So, I have more things to confess. I’ve read the Twilight novels, too. During an intense two week period in the summer of 2009, I practically lived through those four books. I worked and I read. Maybe I ate a little, but I definitely didn’t sleep.
It’s not that they are that good, really, but more that they are really addictive. Louie, my host in Port Angeles, said it really well: “They are like potato chips – hard to put down but not nutritious in the least.” They feed little girls dreams of being special and meeting someone strong and beautiful that wants nothing else but to take care of them and make them happy. I think that it’s a result of the globalized world that we live in. It feels so big and uncontrollable, and especially for a teenage girl, it’s overwhelming and it feels impossible to live up to everyones expectations. In that context, finding someone like Edward the vampire, who can protect you from everything and is always there to save you (and also happens to be discustingly rich), must seem like the perfect dream for young girls. And me too, for two weeks in August 2009, apparently.
Well, the Twilight books take place on the Olympic Peninsula. Bella and Edward live in Forks, because that is the town that gets the most rain in the continental United States. (In Stephenie Meyer’s version of vampires, they can be out in the daytime, but they glitter in sunlight. So they choose to live in cloudy places, where they can hide their supernatural identities.) And when they want to go to the movies or eat dinner at a fancier restaurant, they go to Port Angeles.
To be honest, the first Twilight movie was the first time I ever became aware of the beauty of the Pacific Northwestern temperate rainforest. Then, I had the whole introduction to physical geography course and learned all about the uniqueness of that ecosystem and climate zone – but it was the romantic vampire movie that got my fascination started.
So, naturally, walking around Port Angeles, hiking in the Olympic National Park, I couldn’t help thinking about all those scenes in the books.
Getting off the bus at a trailhead, standing by the road that goes from Port Angeles to Forks, I remembered the scene in Edward’s car, when they’ve just had their first kind of accidental date at an Italian restaurant in Port Angeles, and he is driving her back home. There, Bella finally reveals her suspicions about him – that he’s a vampire.
Or on the trail, climbing up that mountain, I was just waiting to walk around one of those huge trees and meet a broody, gorgeous vampire drinking the blood of a mountain lion.
Walking around Port Angeles was simply surreal. The Italian restaurant, or the movie theater where Bella went with Jacob the night before he turned into a shapeshifter. I even went into an odd bookstore, found a copy of “Twilight” and read the part about how Bella got lost in Port Angeles after visiting a bookstore, she almost gets assaulted by a group of men, but at the last minute gets saved by Edward – after which they end up on their first date.
Nothing of this makes any sense if you haven’t read the books, and sometimes I really wish I hadn’t either. It wasn’t pleasant, the way these scenes in my head completely took over my thoughts. It was as if I was reading the books all over again, for the first time, completely hooked. I don’t like loosing control in that way. So, leaving Port Angeles after two nights felt like a relief.
Don’t get me wrong. The Olympic National Park might be the most beautiful forest I’ve ever visited. I just couldn’t take all the vampires!
Katja Malmborg 