Host Haste

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

As a NaNoWriMo vet of years, I've seen a certain magic that can happen just by someone writing and writing and writing. Preferably so with a few peers around: They get a sense of grammar. They get a sense of literary flow. They get a sense of what doesn't suck. They get a sense of what makes for an awesome story.

And I am jealous as fuck not for me, but my fellow Wrimos that Stephanie Meyer's drivel got published while their carefully crafted and re-crafted prose does not.

I really don't care that her religion informs her creepy stalker-vampire plot. If she applied a bit of grammatical syntax (or at least indicated she knew she wasn't) I'd feel better. If she actually bothered to make her stuff readable and not sound like mary-sue fanfiction, I'd think she earned her cred.

I don't blame Mrs. Meyer. I blame the publishers who put her books on the shelves. I blame the people who bought and devoured her drivel. I blame the state of affairs that that is what makes money and informs a huge swath of what human relationships should look like.

And yes, I know I sound completely elitist. It's literature. We should ALL be elitist. YOU ALL SHOULD BE MORE LIKE ME!

238U

 

[Zydrate]

I might enjoy the Host a bit more (despite being a gay female who is utterly tired of romance triangles in general) because it doesn't butcher accepted and functional lore. Vampires have a bit of wiggle room to be creative, but fucking sparkles? Really?

Ultimately it's how the female protagonist acts around and with the two boys (Men?).

Does she act on her own accord?
Or does she exist soley to be the eventual romantic partner of one of them? (Or both, this is 2013 after all)

 

[Entitled]

It seems incredibly pretentious to call the woman's work clumsy, or to say that she is untalented despite the fact that her books are adored by many people around the world. The thought is that she is untalented, and her readers are just idiots.

Sure, I am not really a fan (saw most of the movies, never read the books), but it seems like everyone's starting point is that Meyer is an untalented hack. Maybe we should take a step back and reconsider that premise.

It's entirely possible that she has a good skill for picking up themes and narratives that interest a large audience, and at the same time a bad writer in terms of wordcraft.

There ARE several badly executed elements in her novels that any experienced analyst would consider clumsy, and these are NOT the same elements that har fandom adores, but the ones that it ignores.

J.K.Rowling also managed to push some very universal and effective buttons of her audience with Harry Potter, but she managed to do so while even the more elitist art analysts have admitted that her work is at least professionally/decently/skillfully put together, she is not a hack who just happened to have an interesting premise and a viewpoint.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Are you familiar with the term Outsider Art?

Nope.

It more or less means what it sounds like it means; an art world term for artwork made by people who are not themselves part of said world, i.e. they don't have formal art education, training or even don't self-identify as artists.

OH MY GOD are you serious? Am I reading this right? Formally educated "art people" have an actual named category into which they put all art that is created by plebs who lack a formal education in art? Oh my god. Oh my god. I think I need to sit and think about this fact for a while. And then read about it.

 

[Entitled]

I can accept that. I just think that maybe it's a little pretentious to say that she has done something wrong and that her audience just ignores it. If there is a right way to write a book, those people who love these books don't know it, and it hasn't affected their enjoyment.

There is a difference between pretentiousness (as an attitude/mannersim), and elitism (as the sociological worldview that some people are more valuable authorities on a given issue than others).

Sneering at Twilight fans, or calling them "unwashed masses" and "rabid fangirls", who are too stupid to learn about the intricacies if "proper literature", is pretentiousness.

The claim that there are skilled literary critics that can notice details that average Twilight readers don't, is elitism as a worldview.

The latter doesn't necessarily have to imply that Twilight fans are inferior beings, (it might very well be that the literary connisseours are the ones who are obsessing over useless details), but it's still a fact that the technical details of writing ARE there, and they can be interpreted.

Issue reminds me of http://xkcd.com/915/

 

[Baresark]

As someone who attended college studying fine arts, I really enjoyed this take on the overall ideas of how the literary world sees Stephanie Meyers works, as related to the concept of Outsider Art. I'm with you completely, the whole thing that the overall "art community" does with outsider art is completely uncomfortable. I once got into an interesting debate at a sandwich shop with a guy who eavesdropped on my conversation about, only to have him accuse me of not knowing anything about art because he is an artist and is by extension, within that community, which I could never understand (he didn't know my qualifications, if such a thing even exists in this sense). Very insightful article.

 

[Baresark]

I wonder if there has been a personal response from ms. Meyer on all the feedback she gets?

Haha, her official response is in the form of cashing fat checks.

 

[Camaranth]

Like her or not Meyer created something the popular conscious really ......consumed?....(I wanted to write enjoyed or devoured but it just feels wrong). Being an "Outsider artist" probably helped her, not being aware of set tropes and choosing to ignore how common lore stated things should work. I'll admit I when I first read the book I thought sparkling vampire to be an interesting idea and then I read the rest of the book.

Here's the thing I don't read to criticize the work. I don't read looking for sentence structure or grammar (assuming that what is written isn't so bad as to be unreadable). These things help to enjoy what I'm reading but they, mostly, register subconsciously.

I'm reading to enjoy the story. Most people are the same. If you can spin a tale that people are interested in you don't need a formal education in how things are supposed to be done to make people read it.

 

[Baresark]

With regards to Twilight, I have no problems with people bringing up the stupid characters, the plots where nothing happens, the sexual politics, etc. I get annoyed when people start arguing "vampires and werewolves don't work that way", as if zoologists have observed these fictional creatures in their natural state and made broad conclusions about them. I get this from the vampire LARPers I used to hang out with, many of whom perfectly accept that vampires from different fictional universes almost never work exactly the same, but for some reason Twilight is the one singled out for this.

You're damn right, Captcha!

I couldn't agree more. They were nitpicking that so bad when that was probably the only good part (as in a new fresh idea governing the two very fictional species) of the story. All I could think was, "all of the bad parts of that series, the lackluster writing, the shallow characters, the just uncomfortable and unbelievable character interactions, and your complaint is that werewolves and vampires aren't really like that?"

 

[Orange12345]

I don't know bob, it seems to me that Meyers books are just the "Expendables" of the movie industry. They are not trying to be art they are just trying to be fun and enjoyable and there's nothing wrong with that just because it's not aimed at the "bro's"

 

[MovieBob]

Are you familiar with the term Outsider Art?

Nope.

It more or less means what it sounds like it means; an art world term for artwork made by people who are not themselves part of said world, i.e. they don't have formal art education, training or even don't self-identify as artists.

OH MY GOD are you serious? Am I reading this right? Formally educated "art people" have an actual named category into which they put all art that is created by plebs who lack a formal education in art? Oh my god. Oh my god. I think I need to sit and think about this fact for a while. And then read about it.

More or less, though in fairness it at least started out with mostly noble intentions. The animating idea was that, by the mid-20th Century, the art world and art-academia world had gotten much too intertwined; so you basically had multiple generations where most of the artists were people who went to art school (and thus had overly similar backgrounds and frames of reference) and too much of the art getting made and shown was reacting/decontructing/commenting on or about OTHER art more than anything else - and that this wasn't healthy, because you were missing out on art being made as honest creative expression of the self. So, applying "art world" exposure and critical-analysis to things like "amateur" paintings or roadside wood-carvings or "junk sculptures" that might possibly be brilliant but otherwise wouldn't be noted.

Unfortunately, it got commodified on the upscale/trendy "collectors scene" VERY quickly and it became more about the "characters" making the art than the art itself (i.e. "this is interesting, but it'd be worth MORE if the 'artist' was a one-eyed hillbilly frog-catcher who'd never seen a TV before!") which is where the condescending angle crept in.

 

[Something Amyss]

I get the feeling that the "art critics" judging "outside art" as Bob puts it in this article, might actually be absolutely correct, but that fact is drowned out by it being seemingly blind hate.

Yeah, I'm not sure the problem is the critics so much as the hate bandwagon.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not a Twilight fan. I just think the bandwagon is a little ridiculous.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Hate to be the one to point it out, Bob, but you didn't review all 5 Twilight movies for The Escapist. You reviewed the first one (which included the immortal line "Having to watch this movie is the most pain I've experienced at the hands of something beloved by preteen girls since I got kicked in the nuts by a pony") when you were still independant.

 

[Chaos999]

This is why I mostly hate critics. If someone makes millions with books and movies there has to be something about them that people like.
The first movie I liked the second was not that good, but still better than a lot of movies I?ve seen and I saw many. And by many I?m probably in your category. Anyway, the third I haven?t seen it yet. My critic isn?t only about Twilight but about movies which make many million, but critics still hate them.
But let?s get to the point. No matter what anyone says if that many people were paying for a third movie. Then they had to like the others and no matter how you turn it, this is art. Even if it goes against everything that defines art and even if every critic in the world hates it. In the end that?s their problem because it has to do something right or so many people wouldn?t watch it.
I understand that critics should present a deeper knowledge about the material, the acting and the presentation of movies. But like all art rules don?t apply to it. And most critics judge by predetermined rules. But art cannot be judged.
I don?t say you have to like it but as a critic you have to accept it as art even if you don?t understand it or like it.
(The last sentence made me laugh. I hope you understand why )
And by your statements I am happy that you slowly get to understand this.

If there are many big errors in my text let them be. My written English is still bad

That argument does not hold up, millions saw the second and third Transformer movies and they are objectively god awful.

Actually it does. If the first movie was that bad I wouldn´t watch the second and if the second was that bad I wouldn´t watch the third. I don´t know about you but I think most people wouldn´t watch it as well. Besides being a "good movie" isn´t the point. I am just saying they have to do something right or people wouldn´t come back.

 

[sweetylnumb]

I liked the host. i was surprised as, after all, look who wrote it. Haven't seen the movie yet, ill probably hate it afterwards.

 

[Oly J]

I have never seen, or read Twilight, nor do I intend to, so I do not feel qualified to talk on the subject of Stephanie Meyer's work but to be honest when reading this I got the impression that, she was so inept that Bob couldn't help but point it out, yet so sincere that he felt guilty for picking on her

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Are you familiar with the term Outsider Art?

Nope.

It more or less means what it sounds like it means; an art world term for artwork made by people who are not themselves part of said world, i.e. they don't have formal art education, training or even don't self-identify as artists.

OH MY GOD are you serious? Am I reading this right? Formally educated "art people" have an actual named category into which they put all art that is created by plebs who lack a formal education in art? Oh my god. Oh my god. I think I need to sit and think about this fact for a while. And then read about it.

More or less, though in fairness it at least started out with mostly noble intentions. The animating idea was that, by the mid-20th Century, the art world and art-academia world had gotten much too intertwined; so you basically had multiple generations where most of the artists were people who went to art school (and thus had overly similar backgrounds and frames of reference) and too much of the art getting made and shown was reacting/decontructing/commenting on or about OTHER art more than anything else - and that this wasn't healthy, because you were missing out on art being made as honest creative expression of the self. So, applying "art world" exposure and critical-analysis to things like "amateur" paintings or roadside wood-carvings or "junk sculptures" that might possibly be brilliant but otherwise wouldn't be noted.

Unfortunately, it got commodified on the upscale/trendy "collectors scene" VERY quickly and it became more about the "characters" making the art than the art itself (i.e. "this is interesting, but it'd be worth MORE if the 'artist' was a one-eyed hillbilly frog-catcher who'd never seen a TV before!") which is where the condescending angle crept in.

Sounds like it would've been more accurate to label their own work as "insider art" and leave everyone else's just named "art". In any case it's just bizarre to me. Doesn't such a categorisation undermine the whole concept of art itself? Or maybe it's just the wording. Information on the web regarding the origins of the term "outsider art" was easy to find and very consistent (though my googling turned up little on the current use and meaning). It seems it was originally called 'Art Brut' (French) which is a much more accurate and less condescending term, and does not translate into anything like "outsider art". I think it says something about the English-speaking world that we took an honest, even flattering term for pure art and translated into something that reeks of snobbery.

 

[nerdwerds]

Interesting points about outsider art but they don't apply to Stephanie Meyer because she got her book deal through nepotism.

 

[Remus]

Outsider art or not, the fact that the aliens are called "souls" sets off my preacher sense. I don't enjoy being preached to in movies no matter what clever trope is used to disguise it. The Invasion had a similar plot - aliens invade Earth, possess everyone, bring world peace, but a few people revolt etc etc. However it didn't have any religious subtext or weird love parallelograms. There's a number of reasons why I never watched Twilight or for that matter any of the Narnia flicks. But many of them were eerily similar, Twilight with its clever vampire morality and Narnia with Jesus as a lion, both founded upon the belief structures of the authors. This is just another teen flick that I'll now actively avoid watching since it's guaranteed to tie up a daily slot on FX as soon as it hits DVD.

 

[Artemis923]

One can only imagine what these same projectionists will make of The Host, which is yet another instance of an impressively novel, creative reworking of the alien invasion template

The "Soul" aliens are basically the Yeerks from the Animorphs series. I'm pretty sure there was even a book in that series where one of the main characters gets possessed, learns to cooperate with her parasite, and eventually parts with it on reasonable terms. I'm not sure "novel" is what I'd go with to describe the story of The Host, maybe "an underutilized trope" or something similar.

Yeerks were freakin' awesome.
I think I need to go to Bookmans and buy as many Animorph books as I can find.