Which is it?

One of the first questions I ask my students about a book or story they've read is which character they most relate to, which character they are reading for, following, rooting for.

Usually, the question is easy to answer, though many times, my students disagree about it. It's often easy for me to tell this about myself, though. I am so rapidly thinking about this, as well as so many other elements, that I know before I've even bothered to ask myself. I know what about them makes me sympathetic to them, what things they've said and done that remind me of me or someone I am fond of. Why certain things make me jump, make me anxious, what personal wish I am allowing the characters to fulfill for me.

So, in answering questions about why I like the Twilight books, I have to determine which character I am reading for.

The standard answer, for many people, especially people who don't actually read the books, is that women read them because they are in love with Edward, or similarly, want someone like Edward to fall in love with them. I do not dispute that, as I read these books, I think something like that to myself. I make jokes about wanting a vampire boyfriend, but what I think the books remind me (and perhaps others) of is that we want is a truly selfless love. We want to be sacrificed for. It's easier when there are always lives at stake, vampires hunting us, suicides to prevent. But, even if there are no deaths imminent, we want to know, without any question, that that is how our partner would react. Devotion.

There are other elements to this relationship that we desire, too. That there are no power struggles, no petty games. Sure, Bella doubts her worth at times, doubts that she is "enough" to hold on to him, or to hold his interests. But, there are not, as there are in many relationships, problems with someone calling someone else, or someone having all of the power over someone else... essentially, they both love each other equally and are not afraid to openly admit it. They are not battling for power, maybe because they trust each other, maybe because the book is fiction and can avoid that annoyance.

Edward has just the right amount of jealousy, just the right amount of fear of losing her. He protects her, fights for her, etc etc.

Is that, though, really why I am reading?

Or is it because I care about and understand Bella? Because she reacts in, seemingly, the same way I have, and I would? She is stubborn and pushy, she lets Edward in, she trusts him and accepts his flaws, she doubts herself but still doesn't back down. She is almost paralyzed, without being afraid to admit that its caused by his absence. She doesn't let herself remember the best times because she knows that even happy memories would hurt (in the second book, when they've "broken up").

I think Bella is the one I am following, the one I am concerned with. That second book made me feel like someone had broken up with me and I was thinking simultaneously "fight harder! get over it" and "maaaan... that is exactly what I would do."

Emerson said that genius is defined as knowing that what is true for you is true for all. And this is perhaps where Stephanie Meyer's real genius lies... creating a Bella we see ourselves in. Even when I get mad at her, when I try to make her act in a different way, I also know I'd probably have made a similar mistake.

Don't get me wrong. I love Edward. But there is no part of me that wants them to end up apart. And this is because I think that, as perfect as he is, she is just as good.

Garbage in, genius out.

My mom's nurse, without noticing that I have Twilight in my hand, says that movie is "trash." She doesn't say it the way that we all do; she says is hatefully, satisfied that she has said it.
We both smile bleakly, the way I did a few months ago when a stranger or near-stranger discussed the status of Barack Obama as heathen, anti-christ, etc.
Unencouraged, she continues.
"I don't know why anyone would make that. It makes me sick to see the name of it when I drive past the movie theater."

"Oh, yeah, it is kind of trashy," I say, wishing the conversation would end so that I could keep reading it.
I mean it; it is.
I hold it up, and defend my honor quickly.
"I'm and English teacher, though. I deserve the occasional mental recess."
"Garbage in, garbage out," she says. To my face.

My mom steers the conversation in a different way, discussing all of the good books that I teach, all of the funny or clever things my students say, the way my students are affected by my teaching.

I know that it would make me a better person, is some way, if I were reading a better book, one of the many I have on my shelves. But I also know that any book can do what all books, even good books, are supposed to do.

Feel. For the characters, for myself, for the people around me.
Think.
Re-contextualize.
Examine. My motives. Another person's feelings. A relationship. A book I read two years ago.
Make connections. Between anything that the books sparks in me.

If my brain is really on, and if I am really critically thinking, any book can do that. Well, maybe not any book, but certainly these books. They are well-written, thoroughly conceived and wrought with genuine emotion. Not just adolescent emotion.

In a manner of speaking, Edward and Bella's tragic tale is garbage. But that is only a small view of it. And that is only if the person reading the book is only thinking of him or herself. Or only thinking of what happens next. And not what all it means, implies, says about the fictional or real world.

If you have a brilliant mind following the pages, then it's not garbage at all.