Mesmerized

Oh my. I never thought this book could hit me quite hard. After reading the book and watching the movie just last night, I can't spend my day today without my mind wandering back to the characters and the story. Gee, like I don't have tonnes of important things to do!

I'm talking about Stephanie Meyer's Twilight. Actually I had wanted to read the book since last month when this fellow of mine recommended it and spoke so high about it. But it is not until I took a glance at the movie ad on the e-paper two weeks ago that I thought, "Wow, is the book really good that it is filmed?"

It happened that about the same time, Andrea Hirata just released its fourth and last installment of the Laskar Pelangi tetralogy: Maryamah Karpov. So I wasted no time and made an order of the two books via this online bookstore.

The books were delivered to my office fast enough; around 4 days after I ordered them. Of the two, I decided to read Twilight first. It's funny. I mean, I had been waiting for Maryamah Karpov for a long time, but when it was finally available, I shoved it off and picked another book instead. Perhaps it's because the book is hit enough to be made into a movie that I landed my choice on it.

And there... I started to read on Thursday and had to stop before I had been through the entire book because I got to sleep or I would have been late to work on Friday. To tell you the truth, I only read the first few chapters back then and skimmed the rest. From what I read, I noticed Twilight was only a love story, only this time it's between a human being and a vampire. So why has my pal been raving about it?

It was not until I read through about three quarters of the book on Saturday that I realized why the book had become a best-seller. Yes, the book is about a love story, but once you're done reading it, you'd feel you want to be in the position of Isabella Swan, to be loved so deeply by someone (well, "something", to be exact) who should have hated you so much. You've heard the phrase "I hate you so much that I love you" (or is it the other way around?), right? That phrase cannot be more appropriate to be used to picture how Edward Cullen - the vampire - feels for the girl.

Images of some scenes from the movie are included in the copy I read. Apparently Gramedia has run out the old copies and issues a new version which makes the movie poster as the book cover. I have to admit, those images help in bringing some understanding of how handsome this Edward is supposed to be. However, I keep picturing James Franco (the guy who played as Harry Osborn in Spiderman) instead of Robert Pattinson (the guy who played as Edward Cullen in the movie). He's way more handsome than Pattinson and really fits the idea of a person whose beautiful face and body is Greek-god like. Or why not that guy who plays as Jasper Cullen?

To satisfy my curiosity, later that Saturday night I went to see the movie with my husband. Although many parts of the book were changed in the movie, I still liked it. Maybe if the movie had been made as precisely as in the story of the book, it will not tell the story as interestingly as if it had not been moderated.

However, after the heyday of it all, I wonder why so much fuss is being made about the book by... MEN. I can still understand if it's girls or women who, like I, have been fantasizing of what it feels like to have a gorgeously handsome man (or vampire, whatever) who has that mysterious aura around him, devoting his love and life for you and your sake, although that would mean jeopardizing his entire life (not to mention family). Plus, I think it's overrated to place Twilight on the same level with Harry Potter.

So pal, care to give me some explanation? *wink