9-18-09, 9:20 am

Original source: The Guardian (Australia)

I don’t often agree with the editorials in Murdoch’s flagship Australian tabloid, The Daily Telegraph. But I have to agree with the editorial in the issue of September 12.

That was the day it was announced that a number of primary schools in NSW (mainly private religious schools) had placed restrictions on students accessing the Stephanie Meyer Twilight books, stripping them from school libraries and even asking parents not to let their children bring their own copies of the books to school.

The Telegraph’s leader-writer reminds us that the four-novel Twilight series, “like the Harry Potter series before it, is a boon for childhood literacy.”

He goes on to praise their “fascinating stories” as well as their “abundance of characters to whom youngsters can relate and attention gripping plot twists.” So what’s the problem?

Apparently, some people, who must be exceedingly uptight, think Ms Meyer’s books are “overtly sexual and offensive to some religious beliefs”. They are certainly passionate, but by no means could they be termed raunchy, and that is the meaning most people give the term “overtly sexual.”

The Twilight series tells the intensely romantic story of 18-year-old Bella Swann, who moves to the rainy state of Washington to live with her estranged father. At her new school she meets and falls for a handsome fellow-student who turns out to be a vampire.

It sounds silly, of course, but it is handled with aplomb and an awareness on the part of Bella that she has found herself living amongst “mythical creatures” (there are also werewolves).

As a fantasy tale, Twilight is the best I have read since the original publication of Lord Of The Rings electrified us all. And in terms of imagination, it is certainly on a par with Harry Potter.

True, Edward, the young vampire love interest, does spend every night in Bella’s room, but it is excessively chaste. She sleeps in his arms and he watches her sleep. That kind of scene probably appeals to young teenage girls, but it is hardly sexual in its tone or content.

In fact, when Bella tries to “get physical” with Edward, he insists they wait until they are married. Bella is appalled: married at 18? People will think you’ve knocked me up, she tells him. But Edward, who was born in 1900, is adamant, so she agrees.

I think that what upsets the religious right about Meyer’s books is that the virginal Bella eagerly throws herself at Edward, a creature they see as a sort of evil spirit.

But Stephanie Meyer has given Edward another characteristic that could upset the Christian fundamentalists: she has made him very anxious to ensure that Bella doesn’t “lose her soul” by associating with him.

A vampire who is concerned about saving anyone’s soul is a sacrilegious concept to the fundamentalists.

Myer makes it clear that she believes that her fantasy creation Edward (and the rest of his vampire family) do have souls, but if you are the kind of Christian bigot who thinks that demons and vampires and devils and the rest are real, then you are unlikely to agree with her.

Philosophically, Communists are materialists, so actual belief in the “supernatural” is alien to us, but we can easily appreciate fantasies involving the non-material. It is simply a literary convention, like exceeding the speed of light in science fiction yarns.

Myths, legends, fairy stories (I actually collect fairy stories) are often delightful, always imaginative, rooted in folk culture and fascinating. Only the very ignorant (and the very young) can think them to be real.

It is the job of parents and teachers to make sure that children learn to distinguish truth from fiction at a reasonable age, but that does not mean they have to stop reading or watching fantasy: just that they need to appreciate it for what it is, instead.

Mind you, some of the popularity of fantasy today probably stems from people’s desire to escape from reality, which for many people (especially in the USA) must be depressing and scary, devoid of hope or any cause for optimism.

To believe in magic and fairies becomes for such people pretty much what it was for their forebears, several hundred years ago: a way to go to a happier place, where poor servant girls can marry princes, where bright young impoverished goose herds can win riches, where good triumphs over evil every time.

These dreams and fantasies helped to sustain ordinary people’s belief that somewhere, somehow, there had to be a better life than this, not in heaven when you died but right here on Earth.

On the other hand, the religious nutters who think witches and wizards like those in Harry Potter or vampires like the ones in Twilight are – or even could be – real, are more in need of help than the children they claim to be concerned about.

I heartily recommend the Stephanie Meyer books to you all, but as the Daily Telegraph editorial says, people (not just children) who read them in search of salacious content will not find any. If your tastes run that way, you would be better off with Charlaine Harris’ southern vampire series featuring the sexually over-active Sookie Stackhouse.

To quote the Telegraph again, readers of Twilight (of all ages) “will still enjoy an entertaining read”, and in the case of children “it could lead to a lifetime of happy engagement with the world of ideas.”