The Case for Canonizing Twilight

I remember once walking into ninth grade English a few minutes early, hoping to clock in a few pages of Twilight before the bell rang– a book my older sister recommended, and with which I was quickly becoming obsessed. Sitting down, I put the book cover up on the desk; my English teacher took one look at it and asked if I had remembered to bring the “real literature” which was assigned. The classroom suddenly felt huge, filled with the loud laughs of my classmates who all seemed to have appeared in their respective seats. I realized they knew something I didn’t; Then I got it. It didn’t matter that English was my favorite class and that I read and spoke about our assigned so-called “real literature” with passion and understanding; The simple offensive gesture of carrying the “wrong” type of book had relegated me to the category of a bad reader. To me, this was a nightmarish, horrifically embarrassing judgment. 

 

It was just a joke, and the whole thing was forgotten by my teacher and my peers as soon as class started. It certainly didn’t stop me from spouting my very eager opinion of JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye during the next hour of class. But I also didn’t forget that incident. Later that day, I hid the book in my little sister’s bookshelves, and with it, any trace of my having read most of it and loved it. I never finished it.

 

The Twilight series is popularly hated. Maybe the word “hate” is not quite right, but it definitely has a reputation. In middle and high school, people made fun of the kids who read the books or watched the movies. I myself, after my public shaming, ditched the series because I was afraid of what people would think of me. It wasn’t really until that moment in English class that I realized that there are different types of reading. Twilight, apparently, is not just the bad type, but the absolute worst. This was my first memorable encounter with intellectual snobbery.

 

Twilight falls under the category of Young Adult Fiction, and is certainly part of a long tradition of dismissed YA novels. Young Adult Fiction refers to fiction generally targeting readers ages twelve to eighteen, often with a coming-of-age focus and themes of adolescent angst and alienation. This is by no means a restrictive definition of YA Fiction. It is one of the most diverse, expansive, and popular book genres. Think The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, The Throne of Glass, The Hate U Give, The Fault in our Stars, Eleanor and Park, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and the list goes on. 

 

It’s also no secret that people love to hate Young Adult Fiction. There’s a pervading attitude that there’s something intrinsically inferior about young adult literature, even though some truly classic and respected literature has come out of this genre— perhaps most notably is The Catcher in the Rye. Yet, young adult fiction as a whole is still treated as a lesser art form, or not an art form at all.

 

The Catcher in the Rye, first published in 1951, has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide, with 250,00 copies still sold each year (that’s 685 per day!). By comparison, Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. My point: YA Fiction is wildly popular. And not just the “good” or acceptable YA, but books like Twilight. So why do we love to put it down? And more specifically, what makes some YA more susceptible to ridicule than others?

 

Let’s first look at The Catcher in the Rye. I find that people either love Holden Caulfield, the protagonist and narrator, or hate him, and I admit that I count myself among the former. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, you have to admit the novel was (still is) a cultural landslide, and JD Salinger famously became a recluse owing to his book’s enormous popularity. George H. W. Bush says it is among the books that have inspired him. Bill Gates calls it one of his favorite books. Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker considers it one of the “three perfect books” of American literature, along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby. Furthermore, The Catcher in the Rye is also associated with a number of shootings— most notably John Hinckley Jr’s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan and Mark David Chapman’s fatal shooting of John Lennon. Suffice it to say, The Catcher in the Rye has had a more-than significant impact on our cultural zeitgeist. 

 

The Catcher in the Rye is an interesting example of Young Adult Fiction. It is undeniably a young adult, coming-of-age tale, yet it’s become a feature of classic fiction, read by high schoolers across America. Unlike Twilight, The Catcher in the Rye is class-assigned “real literature.” Yet one thing is certain: you can’t get more angsty, more “teenager-y” than Holden Caulfield. So where do the arbiters of literature draw the line between young adult and classic literature? Why is The Catcher in the Rye excused, even praised, for its teenage perspective, while Twilight is shamed?

 

The Catcher in the Rye was first published in the 1950s and Caulfield’s voice was polarizing (even, in some places, banned). But now that voice has become a hallmark of the all-too-familiar young, (usually) heterosexual, white man whose narcissism compels him to feel that he is a rebel in a system that allows for, even encourages, his “rebellion.” Yes, The Catcher in the Rye is a story of angst and alienation, but through the lens of privilege. This is really a story that serves a white, wealthy, male need. There is certainly a relationship between the socioeconomic status of its principal character (and its author) and its consequent addition to the literary canon. Holden Caulfield, despite his huge privilege in the world which he spurns, feels himself at complete odds with the “phoniness” of the society that wishes him to conform. But, in fact, he has already conformed by nature of his race, gender, and economic standing. In other words: The Catcher in the Rye doesn’t reflect the diversity of our world. 

 

I’m not making an argument for stylistic prowess. It’s not worthwhile to hash out such subjective particulars. My argument is why and how do we decide which stories are worth telling and, more importantly, which are worth hearing? Why shouldn’t a popular YA novel or series like Twilight, which is read and deeply felt by millions of readers around the world, be canonized? Because who’s to say that the “writing is bad” when millions of readers would disagree? 

 

The audience is important. The Catcher in the Rye appeals largely to the people who inhabit the same social, economic, and political sphere as its principal character— that is, wealthy, white, young men with access to education. After its publication, those men read it, loved it, then grew up and, with their wealth, their education, and their privileged positions, became the arbiters of storytelling which resulted in the canonization of The Catcher in the Rye. The truth is that the teenage “rebellion” of this generation of men is the same as that of generations and generations of similar men. It’s a pseudo-type of rebellion. As with many aspects of our culture, the “teenage” feeling is acceptable among teenage boys; The success of The Catcher in the Rye confirms that. 

 

Teenage rebellion and angst are not, however, acceptable if exhibited by girls. Teenage girls are the most disrespected members of our society. Every stereotype and form of ridicule surrounds them— too basic and too bitchy, catty, mean, queen bee, slut, virgin, childlike yet mature. The teenage girl spends too much time on her phone, loves going shopping, likes to gossip, and talks like a valley girl (a speaking affectation simultaneously associated with teenage girls and stupidity… that’s not a coincidence). Think Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. Or of any of the mean girls in Mean Girls. Or any of these “chick-flick” types of media content. In every corner of American society, there is this massive putdown of young women in America. This is reflected in the literature we read as well. Twilight (and, for that matter, most young adult fiction) is read mostly by young women. The series is demeaned, considered embarrassing, taboo, gross, and just plain bad. What does this attitude say to and about the demographic that loves to read Twilight and other YA? After all, young women are responsible for the popularity of this genre— not just as readers, but as authors as well. 

 

Unlike The Catcher in the Rye’s relative realism, fantasy fiction, and science fiction aren’t exempt from the prejudice of literary elitism, and are often relegated to the category of “bad-reading” by the mere fact of their imaginative quality (though books like Dune, The Hobbit, 1984, which were all written by men and with few-to-no female characters, are exempt from this judgment). Very rarely are books from these genres canonized, more often they are folded under the young adult label and, thus, pooh-poohed. But the fantasy genre is compelling because of the inherent appeal of reading in general— the “escape.” Think about why the ability to lose yourself in a world in which magical and fantastic things can and do happen might be appealing to groups of marginalized people who find that the real world demeans them in every way, from their bodies to their intelligence. This is not limited to teenage girls. This extends to BIPOC, the LGBTQ+ community, and members of the disabled community. YA fiction is where people of ignored and oppressed communities are most likely to find representation and understanding. 

 

To bring us back to Twilight; I know Twilight is not woke. There are themes of abuse and misogyny both in the books and movies (not to mention its huge issue of appropriating and misrepresenting Indigenous communities). But let’s not pretend this is the reason for our culture’s somewhat gleeful disdain for Twilight. The way we deride the women who read Twilight is at least a small part of what allows for that type of media violence in the first place. We render Twilight’s massive audience totally powerless when we humiliate and degrade them by telling them their interests don’t matter, more than that— that their interests are actively silly and stupid. Why do we degrade the book and its readers but not the society which allows the violence the book portrays? Male angst has frequently been tied to violence. These shootings that The Catcher in the Rye “inspired” were all perpetrated by men who felt kindred with Holden Caulfield’s adolescent perspective and voice. Yet our society finds no fault with this connection.

 

When we add texts to the literary canon, we are adding to our collective cultural history.  Like it or not, Twilight and The Catcher in the Rye have both made huge indents on our cultural understanding of our world. To ignore Twilight’s influence on hundreds of millions of people is to erase those people who admire it. Why shouldn’t we record their literary history just as we record that of The Catcher in the Rye? Whether Twilight is considered a classic or discarded to the wastes of history, it has already made an impact on literature and media. Like a kind of secret history, it has and will change literature just from the simple fact of its wildly popular existence. At a certain point, we have to find ourselves asking the question: why is the most influential and widely-read form of literature also the least respected? 

 

I keep calling Young Adult reading its own genre, but, really, it transcends any notion of category. It’s read by kids, teenagers, regular adults, and is actually enjoyed by all. It’s the type of literature that connects generations, that makes progressive change by nature of its diverse stories and the writers who tell them. The genre encapsulates that which is most tender, most awkward, most empathetic– the coming-of-age story. We owe it to the youth in our communities to validate their growing-up experiences openly, not just at night, under the sheets with a flashlight. 

 

For a long time, that seemingly insignificant episode of embarrassment in English class haunted me. I acquainted myself with the classics and found a lot that I liked, but I haven’t read with the same fearless curiosity since. A little bit of the joy of reading was taken away. I wish, on that long-ago day in the minutes before the bell rang for English class, someone had told me to keep reading, to get to the end, to never judge a book before you’ve finished reading it.