Wuthering Heights x 4

Picture from http://goo.gl/BdoK

However any of us may feel about the Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer--which I admit, I have read--it is interesting to see how the release of the novel has an effect on what teens are reading. According to an article in the Telegraph (it's been in my inbox for a week and I've just now had time to get to it), sales for Wuthering Heights has quadrupled over the past year because Edward and Bella refer to it in Twilight. These teens are beginning to do what I do, as an avid reader: go read whatever it is characters are referencing so they have a working knowledge of the references. This is the first step to understanding allusions.

Publishers are taking flak for changing the cover of Wuthering Heights to this, which appeals to the vampire romance-loving teens. According to the Albuquerque Examiner article from April 11, 2010, the covers of Romeo & Juliet and Pride and Prejudice have also received a Twilight make-over.
Rachel Harcourt, a buyer at Tesco, which seems to be the Wal-mart or SuperTarget of the UK, says,

The new sleek black gothic-style covers of Wuthering Heights clearly appeal to lovers of vampire romance stories and are helping them to try out a different read. Anything that encourages teenagers to read good books is welcome as there are so many distractions which prevent today’s youngsters from developing reading as a hobby.

I'm inclined to agree. Anything that encourages teens to read at all is fantastic in my book, whether it be the newspaper, or graphic novels, the Twilight Saga, or captions on the television.

End of the Twilight

I am finally done with the Twilight Saga, having finished the fourth installment, Breaking Dawn, this morning. This one I received as a Christmas present from my mother, who made me wait the two days until Christmas (I was with her on the 23rd when she bought it) to read it.

After having talked to my students at the end of the semester about this novel (I had two reading it at the time), and the fact that my cousin, the original Book Buddy, told me how it ended, I thought I knew what to expect.

I was wrong.

Sure, Bella turns into a vampire. I think everyone saw that coming. But don't things like that usually wait until the end of novels? Point for you, Stephanie Meyer for not being quite that trite.

One of my criticisms of the novel at the beginning was that I felt like the mirroring of the stories with canonical literature was more overt than necessary. Take the Romeo & Juliet plotline from New Moon. Romeo is exiled from Verona = Edward goes into self-imposed exile in Italy. Romeo gets the message wrong and things Juliet is dead = Alice only se

es part of the story when Bella jumps off a cliff and Edward thinks Bella is dead.

I could go on.

But... and there must be a "but"... But from what I here, there are more teenagers (because the Twilight Saga isn't just for girls) reading the classical literature now, or at least enough that a re-release of many of the classics with more attractive covers (not the boring Signet Classics covers) was deemed necessary, as was the inclusion of these titles in the Young Adult section of the bookstore. Please note that I'm not complaining. This is merely an observation.

But back to Twilight. I'm going to admit that the catalyst for reading the novels was the trip to the movies with my boy-cousins, only one of whom--the aforementioned book buddy--is an avid reader. That particular book buddy was disappointed with the end of this series. Much like he was disappointed with the end of Harry Potter. I'm not sure any end of a series is ever particularly satisfactory. Not once you've been up close and personal with a character. I, however, was satisfied with the resolution and can now effectively put this series behind me.

I will admit that it has made me curious about vampire and werewolf lore, especially with the talk of the difference between Jacob's pack of shape-shifters and the Children of the Moon that scared Caius so much.

It really is unfortunate that many of my students are daunted by the size of a novel and are so easily bored if it isn't constant action. I think there are many who would enjoy and relate to the Twilight Saga. And yes, though I was opposed to it in the beginning, I did enjoy the story.

So there.

I can't believe I'm actually reading this but...

Over Thanksgiving, I took four of my boy-cousins, ranging from 10 to 18, to see New Moon. On Saturday, when I got back to the great NM from Indy, my niece and I watched the first Twilight movie. After New Moon, my oldest boy-cousin and I decided that we actually have to read the novel (much to my chagrin, even though I'd resigned myself to it before). Two of my students, who are both currently working on Eclipse, giggled at me when I said I was going to start the series. Giggled like "ha, ha, we won!" type giggling.

Thing is, I don't know where I'm going to read it and not get made fun of. I'm sure that my nieces, even thought they've seen the movies, will make fun of me for reading it. Ah, well. I must find my Twilight confidence. Thing is, one of my book buddies already told me how it ends.