Twilight

No wonder my tuition kid can't put this book down when i'm teaching. Its hilarious really - She'll sulk and ask for breaks and tell me not to teach so that she can read her book. Its' the first time that had ever happened to me, I was at a loss to impose my decree to continue with math or let her carry on with her fascination with the written word.

I would think one of the main draws of the abovementioned novel is that it reads like a classic romance...... girl meets boy, girl finds something wierd about boy....... they undergo several hardships, but eventually live happily ever after. Of course, the main character being female, the book has obvious attractions to the average female student. It doesn't help that the prose is peppered with liberal sprinklings of how "his shirt could not hide his chiselled chest" and "the slabs of muscle on his arms flexed in a raw display of power" and all that. Oh, how my heart is a-flutter. The author does go about it rather discreetly though, drawing the potrait of love without the usual physical hangups.

The pacing of the novel is not bad, although it spends the majority of it's time exploring the growing relationship between the two lead characters. It almost felt as if the antagonist of the latter half of the story was thrown in as an afterthought. Of course, their star-crossed love would face difficulties throughout the course of the novel, but it is hardly noticeable. And of course it's so exciting to do something that everyone disapproves of... Stirs up the rebel in everyone.

Overall, it was unputdownable. Whilst i know most people would tell me thats not a word, but i beg to differ. No other word comes close to describing the zest and vim of a novel that keeps the reader sufficiently entertained from cover to cover. I had a test today, so I HAD to put it down last night before sleeping. Today i had no such excuse, and finished it off thoroughly and satisfactorily.

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Now, because i have a bad habit of doing other things when i should be doing my work, let's take a look into an analysis of "Twilight" in the framework of the monomyth (The Hero's Journey)

Can anyone identify the 17 Stages of the Monomyth?

1. Departure

a. Call to Adventure

b. Refusal of the call

c. Supernatural aid

d. The crossing of the first threshold

e. Belly of the whale

2. Initiation

a. The road of trials

b. Mother as Goddess

c. Woman(man in this case) as temptress

d. Atonement with the Father

e. Apotheosis

f. The Ultimate Boon

3. Return

a. Refusal of the Return

b. The Magic Flight

c. Rescue from without

d. The crossing of the return threshold

e. Master of Two Worlds

f. Freedom to Live

This is taken liberally from the wikipedia article on the monomyth.

I know what homework someone is getting next week....... muahahahahhaha.