Her 1: “What are you reading? Oh, hey, I read that book.”
Her 2: “This book is amazing. OMG. It sucks you in. I can’t put it down.”
Her 1: “Totally does, doesn’t it?”
Her 2: “Oh, yeah. You can’t believe how compelling it is to read. I feel like changing my entire life, and following each section of this book.”
Her 1: “Wait, huh?”
Her 2: “Seriously, it’s incredible, how this book has touched me.”
Her 1: “Oh…you’re not kidding. I mean, it was a quick read but -”
Her 2: “No, no, not quick at ALL. I’m savoring every phrase, and contemplating each one. It’s taken me ages to decipher some of the meanings behind the prose.”
Her 1: “I don’t … I mean… wow.”
Her 2: “Lewis is just an incredible writer.”
Her 1: “Lewis? Don’t you mean Meyer?”
Her 2: “No, C.S. Lewis. A Guide for the Merely Christian. The sections on greed and suffering are really prescient, too.”
[Thanks to Jen for the link]
Hey! I posted that way back when we had the Avon-cover discussion!
You did? Huh! I totally missed it. Whoops!
snigger
Well, wow.
(almost speechless)
Wow. You’d think covers that were only wildly popular books would somehow be flagged so this kind of thing couldn’t happen. =P
I totally did not get that until I’d read the whole dialogue through three times and finally read the book cover to see what I was missing.
You are not alone, Suze. I kept going back to the top and re-reading.
Suze – it’s thanks to your comment that I ‘clicked’. I must be the only person in the world (at least it feels like I am 🙂 who hasn’t read Stephanie Meyer’s series (or seen the covers obviously 🙂 So, SHOULD I read them or should I run away as fast as I can and hide?
BTW, I have a confession – as I soon as I read ‘C.S. Lewis’ I thought of the Narnia series!
I’m sorry to ask this, and I’ve read Twilight (wasn’t impressed, but didn’t throw it at the wall), but was there a reason for the cover? I don’t remember apples in the story. It’s a beautiful image, but did it have significance? Once again, sorry if this was spelled out in the book, but I don’t recall it.
I’ll understand if all it is, is symbolism invoking the story of Adam and Eve that suggests Bella’s temptation by Edward or the idea of Bella being forbidden fruit for him. I just can’t recall if there was any concrete story connection. Help jog my memory?
A reminder of the TWILIGHT cover image here at Powell’s Books
Yes, orannia, that’s the same C.S. Lewis. And he is an incredible writer (much better than Meyer, IMO).
I’m not sure about all the book cover symbolism in the Twilight books. They are pretty, but I’ve never felt the symbolism worked very well.
orianna: me too. I’ve seen all the Meyers books (EXCELLENT covers), but have never read any of them. Somehow they’ve never drawn me in. I won’t say I’m immune to crack fiction, because I deeply enjoy J.R. Ward, but Meyers just never grabbed me.
And I don’t think there’s a person on the English-speaking portion of the planet who doesn’t associate C.S. Lewis exclusively with Narnia.
Heh. Totally off-topic: my half-deaf dad is in the living room, and I’ve been sitting here (in the kitchen) so impressed with him for watching the French debates in actual French (we’re not bilingual). But he just switched to the English channel, and it’s all dubbed in really annoying voices, so I’m back to being all impatient with him and his need to watch political news at high volume.
And I’ve got the PERFECT spamword for any other comment thread but this one: they69 BWA!
hee hee
C. S. Lewis was quite a Christian philosopher. I first read the Narnia Chronicles as part of a Religious Studies class, along with several of his other works. He was close friends with J.R.R. Tolkien while they were professors at Oxford. I somehow think he’d find sharing a cover with Meyer’s Twilight series to be quite ironic and would likely elicit a hearty chuckle.
That’s incredible! Too much alike!
Here’s the info about the cover of Twilight directly from Stephenie’s site
[quote=http://stepheniemeyer.com/twilight_faq.html]The apple on the cover of Twilight represents “forbidden fruit.” I used the scripture from Genesis (located just after the table of contents) because I loved the phrase “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.” Isn’t this exactly what Bella ends up with? A working knowledge of what good is, and what evil is. The nice thing about the apple is it has so many symbolic roots. You’ve got the apple in Snow White, one bite and you’re frozen forever in a state of not-quite-death… Then you have Paris and the golden apple in Greek mythology—look how much trouble that started. Apples are quite the versatile fruit. In the end, I love the beautiful simplicity of the picture. To me it says: choice.
What. The. Crap?
I’m too lazy to do it myself, but now I’m curious if any of her other covers are blatant rip-offs.
@Jackie: The Lewis cover is the rip-off; that edition came out about two years after Twilight.
Liviania’s right. Lewis’s early covers were pretty mundane. I have quite a few 60s-vintage books, none of which I can put down once I’ve picked one up.
Recommendations, if you want a book you can think about: THE GREAT DIVORCE and THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS. I believe the latter is being produced as a stageplay here in Chicago, which means I’m going to go see it.
Lewis’s writing and imagery has stayed with me since I first read his work.
I read the Narnia books in college, and although I liked them, I don’t remember much about them. His theology books, however, are fantastic and have really stood the test of time.
While I’m a big fan of Narnia (except for the last book), his Perelandra books and theology drive me insane with their anti-woman, submit-to-your-husband-and-stay-in-the-home garbage, presented as what women “naturally” want.
Confession: When I saw the book cover graphic, I honestly thought it was just a bad Photoshop job, but when I visited the Amazon link, I realized it was legit.
Holy crow what was that publisher thinking? I know it’s a stock image and all, but trying to ride the Twilight wave? Hoping a bunch of teenage girls will grab a copy accidentally thinking it’s Meyer’s book? That’s a quick way to get a mob of young girls pissed off at ya. *sigh* I don’t think C.S. Lewis would approve of this at all. Not at all. (Though I really can’t truly speak on his behalf.)
Still, that whole exchange was pretty funny.
What’s hilarious is Stephanie Meyer said she picked that cover because it represented the “forbidden fruit” in the book.
I’m so sure C.S. Lewis had that cover ideal in mind when he wrote Mere Christianity *falls on the floor laughing*
I thought writers didn’t have much control over what the cover (or cover copy) looks like. So how did Meyer get to pick out her own spiffy covers with spiffy (bad) explanations? Is she just that special of a snowflake?
And yes, I did a double-take when I saw that copy of Mere Christianity in the bookstore. Just about died laughing.
*sigh* The Lewis cover is the rip-off? There goes a perfectly good bout of indignantion…
Irony is so ironic, isn’t it?
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one… for a minute there, I thought I was being a total “door knob.” WOW!
BTW, C.S. Lewis is deceased. So this re-print of his book was probably the publisher’s poor choice of cover photo and not his fault. I second the thought that he would probably laugh about it.
Thank you, Jessica M. Kennedy. Much appreciated.
XD That exchange is great. I’ve been watching the Twilight fandom be completely batshit for a while now on Fandom Wank, so it’s not hard to see a Twilighter actually trying to live it. (Read enough tales of the like that would make one wary of ever looking into fandoms ever again.)
And Meyers is an arrogant woman trying to be all philosophical and profound by saying that. I read what that one person posted of her own words and I simply rolled my eyes and laughed. I’ll have to show it to my friend who actually read the book, because she’ll find it as funny as I do. Thanks to whomever posted that!
The book covers thing made me laugh. I think C.S. Lewis would be getting a good chuckle out of it too.
Oh for pete’s sake. Someone is really trying to live it?? Call for the white jackets guys- quickly!!
Maybe they should visit Mercedes Lackey and see what happens when someone tries to live someone else’s fantasy and how quickly it can go so very wrong!!
spamword care69- oh, so many things could be said about that one…