“ Bella’s character, in accordance with the conventions of the most finely mashed romantic fiction, has no features at all, apart from a mild emo-ish dysthymia (‘I didn’t relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn’t relate well to people, period’) and an accident-prone streak, causing her to need a lot of rescuing (clumsiness, ‘most characteristically tripping’, is according to Toufic often a sign that a person may be ‘crossing the threshold’ to the ‘altered realm’). As Helen Fielding did with Bridget Jones, Meyer has hitched a ride on the Mr Darcy plotline, but without bothering to give her heroine any of Elizabeth Bennet’s spirit – raising a reprise of the Bridget question, why would a man of any style or substance fall for a lummox like her?
Jenny Turner, regarding Twilight
3 years ago
