Yep, I did it. I finally gave in and read the latest fangirl craze that's spawning all the vampire-themed novels, movies and TV shows. Despite the tepid to horrified reviews I'd heard, despite the fact that I've always considered vampire stuff to be rather silly, and despite the creep-out factor I get every time Robert Pattinson shows up on posters and magazine covers, I gave it a try.
Somewhat to my surprise, therefore, Twilight wasn't quite as painful as I expected. Granted, that was partially because it was often so bad that it broke through to hilarious. But not completely.
The story itself isn't bad at all, good enough to have me looking forward to the next book. It's cliched, of course, but stories become cliche for a reason. The secondary characters are well done, and I might even like the two main characters if they weren't so cursed annoying.
Unfortunately, the core of an engaging world and a decent story is destroyed by terrible, horrible, no-good prose and narrative voice. I blame a very large part of this on the first-person point of view. First of all, the main effect of a brooding Byronic hero is destroyed when you only see him from his lover's point of view--Bella only see the good in Edward, which is as it should be. The reader is supposed to see the torment, angst and eventual triumph of good over evil or whatever, but because we only see through Bella's eyes, there's no real development of the duality. Second, you can tell us that Edward is a very good looking guy the first time we meet him, and then maybe once more as the relationship really gets going, but after that we'll remember, I promise. You don't have to remind us in every single paragraph for the remainder of the book. And finally, if you're going to build up to a dramatic rescue and crazy vampire fight as the climax of the book, don't make your only POV character unconscious for the vast majority of it. That was a big disappointment >_<
I could go on, but as I mentioned earlier I liked the book enough to continue the series, so there's really no point in picking it apart bit by bit. One more thing I'd like to share though--one of those so-bad-it's-funny moments:
Ever since these books have hit it big, I've been seeing derrogatory references to "sparkly" vampires--often comparing the Twilight variety to the real bad-boys of modern vampire lore. I just assumed that it was just a way of saying that the Twilight brand were wussy little vampires, too pretty and sweet to deserve the name. Nope, silly me :-p Meyer's vampires quite literally sparkle in the sunlight, as if they had crystalline skin o_O
Really? Sparkles?
So, the full title is Cesar's Way: The Natural, Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Correcting All Common Dog Problems by Cesar Millan, Melissa Jo Peltier and John H. Mayer, but that wouldn't all fit in the title line.
We recently adopted a new puppy to be a playmate for our first dog, and I figured that with so many furry bodies around, it wouldn't be a bad idea to read up on them.
Gratuitous puppy pictures! For those of you who haven't seen Cesar's show Dog Whisperer on TV (and I've only seen a few episodes myself), Cesar is very, very good at working with dogs, fixing their "issues" and retraining the humans that gave them those issues in the first place. His life story, which takes up the first few chapters, is a good enough read in the first place--grew up on his grandfather's farm, watching and learning from the working dogs there. And we're not talking well trained, expensive purebred sheep dogs here, we're talking mongrel mutts that learned how to coexist and be useful in order to earn their spot on the farm.
Cesar's way is not easy, but it's well-reasoned and sensible. The main claim is that a happy dog knows his position in the pack, and that the only proper position is that of follower--the human must be a pack leader at all times and in all situations. His prescription for a balanced dog is excercise, discipline and affection, in that order. So that's lots and lots of excersise, a good heap of discipline, and affection only at the proper times. He recommends, at a minimum, 1.5 hours of walking every day, 1 hour in the morning and at least half an hour in the evening. You're only allowed to show affection at certain times, and must refrain from showing it at the wrong times. This amounts to a tall order! Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to have two wonderful dogs that are fairly laid back and submissive to start with, so hopefully half an hour most days is enough. (sorry puppies!)
However, the importance of regularly walking your dog and the ability to claim the pack leader position are two lessons I walked away with, and I'm fairly confident that all dog owners would benefit from reading Cesar's insights, even if they can't go all the way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)