"Twilight" book and movie popularity explores the interplay between worlds
Antoinette Botsford, Orcas Island “Storybird” has enthralled listeners locally and nation-wide with her stories. She has practiced her storytelling art at First Nation and American gatherings, workshops and classes throughout the North American continent. Now she finds that the popular Twilight stories by Stephanie Meyer “explore a world of dangerous love and animal transformations” and present new ways to relate stories old and new, especially to a young audience.
The Twilight saga is a series of four books, and has proven to be a young-adult blockbuster. Comparisons to the Harry Potter phenomenon are inevitable, as the Twilight books have sold 70 million copies and been translated into 45 languages.
The Twilight stories tell of Bella Swan, a shy newcomer to the town of Forks on the Olympic Peninsula, who falls in love with Edward Cullen, a 90-year old vampire who will forever appear to be 17-years old.
The latest Twilight film, “New Moon,” centers on a teen love triangle involving Bella, Edward and a Native American shape-changer named Jacob. “New Moon” will premiere tomorrow, Nov. 19, and “Twilight,” the first movie in that series, will also be re-released for that one night only. A third movie, “Eclipse” is now filming.
Botsford was approached by a travel agency focused on literary tours to prepare a story cycle of particular appeal to the readers of Twilight. She appreciates the opportunity to reach new audiences with her stories of animal transformations and shape-shifting, particularly to teenage girls. “I don’t want to sound gushy, but I love teenagers, especially girls,” she says.
While Botsford concedes that books like the Twilight saga may not be great literature, she appreciates the stories, their values and conflicts. Bella is a teenage girl who does her school work and her home chores, who loves both her parents, although they are divorced, and who lives with her father.
Her boyfriend is a 100-year-old vampire who loves and respects her and doesn’t want to hurt her, says Botsford, so he doesn’t want to get sexual with her, “realizing, as a vampire, that it would kill her.” So the two youngsters are in “a permanent state of unquenchable lust, not to mention abstinence.” ((from Vanity Fair, Nov. 2009).
The themes of self-sacrifice for love and enduring love are what drew Botsford to the Twilight tales. The saga portrays the contrasts between archetypal energies and make them an important point of departure for stories about good and evil. Also the Twilight books have a romantic element that grows stronger with each book, says Botsford.
“They are good kids, but they face universal issues – restraint, love of parents, integrity and betrayal and immortality: do you really want to live forever? What is the advantage of staying young forever?”
Edward’s vampire family is portrayed sympathetically: his father is a physician who is around blood as a matter of routine. Entering Bella and Edward’s love story is the Native American Jacob, who is a member of the Wolf Clan of the Quinault Tribe and becomes Bella’s best friend.
Antoinette Botsford, Orcas Island "Storybird"
Botsford says, “The implications are interesting and fit into my own Native background.” (Botsford is part Metis — French Canadian and Indian). Her stories often revolve around the “extraordinary connections between the animal and human world.” Her CD, The Bone Necklace, relates tales of her heritage, weaving folklore, indigenous legends and family history.
Like the Twilight sage, they “go back and forth between daily life and less-explored worlds of unknown possibility,” Botford says. “Reality’s a shape-shifter in my book.” She appreciates the ways the Twilight stories fit into her own goals to tell stories as a “gateway to look at things in fresh and deeply meaningful ways.”
Her leap into a new repertoire continues what has been an adventurous profession for her. “It’s always been touch and go and free-fall for me,” she says. I’ve learned to not have a comfort zone – I just trust.
“I’ve had endless worries and uncertainties in the past and I got through it. I’ve lived this long and I’ll just continue till I stop. I have a tremendous joy in life, and I believe if you do what you love, the rest will just come.”
Botsford acknowledges the success of Twilight author Stephanie Meyer: “To her credit, she has opened a beautiful box, and I know some of those treasures and here they are.”
Botsford tailors her storytelling presentations to the events, ranging from performances for larger groups, to discourse with smaller gatherings. “It depends on the audience,” she says. She gave “Twilight Tales” workshops in Portland and at the San Juan Library last summer, along with a mask-making workshop.
Her storytelling has been underwritten by the Humanities Washington Grant, funding appearances throughout the state. Next weekend, she will go to Vancouver, Washington, to tell “Twilight Tales” to audiences at several public libraries.
To contact Botsford, go to www.Storybird.us, call 360-376-4285, or email
