i am an english major, and i love it

In lieu of yesterday's post all about grammar, I thought I'd continue on about my English major tendencies, and give you a little taste of what kind of literature I enjoy, and what I heartily dislike.

{love vs. hate}

Now I have a confession; one that I don't like to readily admit. I read all of the Twilight books. Although I am not particularly pround of that fact, if I had not read them, I would not feel justified in writing this.

Contrary to the opinion of the rest of the world, I thought the books were no good. The storyline has major potential, but the writing is horrid. I found typos throughout the novels. Not a misplaced comma or hyphen, but incorrect punctuation and misspelled words. {Someone did not edit carefully enough.} There were also serious plot issues with the last book. She would lead out a particular side story, and then drop it with no explanation whatsoever. In an article with USA Weekend supposedly promoting his newest novel, Stephen King began talking about Harry Potter and Twilight, and in my opinion, said it best: "The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

I am fully aware that it's hardly fair to compare Stephenie Meyer to, say, Dostoevsky, Salinger, Conrad, Joyce, Faulkner, et al, but the point I'm trying to make is that they were the popular writers of their day. They wrote for the masses. Their literature is what the public wanted to read. What has happened to our society that people want to read a fickle, surface level, poorly written novel about a vampire, rather than read a deep, complex, emacculately written novel about internal conflict and the complexities of human existence?
{and don't try to justify Twilight by saying that the people of Bram Stoker's day wanted to read about a vampire; the difference: Dracula was a well-written book with a good plot}

rant finished.