Screened: Catching Up

Same disclaimers as the books piece, but with what little commentary I already wrote staying put. (Not included: a second trip to the theater for Bridesmaids and a failed attempt to watch Biutiful, which proved that there are indeed limits to my desire for Oscar-field completism.)

May 1: Rabbit Hole

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 3: Dick

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 4: Requiem for a Dream

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 14: No Strings Attached

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 20: Blue Valentine

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

May 25: Bridesmaids

Screened: In the theater

June 23: X-Men: First Class, Jane Eyre, Fish Tank

Screened: In the theater, In the theater, Netflix Instant Watch

Yeah, so the day may have been "Michael Fassbender's Out-of-Control Hotness"-themed. (I started to watch Inglourious Basterds, too, but I fell asleep in the middle.) What of it?

I guess I liked X-Men, but with serious reservations. The lack of historical specificity in this movie is irking me. It seems like the creative personnel behind the movie had an idea of wanting to set it in "The Sixties," but were then unprepared to tie it to a specific date with the way the story ultimately uses the Cuban Missile Crisis. The few period songs seem oddly placed - my mind is still trying to wrap itself around the use of "Palisades Park." It's very stylish, but in a way that struck my eye as very post-British Invasion. (The most striking example of this weirdness is alleged-CIA agent Moira McTaggert in her miniskirt-suit, which no professional woman by any means would've worn to the office. In my imagination, January Jones' first costume fitting for Mad Men Season Five involved Janie Bryant asking some form of, "What on earth was going on with that movie?")

Ultimately, I'd love to have another two hours of James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender smoldering at each other, but I'm not particularly attached to X-Men as the context in which that needs to happen.

Jane Eyre was a gorgeous film, and did a solid job of condensing the book's material. There were a few odds and ends I'd have liked to see make it in - the story with Mr. Rochester and Adele's mother, the girl St. John has a crush on and the contrast between her and Jane in perceived suitability to missionary life and of course, the classic Brontë weirdness of the whole "Rochester poses as a old fortune-telling gypsy woman" thing, which never seems to make it into the adaptations. (Hey, after watching all these movies in fairly short succession, I believe Michael Fassbender can do anything.) The casting worked really well, too - Jamie Bell has a sort of quiet intensity that made him well-suited to playing St. John. And while Fassbender has a sort of magnetic screen presence, this adaptation really allowed Mia Wasikowska to shine as Jane and show why she's our heroine.

June 28: Super 8

Screened: In the theater

July 2: Inception, The Social Network, Black Swan

Screened: At home, DVR from HBO; personal collection

July 9: Peyton Place

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

July 17: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Screened: In the theater

Someday, when I have the time, I'm totally going to write a series of posts devoted to nitpicking the entire series of Harry Potter movies - for some reason, this series provokes that impulse within me in a way that no other adaptations do. I felt like this was a solid conclusion to the group of films, but also found that it really showed how many emotional beats and story threads from the books were sacrificed in favor of plot efficacy over time.

July 21: Red Riding Hood

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

Idle Thoughts

If Harry's mental connection to Voldemort is a byproduct of his being an inadvertently-created Horcrux, with all the soul-fracturing-and-storing that implies, then were Snape's Occlumency lessons ever really going to work?

Books Read: August 2010

August 6: One Day by David Nicholls

August 10: Dear John by Nicholas Sparks

August 13: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

In the past, before each new Harry Potter volume came out I would re-read all the preceding books. It became sort of a soothing summer ritual; it also means that I've read the first four books (Goblet of Fire became the division point because it's my favorite) many more times than the final three. I missed that old ritual, and the film of Half-Blood Prince has entered that endless loop of HBO play, so I decided to pick the book up again. It'll be interesting to see whether the Deathly Hallows movies pick up on any of the dropped themes or plot points from the book; I understand why they condensed the Pensieve memories, but the book places a bit more emphasis on the similarities between Harry and young Tom Riddle, which in turn could have lent more emotional heft to the film.

August 13: The Romantics by Galt Niederhoffer

I read Niederhoffer's previous novel, A Taxonomy of Barnacles, a few years ago, and when I saw in the trailer below that this novel had inspired the film, I decided to pick it up. Reading descriptions of the book made me wonder if it was set in the present day; indeed, though it is, it has what felt to me like a very retro take on white ethnicity, setting up conflict between Jewish Laura, Catholic Tom and WASP Lila. The characters' strong sense of social divisions generated from these backgrounds felt at times like a relic from Erich Segal's heyday.

I still feel like I'm not sure whether I liked this book or not. I'm genuinely unsure about whether Niederhoffer intended for her characters to come across as such horrible people. "Friends" usually connotes even a minimal degree of mutual affection, but I never believed that any of the characters ever liked each other. More like the kind of enmity-disguised-as-friendship that prompts normal people to abandon the relationships once they've left whatever school/employment that temporarily forces them into close proximity. As I'm sure is obvious from the television shows I like to watch, I like stories about unsavory people of all sorts as long as they're made with clarity, skill, and self-awareness. I just never felt like I could get a firm handle on assessing those qualities (particularly the last) in the book.

Can I rant for a minute? My personal rule of thumb in fictional depictions of Yalies is: if the author mentions secret societies more than residential colleges, it's a no-go. Normally I hate to be a nitpicker, but the inaccuracies made it difficult to tell whether Niederhoffer was intentionally making her characters seem like idiots. (I'll just cite one example: Laura remembers meeting Tom for the first time as a freshman on the Old Campus, where he asks her how to get to Linsly Chittenden. Now, if this is a serious question, he's an idiot. For 5/6 of the school's freshmen, this would indicate that one has walked out of the front door of the building in which they live and immediately misplaced a building that is more or less directly in front of them. There are buildings on the campus that are difficult to locate; LC is simply not one of them. If it's not a serious question, then she's an idiot for finding such a lame ploy charming. And I'm going to stop now, because I sound like an insufferable elitist just like this book's characters.) Wikipedia indicates that Niederhoffer went to Harvard - I don't understand why she didn't just utilize the environment with which she was already familiar. I'm pretty sure the characters would still be snobs either way.

August 14: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

August 28: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay is a slow starter, with too much time devoted to the specifics of life in District 13, but once it gets going it provides a haunting conclusion to the Hunger Games trilogy. Collins deserves a lot of credit for being unwilling to pull punches - Mockingjay often depicts a brutal, violent world and never shies away from the consequences of the war at its center - the post-traumatic stress that lingers over each of the Games' "victors" throughout Mockingjay gives the book an emotional heft that wasn't quite present in the previous two books. The end isn't so much "and they lived happily ever after" as "and they lived, for whatever that's worth."

Word is that the film rights have (unsurprisingly) been picked up - it'll need a director and screenwriter with a sensitive touch and a flair for nuance to really pull it off. Hollywood seems to like these things a bit more cut-and-dry than what Collins offers - it's not good vs. evil so much as evil vs. lesser evil, and is there really such a thing as a "lesser evil" anyway? - and the relative mishandling of The Golden Compass doesn't necessarily portend great things for another trilogy rooted in ambiguity and the kinds of questions about life that many don't think need to be asked in works that are ostensibly "for children." With a sense of gravity and a good cast, a film could well capture the world of the books, but without it risks replicating the exploitation that the book critiques. We'll see.

Screened: July 2010

Working my way through the backlog!

July 2: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Screened: In the theater

As I'm sure is fairly obvious, a lot of my enthusiasm for the Twilight phenomenon has waned, but I can still recognize that this was by far the best film overall and the best adaptation of the three released so far. There's a lot going on in Eclipse, but David Slade and Melissa Rosenberg did a great job of condensing the book, especially the flashbacks focused on Rosalie, Jasper and the Quileutes. It was also Taylor Lautner's best outing so far as Jacob; I'm still skeptical about his chances as far as successfully communicating the whole teenager-in-non-pedophiliac-love-with-a-baby deal, but he does seem to be growing as an actor.

July 6: Remember Me

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

I was spoiled on the "big twist" of Remember Me back when it was out in theaters, so I was anticipating the film's dramatic trump card. I think there's probably a good film to be made around everyday lives interrupted by tragedy, but Remember Me piled so much moody drama on its protagonists prior to the climax that it was hard to appreciate the things that it did well.

July 10: When in Rome

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

There has to be a resurgence on the horizon for romantic comedies, right? Where the powers that be decide to trust the chemistry between a given pair of actors rather than strained contrivances? It would just be too grim if this was a portent of things to come.

July 15: Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Screened: At home, on TCM

July 18: Inception

Screened: In the theater

There's no question that Christopher Nolan is one of the best directors working today at executing intricately designed set pieces. At its best, watching Inception was like watching a complex puzzle putting itself together. It was a nail-biter - I literally chewed off one of my fingernails while the film made its way through the tense segment of layered dreaming. I can't help but wonder whether Inception might have been even better as a second film - I keep wishing that we could have seen more of "extraction" before we got to "inception." A film focused solely on extraction could have established all the exposition that Inception's universe needed and given more depth to the characters, while the themes that shape the idea of inception could have more room to breathe, and the ultimate ending to Inception wouldn't need to be different. This is all purely speculative, of course, just sort of thinking "aloud."

July 22: The Runaways

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

A good movie, but trying to do too much with too little time kept it from being great. The film had a sense of not knowing which of its interesting subjects to follow, which wouldn't have happened if whoever was in charge had decided to focus the film specifically on Cherie Currie rather than "The Runaways." Still, solid performances from Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon, and probably the one role in her filmography that's best-suited to Kristen Stewart's particular persona.

July 22: The Prestige

Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix

July 24: I Capture the Castle

Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch

I started watching Memento, but found myself dozing off about 45 minutes in, and that's really not the kind of movie that forgives a brief nap in the middle. So I switched to that old reliable standby of drowsy weekend nights, the Brit-lit adaptation. A lovely little movie that shows economy in adaptive storytelling and gets at the heart of Dodie Smith's wonderful novel.

July 27: Good News, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Big Chill

Screened: At home, personal collection

A trio of rewatches perfect for puttering around the apartment, crossing items off my to-do list and knitting gauge swatches. Good News is climbing up my list of favorite musicals - the "jock falls for smart girl" story is one of Hollywood's favorite tropes, but I love that Good News gets resolved without the heroine having to change anything about herself. It's probably as feminist as 1940s MGM musicals ever got.

July 29: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Screened: At home, on HBO

My thoughts haven't changed much since my initial impression, but I will say that Emma Watson's performance improves upon repeat viewing. Hopefully, the degree to which she's tapped into the emotional core of Hermione's relationships with both Ron and Harry will enhance the Deathly Hallows detour into Melodrama In The Woods.

Adaptations: Harry Potter 6

In the vast majority of book-to-film adaptations, I am a totally flexible viewer. There's no possible way to translate everything from a book to the screen, nevermind the highly individualistic experience of reading. They are different media, each with its own merits. Generally speaking, I'm not a "but that's not the way it was in the book!" kind of person, and a lot of times those kinds of people drive me nuts. There's just something about the Harry Potter movies that brings out the crazy nitpicker in me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince very much, and thought it was a good movie and a solid adaptation of what is a fairly lengthy, exposition-heavy book. Still, I can't quite resist my own inclination to quibble, so here are some things I wish the movie had done differently/better:

- The tone

Despite having a fantastically choreographed introduction in the bridge destruction scene, the film never quite delved into what, in my opinion, is one of Half-Blood Prince's strengths - the backdrop of a world descending into darkness. The book gives the impression of incidents like the bridge collapse happening nearly every day, creeping over into the Muggle world and creating a sense of terror and dread among the wizards. Even the time at school is peppered with students being pulled from school, or learning that relatives have been attacked or killed. The film's treatment of Fenrir Greyback is emblematic of this muted sense of danger - on the page, Greyback is a uniquely manic threat and representative of the kinds of sadists and nutbags who like to hang around Voldemort: a werewolf who specifically targets children and who has a "taste for flesh" in his human form. Rowling gave a sense not only of a world where danger can legitimately be seen around every corner, but also of the world that the magic community thought they had left behind them when Harry became "The Boy Who Lived." This urgency and danger was never as omnipresent as it could have been in the film.

- The mishandling of the titular mystery

I can't be the only person who had the impression that partway through filming someone looked at the script and realized that they never told the audience who the Half-Blood Prince was, therefore necessitating that tacked-on-feeling, rushed explication by Snape in the film's waning moments. "I'm the Half-Blood Prince...Gotta run!" The condensing of the books for the films has resulted in the films having a bit of a Laguna Beach effect - that is, that it's about high schoolers who never seem to go to class. The film downplayed Harry's success with and growing attachment to the Prince's advice, as well as Snape's reaction to Harry using Sectumsempra against Malfoy. The mystery of the Half-Blood Prince runs through the eponymous book, drawing Harry and his friends into repeated arguments about whether the Prince is good, bad or benign - an argument that would be mirrored by the series' fans in the antsy couple of years that separated Half-Blood Prince from Deathly Hallows.

- Obvious foreshadowing of villainy

This is an issue I also have with the film of Goblet of Fire. What in the books are hintings of nefarious plots going on just outside of Harry's grasp are telegraphed to the film audience from very early on, draining the stories of a sense of sinister mystery. When Harry voices his suspicions to Prof. McGonagall about Malfoy having something shady going on after the cursed necklace incident, instead of asking for proof I half expected her to say, "Well, he has been skulking around the school in a suit like a crazy person who is clearly up to no good..."

- Moaning Myrtle

I know. "Liz," you say, "Moaning Myrtle is annoyance itself, semi-embodied as a preteen ghost." However, I found myself missing Myrtle in this film for two reasons. One, in the book of Half-Blood Prince, she serves to humanize Draco in his plotting, acting as a confidante to what at heart is a scared boy faced with an impossible task. The film, in my opinion, fails to drive home the fact that Voldemort essentially gave Draco this assignment to dick the Malfoys around and watch them suffer, as well as the fact that Draco is ultimately troubled about the idea of bringing the sadistic nutbag Death Eaters into the school where his friends are.

The other reason I missed Myrtle was brought home by one of the things the film did very well, which is Slughorn's memory. One of the things Rowling does in Half-Blood Prince is work to anchor Chamber of Secrets to the narrative of the later books - reintroducing the "how much do you trust the creepy book?" theme, formally labeling the diary as a Horcrux, re-emphasizing Ginny, Aragog's funeral. The mundane nature of the diary, as opposed to the more ornamental and symbolic Horcruxes, paired with the information gleaned from Slughorn's memory begs the question - how long after that conversation did Riddle decide to test out the magic by unleashing the basilisk on an unsuspecting little girl?

- Eliminated memories

In a lot of ways, the book of Half-Blood Prince is an exposition dump. There's a lot of information established about Voldemort and his past, and it's not a stretch to understand why the filmmakers thought it might weigh the movie down. There just seemed to be so much that got glossed over - Harry and Dumbledore have many more discussions about Voldemort, his progression from creepy kid to evil mastermind and several factors that play into the kinds of objects he chooses as Horcruxes. This criticism is partly rooted in the unseen Hallows films, which presumably at some point will have to include some explanation of what's going on (I honestly have no idea how anyone who hasn't read the books watches the movies). I will say, though, that I missed the memories that fleshed out family background and Riddle's attachment to Hogwarts and cursing of the Defense against the Dark Arts professorship.

- Character continuity

This isn't really David Yates or Steve Kloves' fault - it's more collective, I guess. A little bit of Columbus, a little bit of Rowling, maybe some Cuaron in there for good measure. As fabulously intense as Jessie Cave was as Lavender (the girl deserves all manner of props for throwing herself so wholly into the madness - the scene in the hospital ward was exquisitely mortifying) I can't help but be bothered by the "introduction" of a character who, in the books, has been around from the very beginning. Lavender (and Parvati, who got her moment in the "brief romantic interest" sun in the Goblet of Fire movie) is as much a member of Harry's Gryffindor class as any of the boys who have been clearly and continuously established in the films. Part of this is that no girl, not even Ginny, is half as interesting or well-written as Hermione in the books. It just continues to stick in my craw that each movie can somehow have a 5-second clip of something exploding in Seamus' face (oh, that Seamus and his shenanigans!) but the girls only get showcased when they want to mack on Harry or Ron. (Also, I'm officially adding Tonks to the list of Characters Whose Vibrancy on the Page is Dramatically Underserved on the Screen - lame but true.)

- Severed threads from Order of the Phoenix

I think Order of the Phoenix may be the best HP adaptation (tied with Prisoner of Azkaban) for successfully condensing a lot of material and maintaining the book's dark tone. Which, in turn, made it disappointing to see Harry's established distrust of the Ministry of Magic and the fallout from Sirius' death practically nonexistent. The retention of the "R.A.B." connection to the locket Horcrux makes it seem likely that Harry's inheritance from Sirius will come into play in the final movies, but it was still unfortunate to see such a solid narrative base neglected. This also connects to

- The final battle

On the one hand, this change is understandable. Both Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows end with massive fights at Hogwarts; they likely didn't want to seem redundant. (Although, if the last segment of story won't reach screens for another two years, what difference does it really make?) However, it seemed like so much was taken away from Dumbledore's death. Order of the Phoenix establishes that where Voldemort has the Death Eaters, Dumbledore and Harry have the Order and the D.A., and all of those groups have representatives in the fight at the end of the literary Half-Blood Prince. It felt wrong at the end of the film to see the Death Eaters, unchallenged, striding triumphantly out of Hogwarts. Add to that the seemingly pointless destruction of the Burrow, and you end up with some fairly unsatisfying confrontations where J.K. Rowling showed hand-to-hand magical combat that felt dangerous and had tangible consequences.

Like I said, though, there are things that I liked, and even loved about this movie. The scene in the cave with the Inferi was genuinely scary, improving on the book by offering a vivid visual landscape. The romantic storylines were mostly sterling - I don't think I'll ever be completely sold on the True and Epic Love of Harry and Ginny, but that's not really the film's problem. Emma Watson was a particular MVP in the Hermione/Ron "hormones amuck!" debacle (I mean debacle in the best way possible, the kind where you want to watch through your fingers because the emotional carnage is so real), as was the actor perfectly embodying "That Guy" as McLaggen (the finger-licking? Ridiculous.) One thing I think the filmmakers did a good job of setting up was the juxtaposition of interpersonal dynamics that lead to Ron's Locket of Doom Hissyfit Meltdown in Deathly Hallows, which should be delightful.

I also really like the relationships that are highlighted by the use of Quidditch. I know a lot of people find it kind of pointless in the movies, but to me it's one of the series' most authentic depictions of how teenagers deal with each other, establishing power hierarchies and hashing out partnerships and rivalries. Among all the other honorifics, Harry's a born jock - even if he wasn't "The Boy Who Lived," he'd probably still be kind of a BMOC, something I find really interesting.

Specific shout-outs also to Helena Bonham Carter and Evanna Lynch, who on top of being perfectly cast also own the screen whenever afforded the opportunity.

I'll end this treatise by linking to Katie's review, which is an excellent, thoughtful look at the movie.

Fandom

I like the question at the heart of this Washington Post piece by Hank Stuever - do overinvested fans interfere with the production of quality films? - but I would have liked him to interrogate the idea a little more. He never quite lays out his rationale for what makes a film successful or not - it seems to be connected to box office numbers, but he never makes that explicit; to take it further, what about a film like The Golden Compass, dismissed as a flop in the U.S. but vastly more popular overseas? What about the involvement of creators? The two franchises where he cites manic fandoms are Harry Potter and Twilight, both of which have their creators actively involved in the book-to-film process - J.K. Rowling's outing of Dumbledore came due to her correcting some script reference on Order of the Phoenix, and Stephenie Meyer has stated that her sale of the Twilight rights to Summit contained a guarantee of some measure of story fidelity. (Not to mention that after Chris Columbus left the franchise the Harry Potter movies became much less beholden to their source material.) Is the fact that Gene Roddenberry is no longer around a factor in Star Trek's ability to play with his characters and mythology? What about the fact that even though J.J. Abrams has admitted that he wasn't a Trek fan, the screenwriters are? Or that Abrams has his own fanbase? Admittedly, it's not quite as crazy as, say, Joss Whedon's, but I was a huge, huge Alias fan (and Felicity, Lost, and Fringe in varying degrees) and that absolutely played a role in my wanting to see Star Trek - it is always thrilling to me to see the Bad Robot logo, and I totally laughed a crazy little laugh of recognition when Amanda Foreman showed up on the bridge.

Ultimately, it's a tough line for studios to walk. Aim for the biggest audience possible, and you risk not even bringing in the one group who should be automatic. Make it too niche, and that built-in audience is all you get. Personally, I'm a big fan of faithful adaptations, but there should always be room for some improvisation.

Adaptations: Trailer Thoughts

I guess this really is a wait-and-see kind of deal.

News about this movie (namely, that it's rated PG and that the ending has been altered from that of the book) has only compounded my prior concerns about the book-to-screen adaptation of Half-Blood Prince (specifically not feeling that I've seen anything from Bonnie Wright in the movies so far to suggest that she's up to selling Harry and Ginny's (in my opinion, already undersold) Great and Epic Love). This trailer made me feel more optimistic than previous ones have, though - particularly the images of a cursed Katie Bell flying up into the air and the lake full of Inferi: both, to me, look like they will be haunting on the big screen, and also build visually on what Rowling originally wrote. Everything else cautions for reserved judgement - it's hard to tell from this two-and-a-half minute package how the somewhat disparate tones and storylines of the book are all being condensed. As a book, Half-Blood Prince has its strengths and weaknesses - the history of Tom Riddle's transformation into Voldemort serves as a well-executed example of Rowling's ability to spin stories, but cumulatively, there's something about it that screams "penultimate book in the series!" just moving pieces into place for the last installment.

To some extent, I don't go into the movies with terribly strong expectations anymore. Alfonso Cuaron's decision to streamline the plot for Prisoner of Azkaban made that film work very well, but also set the movies off on their own narrative, for better or worse. To me, that streamlining made Goblet of Fire a scattered, pale imitation of my favorite book in the series. I'm interested to see what ultimately makes it into the Deathly Hallows movie(s). Off the top of my head, I can think of a few characters who've been effectively written out of the movie narrative who figure into some of the book's biggest moments. If Fleur's not present (the dulling down of her character is one of my chief issues with the Goblet of Fire movie), what will be the incident that forces Harry, Ron and Hermione out of their normal lives and into that of fugitives? With Dobby absent since the Chamber of Secrets movie, will his death (one of the most wrenching moments of Deathly Hallows) be written out of the movie? Most have been solid adaptations of their source material, condensing a lot of plot, characters, and mythology into a few hours of story, but the more time has passed, the more I feel alienated from the movies as a fan of the books.

Why I Disagree With Stephen King

In the past day or so, Twilight fan sites have been all a-flutter with the news that Stephen King told USA Today that he thinks Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer. Not only that but apparently, he also calls out other compatriot in commercial literary success James Patterson, while commending J.K. Rowling and Jodi Picoult as "terrific." Now, what's been posted is just a sort of "coming attractions" post. I'm curious to see whether any article space is devoted to what criteria he uses to evaluate what makes writing good, but in the meantime I thought I'd discuss why I disagree with King.

All four authors cited are ones whose work I've read and enjoyed. My parents are big Alex Cross fans, and during one school break sometime over the last few years I plowed through that series. I read a number of Picoult's books this past summer while I twitchily waited for Breaking Dawn to come out. I was a Harry Potter devotee from early on, from the time that I originally received Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as an Easter gift in seventh grade (so early in the craze that Chamber of Secrets hadn't even been published in America) to the midnight release of Deathly Hallows. And my enjoyment of Twilight is well-documented. None of the four is the kind of writer who's going to win a Pulitzer Prize. (Nor is King, for that matter.) I'm not a big enough fan of Patterson or Picoult to mount a coherent defense of their work, but I have very clear opinions about why I think both Rowling and Meyer are good writers, and what that means to me.

I can be a critical reader (like, copy-editing people's work without being asked to critical) but I'm not the kind of reader who places a lot of emphasis on technical quality. Obviously, grammar is important, but I don't know that I find it absolutely vital in narrative fiction that is centered in storytelling. Both Meyer and Rowling have strengths and weaknesses as writers, but to me, the fact that those strengths are being expressed through words makes them good writers. As a reader, I think that Rowling is an unparalleled plotter. She knows how to pace her stories expertly, and deftly built seven nail-biting climaxes. Conversely, I think that this is one of Meyer's weakest areas. Her pacing can be somewhat schizophrenic, with chapters and chapters devoted to action taking place over a few days, then significant time jumps that get glossed over. I'm interested to see what Chris Weitz and Melissa Rosenberg do with the bogged-down middle section of New Moon in adapting the story for the film.

What then, in my opinion, is Meyer's strength? Contrary to King's assertion about those readers who enjoy Twilight, not everyone who loves the books is thrilled by the swoony descriptions of Edward's icy skin. To me, Meyer's characters live and breathe on the page, distinct and vibrant personalities. Both Meyer and Rowling imagined fictional universes filled with a number of characters, and while I don't doubt that each character is clear to their creator, Meyer can communicate who they are to the reader in a way that Rowling does not. After Deathly Hallows, there was an interview with Rowling where she discussed the decision to kill Fred rather than George, saying something to the effect of Fred being the more lighthearted of the two. This surprised me, since nearly a decade of reading and re-reading the books had never revealed any substantive difference between the two to me. The run-up to the release of the film version of Half-Blood Prince has also made me realize that Ginny is still kind of a non-person to me, character-wise. The last few Potter films have diverged dramatically from the books, largely because the story can be formed around the plot and characters can appear extraneous or unimportant in the bigger picture.

Additionally, (and Stephen King would probably find this totally sacrilegious) I think Meyer's skill in writing is similar to that of Brian Wilson. Both understand how to vocalize emotions the way that a teenager does. Sometimes I find Bella unbelievably annoying, but I also find her voice totally authentic as a teenager, and am positive that if I went back to my journals from high school I would find similarly embarrassing odes to whatever guy I had a crush on at the time. This is something that I don't think Rowling has ever done well - Order of the Phoenix remains one of my least favorite of the Harry Potter books due to Harry's constant immature whining. He never seemed authentically teenaged to me in that scenario, just like a petulant child.

Some of my favorite authors are wordsmiths, some are storytellers. To me, they're all good writers, all for different reasons. I hope that as I continue to write, and look ahead to my thesis and dissertation, that I, too, can find a voice and play to my own strengths, writing as well as I know how and not trying to be a writer I'm not.