Rob Pattinson as Edward Cullen

A few weeks back, I admitted to "investigating" (read: getting sucked in by) the Twilight phenomenon and reading the first book. In the intervening weeks, the madness continued. I not only bought and finished New Moon (more on Book 2 of the vampire saga later) but I also voluntarily went to Planet Hollywood to see Edward Cullen speak.

The actor playing the blood-lusting leading man from Stephanie Meyer's' series has a name, of course, but Rob Pattinson is, in many ways, practically unknown. Pattinson drives twihards into paroxysms of desire -- the screams were nausea-inducing -- not because he's a handsome young actor (which he is) but because he is Edward's avatar, the closest any reader will ever come to a touchable version of the untouchable hero.

Has a literary (used loosely) figure ever caused such pandemonium before? Katie and Suri could have passed safely unnoticed here.

And that was the other reason for attending: Could this actor -- could any actor -- possibly live up to the descriptions in the book? From New Moon: Edward was "like a marble tribute to some forgotten pagan god of beauty." Actually, I'm not even sure what that means -- marble statues are generally bland and dead-eyed -- but we get the gist. Edward is so hot he practically defies description so, like, picture a thing of beauty and know that Edward is even more beautiful than that.

But as for the book itself, I literally threw it across the room.

Both Bella and Edward have become immensely irritating. The author might have an injury fetish because she seems to relish Bella's cuts and bruises -- she's stitched twice in the first half of New Moon alone and hurt numerous times. It's the price of running with vampires and werewolves, I get it, but Meyers dwells on and anticipates injury with the devotion of a cutter. Also, Bella is carried by -- and coddled by -- men with such frequency that she might as well be a small child. She's 18!

And Edward. The throwing of the book happened when, to soothe her anxiety about being so unworthy of him, he explains: "Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark…and then you shot across my sky like a meteor." Really, dude? Ninety years on this planet and the best you could come up with is this clumsy simile? I'm insulted on Bella's behalf.

Then I retrieved the book and continued reading.

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