Twilight v. The Bear

This post is treading on ground that some might hold near and dear...but it is all about keepin' it real, so,

Internet, I confess that I just can't get into Twilight; however, if I am honest, I should preface this by saying that I was starting reluctantly as I am not a fan of vampire stories in any media form, but had received several glowing recommendations with most noting that Twilight wasn't really a vampire story and besides, I needed something light since I had just finished this...

The outstretched neck she clove asunder, and the hewn head fell like a stone. Backward she sprang as the huge shape crashed to ruin, vast wings outspread, crumpled on the earth; and with its fall the shadow passed away. - Return of the King, JRR Tolkien

and going from that to...

The meadow, so spectacular to me at first, paled next to his magnificence. - Twilight by Stephanie Meyers

was jarring and boring (I hate to say it), but since I wanted to give Twilight a fair shake, I put it down to read, at the request of a friend, The Bear by William Faulkner all the while expecting, to be honest, to hate it and harboring the hope that that perhaps I could alternate the heavier reading with Twilight remembering that

I had avoided Faulkner like the plague in college although I think now, that I was confusing him with James Joyce, but even so, I'd heard that there was a sentence, one sentence, that was SIX pages long, but I hardly even noticed, so riveted I was by the startlingly deep beauty of the prose, the feeling that I am alongside this deeply involving drama that isn't just about a hunt for a bear, but the hunt for a past and redemption that isn't easily forthcoming and by the time I hit the climax of the hunting scene, I found myself reading faster to pace with my breath and my heart was pounding when I put the book down...now that's some good writing:

He watched it for the next two years from that moment when Boon touched Lion's head and then knelt beside him, feeling the bones and muscle, the power. It was as if Lion were a woman - or perhaps Boon was the woman. That was more like it-the big, grave, sleepy-seeming dog which, as Sam Fathers said, cared about no man and no thing; and the violent, insenstive, hard-faced man with his touch of remote Indian blood and the mind almost of a child.

I think Twilight's going to have a wait a little bit longer.