Post by fennyqq on Sept 15, 2011 5:19:31 GMT -5
The biggest difference, though, has to be in Stefan and Damon Salvatore. On TV, they were born and raised in Mystic Falls and became vampires in the Civil War era. Perhaps this was simply a bit of True Blood rivalry, though. In the books, the Salvatores are from Italy and much, much older. The acquired their supernatural powers during the Renaissance.
I don't particularly like Elena Gilbert. She's a silly, shallow, self-centered creature, the sort of stereotypically pretty, popular teenage girl who makes real teenage girls blush with shame. The TV version of Elena is the same way, but the book takes the stereotype a wee bit further by making her a Southern girl. Elena Gilbert is actually the vacuous ice princess Scarlett O'Hara (who was actually quite intelligent, but played dumb to attract boys) was pretending to be. Compared to Elena, Scarlett is a Jimmy Carter-esque humanitarian. Much ado has been made about Bella Swan's helpless, self-destructive behavior in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, but Elena could wear that crown just as easily.
Nor is L. J. Smith's writing style a particularly literary one. She can be forgiven for this, perhaps, because she's writing for a young adult audience. The easy-breezy, fashion-mag tone of the book is ill-suited to its dark subject material. It's like Elena mistakenly fell off the cover of Teen Vogue and into a pulp horror novel. For readers with more sophisticated tastes, this will hardly do.
Still, there's something intriguing about the storyline that keeps me from wanting to give up on this entire series. Sure, Elena is dumb, and Damon on paper is as detestable as he is on TV. The beating heart of this vampire series, ironically, is Stefan. Like Edward Cullen, he's a vampire "vegetarian," preferring to hunt animals rather than people. Unlike Edward, he makes an occasional slip. He has all of Edward's Byronic, tortured mojo without Edward's unfortunate, stalker-ish tendencies. He's the bad boy, but the question here is not whether the girl with a heart of gold can save him, but whether he can save the girl with the heart of nothing.
I don't particularly like Elena Gilbert. She's a silly, shallow, self-centered creature, the sort of stereotypically pretty, popular teenage girl who makes real teenage girls blush with shame. The TV version of Elena is the same way, but the book takes the stereotype a wee bit further by making her a Southern girl. Elena Gilbert is actually the vacuous ice princess Scarlett O'Hara (who was actually quite intelligent, but played dumb to attract boys) was pretending to be. Compared to Elena, Scarlett is a Jimmy Carter-esque humanitarian. Much ado has been made about Bella Swan's helpless, self-destructive behavior in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, but Elena could wear that crown just as easily.
Nor is L. J. Smith's writing style a particularly literary one. She can be forgiven for this, perhaps, because she's writing for a young adult audience. The easy-breezy, fashion-mag tone of the book is ill-suited to its dark subject material. It's like Elena mistakenly fell off the cover of Teen Vogue and into a pulp horror novel. For readers with more sophisticated tastes, this will hardly do.
Still, there's something intriguing about the storyline that keeps me from wanting to give up on this entire series. Sure, Elena is dumb, and Damon on paper is as detestable as he is on TV. The beating heart of this vampire series, ironically, is Stefan. Like Edward Cullen, he's a vampire "vegetarian," preferring to hunt animals rather than people. Unlike Edward, he makes an occasional slip. He has all of Edward's Byronic, tortured mojo without Edward's unfortunate, stalker-ish tendencies. He's the bad boy, but the question here is not whether the girl with a heart of gold can save him, but whether he can save the girl with the heart of nothing.