young adults; the four books have won many awards, notably the 2008 English Book Award for "Children's Book of the Year" for Breaking Dawn, while the series as a whole won the 2009 Children's Awards Award for Favorite Books.
In November 2011, the series has sold over 120 million copies worldwide with translations to at least 38 different languages ​​around the world. The four books of Twilight have sequentially set the record for 2008's biggest selling novel on Today's USA Today list and have spent more than 235 weeks in the New York Times List of Best Sellers for Kids Series Books.
The books have been made into The Twilight Saga movie series by Summit Entertainment. The film adaptation of the first three books was released in 2008, 2009, and 2010 respectively. The fourth book was adapted into two full-length movies - the first film released in November 2011, and the second film in November 2012.
Video Twilight (novel series)
Plot summary
Dusk
Bella Swan moved from Phoenix, Arizona to live with her father in Forks, Washington to allow her mother to travel with her new husband, a minor league baseball player. After moving to Forks, Bella finds herself involuntarily drawn to a mysterious, handsome boy, Edward Cullen and finally finds out that she is a member of the vampire family who drinks animal blood rather than human blood. Edward and Bella fall in love, while James, a sadistic vampire from another coven, is interested in chasing Bella. Edward and the other Cullens defend Bella. He escapes to Phoenix, where he is tricked into confronting James, who tries to kill him. He's badly injured, but Edward rescues her and they return to Forks.
New Moon
Edward and his family leave Forks because he believes he endangers Bella's life. Bella is depressed until she develops strong friendships with Jacob Black, whom she finds able to transform into a wolf. Jacob and the other wolves in his tribe had to protect him from Victoria, a vampire who tried to avenge the death of his partner, James. Due to a misunderstanding, Edward is sure Bella is dead. Edward decides to commit suicide in Volterra, Italy, but is stopped by Bella, who is accompanied by Edward's brother, Alice. They meet with the Volturi, a powerful vampire coven, and are released only on condition that Bella will turn into a vampire in the near future. Bella and Edward reunite, and she and the Cullens family return to Forks.
Eclipse
Victoria has created a "newborn" vampire army to fight the Cullen family and kill Bella for revenge. Meanwhile, Bella is forced to choose between her relationship with Edward and her friendship with Jacob. The vampire family of Edward and the pack of werewolves Jacob joins to succeed in destroying Victoria and his vampire army. In the end, Bella chooses Edward's love for Jacob's friendship and agrees to marry Edward.
Breaking Dawn
Bella and Edward get married, but their honeymoon severed when Bella discovers that she is pregnant. Her pregnancy developed rapidly, greatly weakening her. She almost died giving birth to her daughter and Edward's half-vampire half-human daughter, Renesmee. Edward injects Bella with his poison to save his life and turn him into a vampire. A vampire from another coven see Renesmee and thinks of him as "eternal child". He told the Volturi, because the existence of such a creature violated the law of the vampire. The Cullens collect vampire witnesses who can verify that Renesmee is not an immortal child. After intense confrontation, the Cullens and their witnesses convince the Volturi that the child does not pose a danger to their vampires or secrets, and they are left peacefully by the Volturi.
Maps Twilight (novel series)
Main characters
Settings
The story is set primarily in the city of Forks, Washington, where Bella and her father, Charlie Swan, live. Other cities in Washington appear briefly in series or mentioned, such as Port Angeles, Olympia, Seattle and La Push. Several shows in Twilight took place in Phoenix, Arizona, where Bella grew up. Volterra, Italy, is featured on New Moon , when Edward travels there to commit suicide and Bella rushes to save her. Jacksonville, Florida, is mentioned first in Twilight and second in Eclipse when Edward and Bella visit Bella's mother, who has moved there with her new husband. Seattle, Washington, is featured in Breaking Dawn when Jacob tries to escape from his love for Bella, and when Bella tries to find a man named J. Jenks. This is also the location of a series of murders committed by a newborn vampire at Eclipse . In Breaking Dawn , Bella and Edward spend their honeymoon on fictional "Isle Esme", purportedly off the coast of Brazil.
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Structure and genre
The Twilight series falls under the genre of young adults, fantasy, and romance, although Meyer categorized his first book, Twilight, as a romantic romantic comedy comedy. However, he claimed that he regarded his books as "more romance than anything else". The series explores the orthodox romance between Bella's humans and Edward's vampire, as well as a love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob, the werewolf. The books do not discuss provocative sex, drugs, and abusive harassment because, according to Meyer, "I do not think teens need to read about sex haphazardly."
The books are written in the first person narrative, especially through Bella's eyes with the third book epilogue and part of the fourth book that comes from Jacob's point of view. When asked about the structure of the novel, Meyer describes the difficulty in determining the premise of a novel for a particular category:
I had a hard time with it. Because if I say to someone, 'You know, it's about vampires,' then soon they have a mental picture of what the book looks like. And that's very not like any other vampire book out there-Anne Rice and some of the ones I read. Not a dark and gloomy and bloodthirsty world. Then when you say, 'It's set in high school,' a lot of people immediately put it in another pool. It's easy to override different descriptions.
These books are based on the vampire myth, but the Twilight vampire differs in some special ways from common vampire knowledge. For example, Twilight vampires have strong piercing teeth rather than fangs; they glint in the sun rather than burn; and they can drink animals and human blood. Meyer commented that his vampire mythology is different from other writers' myths because he was not told about a vampire canon, saying,
Not until I knew that Twilight would be published, I started thinking about whether my vampire was too similar or too different from the others. Of course, I invested too much in my character at the time to make changes... so I did not cut fangs and coffins, and so on as a way to distinguish my vampire; it's just how they come to me.
Inspiration and theme
According to the author, his books are "about life, not death" and "love, not lust". Each book in this series is inspired by and loosely based on different classical literature: Twilight on Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice , New Moon on Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet , Eclipse in Emily BrontÃÆ'Â Â Â
The other major themes of this series include free choice and will. Meyer says the books are centered around Bella's choice to choose her own life, and the Cullens option to distance themselves from murder rather than follow their temptation: "I really think that's the metaphor that underlies my vampire no matter where you're stuck in life or what you think you should do, you can always choose something else, there's always a different path. "
Meyer, a Mormon, admits that his faith has affected his work. In particular, he says that his character "tends to think about where they come from, and where they are going, rather than what they usually are." Meyer also directs his work from subjects such as sex, despite the romantic nature of the novel. Meyer said that he did not consciously intend to make his novel a Mormon influence, or to promote the virtues of sexual abstinence and spiritual purity, but admitted that his writing was shaped by his values, saying, "I do not think my books will be very real or dark, because who am I. There will always be a lot of light in my story. "
Origins and publishing history
Stephenie Meyer said that the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003. The dream was about a human girl, and a vampire who fell in love with her but thirst for her blood. Based on this dream, Meyer wrote a transcript of what is now chapter 13 of the book. Despite having very little writing experience, in a matter of three months he has turned the dream into a complete novel. After writing and editing the novel, he signed a three-book deal with Little, Brown and Company for $ 750,000, an unusually high amount for first-time writers. Meyer's literary agent Jodi Reamer of Writers House found it only because the inexperienced assistant who received Meyer's original letter did not know that a young adult book should be 40,000 to 60,000 words instead of 130,000 words. Megan Tingley, editor of Little, Brown who signed Meyer, said that half of reading the Twilight manuscript, he realized that he had a future best-selling book in his hands. This book was released in 2005.
Following the success of Twilight, Meyer expanded the story into series with three more books: New Moon (2006), Eclipse (2007), and Breaking Dawn (2008). In the first week after publication, the first sequel, New Moon , debuted at # 5 on the New York Times List of Best Sellers for Children's Book Chapter, and in the second week up to position # 1, where it remains for the next eleven weeks. In total, it spends more than 50 weeks in the list. After the release of Eclipse , the first three "Twilight" books spent 143 weeks combined on the Best Seller List New York Times . The fourth installment of the Twilight , Breaking Dawn series, was released with an initial print of 3.7 million copies. More than 1.3 million copies were sold on the first day alone, setting a record in first day sales performance for Hachette Book Group USA. After completing the fourth entry in the series, Meyer points out that Breaking Dawn will be the last novel to be told from Bella Swan's point of view. In 2008 and 2009, four books from the series claimed the top four on the year-end list of USA Today's best-selling books, making Meyer the first author ever to achieve this achievement. The series later won the 2009 Children's Award Prize for Favorite Books, where he competed against the Harry Potter series.
Other books
Midnight Sun
Meyer originally planned to write a companion book to Twilight called Midnight Sun , which will be the story of Twilight that is narrated from the points Edward Cullen sees. He declared that Twilight was the only book he planned to rewrite from Edward's point of view. However, Midnight Sun's rough draft of the first twelve chapters was leaked on the internet. Meyer has since put these twelve chapters on his website so his fans can read them for free, but have delayed the project indefinitely because of his feelings about the situation. He stated,
If I try to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James might win and all Cullens will die, which do not match the original story. In any case, I feel sad about what happened to continue working on Midnight Sun , and so it's being held indefinitely.
Though he has no current plans to do so, Meyer also states that if he continues writing in the same universe he will write from the perspective of either Leah Clearwater or Bella and Edward's daughter, Renesmee Cullen.
Graphic Novels
On March 16, 2010 Yen Press released Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 , by artist Young Kim based on the first book in this series. In February 2011, the graphic novel won the Best Manga 2010 Award Gem of the Year. The sequel, Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 2 was released on October 11, 2011 and was followed Volume 1 in the topping of the New York Times Best Seller List for the Hardcover Graphic Book within the first week. On March 30th, 2010, Meyer revealed on her official website that she will be releasing a new novel in the second Second Life series from Bree Tanner that tells the story of a newborn vampire that appears on Eclipse i>, on June 5, 2010. The electronic version of the book is freely available from its website, as well as in bookstores.
Friends
On October 5, 2010, Little, Brown and Company announced that The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide, the definitive encyclopaedic reference for saga including character profiles, censored, conversations with Meyer, genealogical charts, maps and references wide cross with nearly 100 full-color illustrations, to be released on April 12, 2011, after many publication delays since 2008. It debuted at # 1 on the Best New York Times Seller List , where it stayed for three weeks in a row, and at # 4 on Today's Best Sellers list in USA.
On and Off
On October 6, 2015, Little, Brown and Company released the Twilight Tenth Anniversary/Life and Death Dual Edition, which included nearly 400 pages of novel concepts from novels with Edward and Bella who switched as Edythe and Beau. The concept novel has a more conclusive ending, apparently blocking its continuation through the three remaining Twilight novels.
Reception
Response to Twilight has been mixed. Although his books have become very popular, they have also caused much controversy.
Positive reception
Twilight has garnered praise for its popularity with its target readers. The Times praised for capturing "the perfect teen feeling of sexual tension and alienation." The other reviews described Twilight as "beautiful fantasies", and "a mixture gripping romance and horror". Lev Grossman from Time writes that the books have "pillow quality that clearly reminds fans of Internet fiction," but still praises the series, comparing it to The Lord of the Rings and < i> Harry Potter :
People do not want to just read Meyer's books; they want to climb into it and live there... There is no literary term for the quality of Twilight and Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. >) share, but you know it when you see it: their world has a standalone internal integrity that makes you feel as if you should be able to buy real estate there.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer calls this book "hot new teen novels", Entertainment Weekly calls Meyer "the most popular vampire novel in the world since Anne Rice", The The New York Times describes Twilight as a "literary phenomenon", and Matt Arado of the Daily Herald notes that the book Daily Honeymoon has become " The hottest publishing phenomenon ever since a certain wizard wizard spelled his spell in the world. " The large and diverse online fan community of this series is often noted, sometimes even called "cult like". Nevertheless, this series is often considered to have a wider appeal; Crystal Mack of the Daily Herald said, "While teenage girls are the main audience, boys and adults of both sexes have also been carried away in this phenomenon."
The writers and popularity of the series' are often compared to J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter . Describing fans following the books, Phoenix New Times write, "fandom Meyer reminds of the Harry Potter mania." The Daily Telegraph describes Twilight as "the spiritual successor to Harry Potter ". The Bradford Rebekah of The Post and Courier declares that this series has "a great crossover appeal like Harry Potter's book in their presence." According to the Daily Telegraph, "Stephenie Meyer, in particular, has achieved tremendous success in all English-speaking and European countries and many will say that the Twilight series has been filled with abandoned holes by Harry Potter. "Meyer has responded to the comparison, saying," It's very good to compare with him, but JK Rowling will never be another, it's a phenomenon that will not happen again, "but noted that "you can compare my fans with them.Features are easier than mine.I think that we both have people who are really very enthusiastic, and will come many miles to see you and get involved, and everyone really cares with our character. "
Economically, the city of Forks, Washington, the setting for the Twilight series, has increased due to the turism of the fans of the books. The forks are visited by an average of 8,000 tourists per month, and have been described as "mecca for the Twilighters". In response to plans for an old Forks School to be renovated, Twilight fans have teamed up with Infinite Jewelry Co. and the Association of Improvement of the Western Olympic Peninsula to collect donations in an effort to save the appearance of bricks or buildings altogether.
Negative acceptance
The series has garnered some good fame over the literary substance and over the kind of relationships described in the books.
Many scoff at this series as bad writing. When comparing Stephenie Meyer with J. K. Rowling, Stephen King said, "the real difference [between Rowling and Meyer] is that Jo Rowling is a great writer, and Stephenie Meyer can not write worthy. However, the King understands the attractiveness of the series, adding, "People are interested in stories, at speed and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it's very clear that she wrote to the whole generation of girls and opened a kind of safe joining love and sex in the books. It's fun and very thrilling and it's not too threatening because it's not too sexual. "
A quote from Robin Browne (though often mis-addressed to King or Andrew Futral) negatively compares the Twilight and Harry Potter series: "Harry Potter is about confronting fear, finding strength mind and do what is right in the face of adversity... Twilight is about how important it is to have a girlfriend ".
Laura Miller of Salon.com writes that "characters, like them, stripped down to a minimum, do not have the texture and weirdness of the real people", and say that "Twilight will be much better. persuasive as the argument that 'extraordinary heart' is more valuable than appearance if it does not constantly haunt Edward's superficial splendor. "
Elizabeth Hand of The Washington Post wrote, "Meyer's proa rarely rises above that which can be serviced, and the planning is leaden." Articles, displayed on Yahoo! Shine's website, also criticized the author's last books and words in this series, "Good books relate to themes of longing and loneliness, sexual passion and human weakness, alienation and fear like the Twilight book, but they do it by involving us with the complexity of feelings and subtleties of character, is expressed in a language that rises above the superficial mediocrity.Their rewards are something more than just escaping into mediocrity We deserve something better to get along with. "
Controversy
The books have also been heavily criticized as promoting, normalizing, and idealizing the emotional and harsh relationships. The Sci-fi io9 website notes that Bella and Edward's relationships meet all fifteen criteria set by the National Domestic Violence Hotline for being in a rough relationship. L. Lee Butler of the Young Adult Library Service Association commented how he was extraordinarily hesitant to keep the Twilight books in his library because he felt they were "robbing [the girls] of the agents and normalizing the stalking and rude behavior. " Many female and feminist-oriented media outlets, such as Jezebel, The Frisky, and Salon.com have denounced Twilight as promoting anti-women messages. The magazine stated that the novel "has created a new genre, popular" abstinence porn ", concluding that," In reality, abstinence messages - wrapped up in porn chromosomes abstinence - Bella objectifies in the same way that 'real' porn maybe. The Twilight books unite Bella lost her virginity by losing other things, including her sense of self and her own life. Such high abstinence treatment reinforces the idea that Bella is powerless, an object, a fact that is highlighted when we get to the sex scene on Breaking Dawn. " Ms. states that Twilight promotes physically abusive relationships and anti-abortion messages, but author Angela Aleiss of Religion News Service contrary to popular opinion, Mormon allows abortion when mother's life is in danger, Bella's refusal to abort her fetus, along with her marriage and rapid pregnancy, emphasizes Mormon's emphasis on the family.
Various psychologists have come out in agreement with a rough appraisal of relationships. Melissa Henson, director of communications and public education for Parents Television Council, stated:
For adolescents who are easily affected, domestic violence is almost romanticized. We have made great strides in recent years in communicating a message clearly that is never good for hitting women... Today, the hidden message in entertainment consumed by many easily influenced teenagers is that if he hits you, it's out of love - That is totally wrong.
Many entertainment and media outlets have made similar comments about Bella's nature and Edward's brutal relationships, including Entertainment Weekly , Movieline , and Mediabistro.com.
Meyer has dismissed the criticism, arguing that the books center on the choice of Bella, which he considers the foundation of modern feminism, and that Bella's girl is in a personality tribulation simply because of her humanity. Meyer also added, "Just because [Bella] does not do kung fu and she cooks for her dad does not make it worthy of that criticism". Shannon Simcox of The Daily Collegian has also ignored the criticism surrounding Bella, remarking, "While Bella plays the perfect girl in trouble that puts herself in a difficult situation, she is also very controlling herself.She chooses to move to Forks and being in a new place, he constantly faces a group of people who want to suck life from him, and he constantly begs to be a vampire, too, so he can take care of himself and Edward. "
Legal issues
In December 2010, professional singer Matthew Smith, known as Matt Heart, sued Summit Entertainment in the case of Smith v. Summit Entertainment LLC . The Smith song "Eternal Knight" is posted on several websites accompanied by a cover art that the claimed Summit uses its "Twilight" type sign. Smith won four of seven causes of action, including his right to continue the distribution of copyrighted songs, under the terms that he deleted any references to "Twilight" or "Twilight Saga".
Book Challenges
The Twilight series makes it number five at the American Library Association (ALA) Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2009, for "Sexually Explicit", "Not Delayed to Age Groups", and has a "Religious View ".
Movie adaptation
A scenario for Twilight was written by Melissa Rosenberg and has been adapted into a movie by Summit Entertainment. The film was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, with Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in the lead roles of Isabella Swan and Edward Cullen, respectively. The film was released in the United States on November 21, 2008. Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion , written by Mark Cotta Vaz, was released Oct. 28.
On November 22, 2008, following the success of Twilight's box office, Summit Entertainment confirmed the sequel, titled The Twilight Saga: New Moon , based on the second book in the series, New Moon . The movie was released on November 20, 2009. The Twilight Saga: New Moon was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 20, 2010 via a midnight release party. On the same day, Summit Entertainment released Twilight in Forks , a documentary about the main settings of the Twilight series , Forks, Washington. Entertainment Topics released their own documentary about Forks and the Twilight series on March 16, called Fork: Bitten by Twilight .
The third installment in the series, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse , was released on June 30, 2010. The fourth installment, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 was released 18 November 2011, And the installment fifth and final, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 released November 16, 2012.
Convention
While the Twilight series has been evident in many conventions such as ComicCon, there are also many conventions whose main focus is on the Twilight series (books and movies). Some important conventions are Twicon and a series of "Official Twilight Conventions" hosted by Creation Entertainment.
See also
- The Host (movie 2013)
- Host (novel)
References
External links
- Official website
- Stephenie Meyer's website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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