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Review: Nightlight
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Nightlight brilliantly skewers the Twlight phenomenon.
Warning: die-hard Bella and Edward fans should probably avoid the Harvard Lampoon's high-quality spoof, Nightlight.
However, for Twilight cynics, or fans of kooky, off-kilter humor, Nightlight is a quick, appealing read. In a nutshell, the book tells the story of vampire-obsessed Belle Goose, who falls immediately and obsessively in love with the school's creepy loner, Edwart Mullen.
The Lampoon's versions of Stephenie Meyer's Bella and Edward serve as a scathing commentary on the original characters. While in the original Twilight, readers are constantly reminded how "selfless' Bella and Edward are, the Lampoon wastes no time in skewering the image.
Nightlight's Belle constantly reminds readers that by moving to Switchblade, Oregon, she's being uber-selfless; however, she simultaneously undercuts that image by demonstrating her true, narcissistic colors. In Belle's mind, even the most mundane encounters suggest that everyone who crosses her path (including postal workers and IRS agents) are in love with her.
Original romantic hero Edward also faces a tough re-visioning. Edwart is a far cry from dashing: he's a mumbling, passive science geek. In his mild-mannered responses to Belle, Nightlight delivers its harshest criticism of the original; in fact, Belle specifically tells Edwart to "feel comfortable," ordering her around, "to the point of domination."
Fortunately, Nightlight keeps the mockery brief- just over 150 pages of Belle's rambling, delusional, thoughts. It also throws in a distinctly non-Meyer sense of humor that seems more akin to Jack Handy ("I get my lack of coordination from my dad, who always used to push me down when I was learning to walk"). If it tried to match Meyer's epic PG-love-scene for PG-love-scene, it could quickly get as irritating as the passing months in New Moon.
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