Announcements: I have received my first comment concerning the fact that I'm...ahaha...not doing a very good job identifying why Twilight works. Mostly, I've been riffing on it. And that is true. But. I will admit. I enjoy fantasy. I enjoy escapist literature at times. And this is not working for me. Not even on a superficial level. It's important to me that I catalog my initial reading experience, and then I can go back and try to understand what it is I'm missing that's prohibiting me from enjoying what I find in these pages. Why do I not connect with Bella Swan? Well, she's insufferable. Why do other people connect with Bella Swan? Maybe I'll understand that as I go on, but I'm having trouble seeing it. I'm not a sociologist or an expert in cultural phenomena. I'm just a reader, trying to figure something out. And I want to give people an accurate depiction of what it is I'm reading.
I also want to provide special thanks to my friend Neela, who linked me to this article, "What Girls Want" by Caitlin Flanagan. It's a very insightful review, singing Twilight's praises, and while I don't agree with a lot of it (it clearly didn't stem from a close reading of the novel, and some of it actually makes me downright nauseous), it's a very eloquent analysis of the phenomenon. I may address it later as my journey continues.
So. Let's continue.
Bella goes on to have the worst case of SADs in history when she sees that it has snowed outside and "groan[s] in horror." "I had enough trouble not falling down when the ground was dry," she laments. (Did I mention that Bella is clumsy? Bella mentions it. A lot. It's supposed to be one of those self-effacing ploys that makes you feel more sympathetic for her, but to many antifans, this is proof that Bella is a VARY SPESHUL kind of character.)
Anyway. Bella drives to school in the snow without incident and comes to discover, when she gets out at the school parking lot, that Charlie has graciously gotten up early to put snow chains on her tires. As Bella experiences a moment of sincere gratitude, she looks up and sees an out-of-control van skidding in her direction. In a very convoluted action sequence, Edward, whom Bella sees over on the other end of the parking lot, suddenly appears at her side to save her by blocking the van and/or lifting it up over her legs. In the midst of this, Bella knocks her head on the pavement and, subsequently, Edward manhandles her into an ambulance. Edward rides in front LIKE THE MAN HE IS. Tyler, the kid who was driving the van, gets sent to the hospital too with a head injury. (Guess who it is everybody is most concerned about. Just guess.)
Bella meets Dr. Cullen, Edward's father, who is also beautiful and who does doctor things, but Bella is most concerned about how Edward managed to save her. She confronts him directly and he condescends her, natch; she is convinced that she saw Edward lift the van, and he is apparently convinced not to explain it to her, pulling all the usual, "Well, you're a hysterical woman with a head injury, so no one will believe you," stops. Actually, his responses are pretty amusing; I was very much pleased to see him piss Bella off.
Charlie comes to pick up a still-fuming Bella, and she sees, on the way out, the entire school sitting worriedly in the waiting room. (Did they cancel class for this event?) She has to call her mother, who is "in hysterics," hearing about the accident from Charlie. Bella resists her mother's pleas to come home because she is "consumed by the mystery Edward presented," and when she goes to sleep that night, she has her first dream about him.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Let's play a quiz game. It's called, "Bella Rationalizes Her Way Out of a Wet Paper Bag." Pretend that you are Bella, and answer the following questions:
You move to a new town where the local boys are remarkably friendly toward you. Two of them (We'll call them Mike and Eric) have already started a rivalry for your affections.
a) You consider that you are a "novelty" (p 55) that the people in the bumfuck town where you've moved have never seen a marginally attractive person before, and that's why they're going apeshit.
b) You consider that your "crippling clumsiness" (p 55) must been seen as "endearing," and that most boys would like to date a girl who must always wear a giant, bubble wrap coat.
c) Despite complaining about never fitting in with people your age 40-some pages ago, you are disconcerted by the fact that boys like you, and you would prefer to be ignored.
d) All of the above.
The answer: D. Bella takes pgs 54-55 to theorize about why the boys in Forks seem to like her so much, and her conclusion is that she wishes they didn't like her at all. Readers may interpret this as Bella being vulnerable and shy, but she doesn't cite shyness as the reason why she doesn't want this attention. Really, it just annoys her, and she doesn't seem to respect Mike or Eric for their feelings at all.
I think this is because we are not supposed to see Mike and Eric as important to the story. Meyer hasn't taken the time to explain WHY Bella is so turned off by boys liking her. There may very well be a reason. Maybe Bella is terrified of embarrassing herself. Maybe she's nervous about sex, or making commitments, or the idea of having to impress a boy, things that would make her genuinely shy or vulnerable. But none of that is discussed. We're left with a bitchy girl, thoughtlessly dismissing romantic suitors.
OMG Bella I love you so much I want to be you tell me your secretsHere's question 2.
True or False. You are a sixteen-year-old high school student who knows more about head injuries than people with medical degrees.
If you answered false you are WRONG, and I passive aggressively grimace at you. Bella is embarrassed and frustrated about being taken to the hospital, which is understandable, even admirable in her hatred of being coddled. But she is also an irritating, indignant little snot about it, sorely convinced that there is nothing wrong with her and that everyone is just inconveniencing her. When they put her in a neck brace, she takes if off when no one is looking and throws it under the hospital bed because it's "stupid-looking" (p 60), and when they X-ray her head she tells the reader, "I told them there was nothing wrong, and I was right. Not even a concussion" (p 61). That's right. Doctors are stupid, and the tests they run to make sure that people aren't bleeding internally are stupid, and the devices they put on people's necks to ensure that they don't have permanent spinal injury are STUPID.
To be honest, there is something to be said here about Bella wanting control over her own body, or even knowing her own body more than trained professionals. Her anger at being overpowered reached me on some level, as I understand what it's like to not feel like you are in control. It's a genuine teenage girl fear that I can somewhat relate to. But really, Meyer? Did you have to try to make her smarter than the doctors?
Last question.
You think it's "stupid, stupid, stupid" (pg 67) to be so suddenly obsessed with Edward because:
a) Obsessions are bad
b) He has been openly hostile toward you
c) You saw him demonstrate immense physical strength by lifting a van, and then he lied to you about it, which makes you nervous around him
d) Being obsessed with Edward makes you NOT want to get the hell out of your small town
The answer? D! "I wasn't eager to escape Forks as I should be, as any normal, sane person would be" (pg 67). Not only is this the ultimate insult to the people of Forks, it overlooks a lot of the more frightening possibilities that NORMAL, SANE PEOPLE would recognize. But then, those aren't things that the story wants us to pay attention to. Edward Cullen: he makes shitty small town life bearable.
And it's true that Edward isn't completely unlikable so far, particularly when he bickers with Bella about what happened at the accident. Here are some little moments that pleased me:
"I saved your life -- I don't owe you anything." (p 64)
"Bella, you hit your head, you don't know what you're talking about." (p 64)
"You think I lifted a van off of you?"..."Nobody will believe that, you know." (p 65)
"Can't you just thank me and get over it?" (p 65)
Yeah Bella, you little twerp. Can't you? I'm sure I should be disconcerted by the way he treats her, but I actually kind of enjoy it. Bella's mindset is so childish that to see someone treat her like a child is rewarding. Eventually, Edward (sort of) wins their argument by staring Bella down, and his beauty makes it difficult for her to stay focused. "It was like trying to stare down a destroying angel" (p 65). A what? A destroying what? The same hair-gel model who just snapped, "Can't you just thank me and get over it?" like a haughty adolescent is what? Haha, Bella Swan, your metaphors are funny.
There is one little thing that concerns me about Edward. On pg 65, they argue about his rescuing Bella and she asks him, "Why did you even bother?" which is kind of a dumb question to ask when you've just gotten rescued by someone. Edward, however, replies, "I don't know." What...you don't know why you saved a person's life? Is he implying that if Tyler's van were to careen toward anybody but Bella, he would have watched them get crushed, even though he had the power to save them? It doesn't speak well for Edward's morality if he only ever feels an impulse to ease human suffering when the suffering human happens to be one fragile, good-smelling girl. This problem, I have a feeling, gets overlooked by casual readers, who most likely assume that Edward saved Bella because he is in love with her, not because he actually values human life.
In the land beyond Edward-Bella World, secondary characters MATTER NOT. Poor Tyler! Bella hears a whole crowd of people shouting her name over the parking lot when the accident happens, but nobody shouts Tyler's name, and he spends most of his time in the hospital in the bed next to Bella, desperately apologizing for nearly crushing her. Bella is frustrated since she has already told him she's fine and he won't let the subject go. She eventually "close[s] [her] eyes to ignore him," oblivious that Tyler's anxiety about almost killing a person might, I don't know, HAVE TO DO WITH SOMETHING A LITTLE BIGGER THAN JUST BELLA SWAN!
But, as I've come to find out, nothing in the Twilight universe is bigger than Bella Swan.
PLOT DEVELOPMENT: This is the first time an event has taken place in Twilight, and again, the car accident is circumstantial, totally outside of Bella's control, and therefore irrelevant to her character or her decisions, and lacking causality. I mean, it's more exciting than smirks and grimaces over a biology lab, so I'll bite. But I think I kind of understand why Meyer might want to keep action sequences out of the equation as often as possible. There are...PROBLEMS, mostly inconsistencies and a lack of clarity in the language, so...
LANGUAGE:...I'll deal with it in this section. This marks the first chapter where Meyer's language hindered my ability to understand literally what was happening. Maybe someone else can have a go at it. Here's the paragraph where the van almost hits Bella.
"Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting. My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I was lying on the pavement behind the tan car I'd parked next to. But I didn't have a chance to notice anything else, because the van was still coming. It had curled gratingly around the end of truck and, still spinning and sliding, was about to collide with me again." (p 56)
...What? Setting aside the image of a van "folding around" the truck (like a taco?) it curls around the end of the truck a second time, spins and slides some more (how does it do this if it's up against the truck?) at comes at Bella a second time, as though it's making another attempt. Oh, van. I admire your attempt, I surely do. It is a brave and honest endeavor but...it's impossible to picture what's happening in this paragraph.
When Edward rushes onto the scene, a "low oath" makes Bella aware of him. (You get it? Edward is swearing.) There also some confusion as to what Edward does to the van, whether he stops it with his hand, catches it in the air (?) to keep it from "landing" on Bella's legs, or lifts it up off of her (if this last one were the case, wouldn't she have been crushed anyway?). The consensus on p 64 seems to be that he both stops the van with his hands AND lifts it to keep it from crushing her, but if it's already stopped before it crushes Bella, why would he need to lift it...? These are language problems typical of amateur writers, who have little experience choreographing scenes, and who orchestrate action in a really confusing way. Meyer wants us to know every tiny movement that happens when the van comes at Bella, but we're bogged down with so many details that its hard to decipher them. A more mature writer would have focused more on the sensory elements of almost getting hit by a car: sounds, the smell of burning rubber maybe, the sight of a car door swinging toward your face. Instead, we get Bella attempting to give us a blow-by-blow account of the literal events.
But It doesn't really matter. The only thing you're supposed to take away from this scene is EDWARD MAN SAVE BELLA WOO-MAN!!!. The logistics are irrelevant.
SUBTEXT: Meyer's forbidden fruit and outsider subtexts have been set aside in lieu of the plot; what's at the forefront in the chapter is Bella's life-in-peril moment, and her curiosity/frustration with Edward. I have a feeling it's going to become a pervasive idea that Bella is frail and in need of protection, and that Edward, the strong, silent guardian, will protect her without question, and without explanation. However, even though I don't like Bella at all, I do appreciate her stubbornness, her dogged quest for answers, and her distaste for being coddled (even if her frustrations are petty, misplaced and annoying). These are qualities that, one hopes, will evolve into something more interesting as the story progresses.
WHAT'S WORKING? Plausibility aside, convoluted language aside, Bella's incessant snottiness aside...there is one question to be asked. Who doesn't want to get rescued from an out-of-control van by the hottest guy in school?
The event is escapist fantasy to the extreme. What makes it even more radically fantastic is that Edward implies that Bella is the ONLY person he would have done such a thing for. All Bella has to do is exist, and she magically becomes the center of people's universes. By now, if Meyer has successfully convinced readers that Bella is selfless, mature, intelligent, and misunderstood by the rest of the world, she's probably also convinced them that they share Bella's qualities. "Of course Bella is deserving of Edward's special attention, and I am too, because Bella is me!"
The only way this could ever work is if the reader hasn't thought deeply about any of the things Bella has said, and if the reader is able to ignore, or doesn't recognize, a lot of the other problems with the prose, which range from distracting to infuriating.
With that said, I can still understand the teenage attraction to Edward so far, with all his smirking and arrogance, and his predominant quality being that he is really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking. I will be paying attention to him in the next chapter, if not just to see him be an asshole to Bella some more.
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Geeeez. Someone tell me Bella takes some Prozac in Chapter 4. Or at least downs a giant handle of vodka.
Wish me luck,
Jenchilla
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