Twilight and the High Life: A Concise Introduction

Welcome to Twilight and the High Life, a cultural elitist's journey into the world of popular literature! In this blog I will be writing about my reactions to the insanely popular series of teen vampire novels by Stephenie Meyer. I don't know what to expect from these books, but if society's winds are any indication they will be a genuine, if somewhat guilty, pleasure. I look forward to sharing my reactions in as entertaining a manner as my effervescent prose style allows. Please be kind.

If you've read any of my previous blog, 80 Days of Toscanini, you'll know that I am a classical musician by trade, and a relatively snobby one at that. Why, then, am I venturing into a very popular subject matter, and one so far removed from what it is I do for a living? The less lofty answer is that my orchestra is currently on strike and I'm frankly a little bored. I have not yet read any of the Twilight books, and doing so while writing about my reactions to them seems like a good way to kill some time in a reasonably enjoyable way.

The deeper reason has to do with my constitutional fear of being left out of a cultural phenomenon. This may stem from a childhood in which I was always afraid of there being a party or some other form of social excitement to which I was not invited. I've never liked the idea of there being fun times going on to which I was not privy. So to this day, despite the high-brow cultural milieu I immerse myself in as a matter of both personal inclination and professional necessity, I regularly find myself drawn into the world of the uncultivated and the faddishly mainstream (or is it just my own myopic view that leads me to see it as uncultivated?). I frequently watch South Park and Family Guy on the same day I've rehearsed Beethoven and Brahms, and there's nothing about that that doesn't make sense.

The time has finally come where I must admit that Twilight has become a true cultural phenomenon. Lots and lots of people are talking about it, and I can't talk about it with them, because I have never read the books. I have also not seen any of the popular series of films based on the Twilight novels, because it just seemed kind of silly to watch them before I'd read any of the books. I greatly admired Kristen Stewart's performance in Adventureland, and Robert Pattinson gave Hufflepuff House great respectability in the fourth Harry Potter film. It's time to see the movies and experience more of what these fine actors can do, but first I want to read the books.

I should caution you that the very nature of this blog requires a big spoiler alert. I will be writing about my reactions to what I've read, and I can't really do that without describing the plot points of the books , at least to some extent. Many, many of you will have already read all of the Twilight series, but if you have not done so or have any interest in doing so this blog will probably be of little interest.

I hope this will be fun! I will post again when I've done a bit of reading.

Happy Friday!