The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide by Stephenie Meyer Read Free Book Online

know. And he accepts it pretty quickly. But the bigger wonder for him is Bella being happy. He thought he was going to ruin her life, and he made her happy. And that really was everything for him.

On Literary Inspirations

     
    SH: So when you were writing, you’d have a literary classic that helps inspire your books. With
Breaking Dawn
you said it was
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, and you couldn’t say the second one.
    SM:
Merchant of Venice
—which I do say in the story. You know… [SH gasps] It’s the book Alice pulls a page from to leave her message for Bella.
    SH: I wondered about that.
    SM: And, you know, originally it was
Jane Eyre
that Alice tore a page from. But
Jane Eyre
had nothing to do with the story. It just got in there because Jane Eyre was one of my best friends growing up. She was a really big part of my life. [Laughs] That’s why it was in there, because that book was such a big part of my growing-up experience and the way I view the world.
    Because, actually, I do think there’s a Bella–
Jane Eyre
relationship. Jane Eyre’s a stoic. She does what she thinks is right, and she takes it—and she doesn’t mouth off about it. You know, in her head, maybe, she suffers, but she never lets that cross her lips. And I do think that there’s some of that stoicism—not in the same way, but there’s a little bit of that—in Bella.
    The real story that I felt tied to was
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, where, in this lovely fantasy, the heartbreak of people not loving the right people—which happens all the time—is made right in this glittery instant of fairy dust. I love that book—and that’s the part I love about it. I enjoyed the character of Bottom in the play, but that’s not what I read it for. I read it for the magic.
    That really is sort of where the imprinting idea came from, which existed in
Forever Dawn
(the original sequel to
Twilight
). And I introduced it earlier, so that it would be somethingalready explained, and I wouldn’t have to go into it later. It was about the magic of setting things right—which doesn’t happen in the real world, which is absolutely fantasy. But if we can’t have things made right in fantasy, then where do we get them made right?
    So here’s where
The Merchant of Venice
comes in. The third book of
Breaking Dawn
—which is a full half of the novel—was a lot longer than I thought it would end up being. And the whole time I had to have tension building to the final confrontation… but I wanted to give the clue that this was not going to be a physical confrontation. This was a mental confrontation—and if one person loses, everybody dies.
    SH: Yeah.
    SM: There’s no way to win this one with a physical fight. Everyone’s going to lose if that happens. So it’s a mental battle to survive, and it’s all about figuring out the right way to word something. Figuring out the right proof to introduce at exactly the right time, so that you can force someone into conceding—just trapping them in their own words.
    SH: Because in
The Merchant of Venice
, Portia stayed with her beloved by being clever.
    SM: Exactly. And just with her cleverness and by using the right words, she’s averting bloodshed and murder from legally happening right in front of her and ruining her life.
    SH: When
The Merchant of Venice
came up in the story, I immediately started going through my mind: What’s the story of
The Merchant of Venice
? What does it mean to this book?
    SM: And in the end of
The Merchant of Venice
, all the lovers get their happy ending. That’s one of the reasons I like it. [Laughs]
Can you tell I like the lighter side of Shakespeare?
     
    SH:
The Merchant of Venice
and
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
—I like that.
    SM: Can you tell I like the lighter side of Shakespeare? I mean, I like the tragedies, too, and
Romeo and Juliet
is probably my favorite. Which is probably very immature of me, but that’s the one that always gets me, and I think that’s part of