Embrace the Cheese

My New Testament class has ended as well as my instructional unit for my ninth-graders. Student Teaching will conclude May 10^th. So, in the slowing down of all things literary for a while, I have begun reading entertainment literature again. It has taken me a while to work out in my head the negative response from many people in my area of study to literature that is considered “fluff”. As English majors and English teachers, we spend so much of our lives analyzing classical pieces of literature—stories that involve the deepest issues facing humanity and the greatest of heroes facing them back—that we develop a sort of tunnel vision, become like literary robots so constantly searching for the greater meaning that smoke starts to come out of the literary device bolts in place of our ears and the Venn diagram shaped spheres in place of our eyes start to spin out of control. It is easy to forget the reason we decided to study literature in the first place; we enjoy it.

When I was a scared freshman at BYU-I, just starting to take my literature courses, I took the rampant criticism of popular books as what I “should” think, instead of what it was, just an opinion. It is all too easy to bandwagon on to ideas that show a clear contrast in opinion of “normal people” and therefore proves a uniqueness of thought and strength of understanding. Or so we think…

I love Stephanie Meyer. I love cheesy stories and cheesy writing. I embrace the cheese. I find meaning in writing that may not last through my descendants and value in spending as much time as necessary reading it. In fact, Young Adult Literature is one of my favorite genres, even though when surrounded by my English major friends, I sometimes have to suppress a desire to profess undying love for books like Moby Dick, All My Sons, Of Mice and Men, and Lord of the Flies. The truth is, some influential and lasting pieces of literature can simply be infernally boring or awful. So, although many, many pieces of classic lit make my list of life changing, forever favorites—anything Jane Austen, most William Shakespeare, Willa Cather, L.M. Montgomery, Bronte, Orwell, etc.—they share a page with works from Stephanie Meyer, Vince Flynn, Catherine Murdock, Rick Riordan, Suzanne Collins, and many other wonderfully dramatic authors.

I just finished reading The Host. Of course, inspired by the recent movie release, I decided to re-read the book that had been one of my favorites as a teenager and remind myself of the story before I let someone else’s vision of it corrupt the vision in my head. I’m glad I did, because in my opinion the actors they cast as the main characters look like children and nothing like their descriptions in the book. That may not seem to matter, but the size and look of these characters are a big part of certain characteristics and events in the story.

In The Host—a futuristic story, post-apocalyptic in a sense—the earth has been conquered by a species of world enveloping, body snatching aliens. The chaotic, violent takeover of the world generally depicted in Hollywood has no place in Stephanie Meyer’s take on beginning of the end.

In this new existence, Earth is green and beautiful. A society of kindness and moneyless productivity drives all behavior and alliances. All are happy. Peace is everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except in the hearts and minds of those who remain their human selves.

New to this world but uniquely experienced among the collection of “taken” planets in the ever broadening universe, Wanderer learns the true meaning of humanity. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to deal with the unbalanced emotions and overwhelming senses natural to this body, Wanderer is not alone in her head. The consciousness of the human host should be gone, right? The way she felt about people in her life, should not exist anymore. Do the people themselves still exist? Whose world is this, really?

The Host is one of those wonderfully dramatic and exciting stories, filled with adventure, discovery, and love of all kinds. I love the take on what it means to be human. It is easy to forget what is really important, until it is all taken away.

“You never know how much time you have.”