Announcements: the Eclipse trailer has successfully infected the internets, and I wanted to take this special moment to share it with everyone:
Hahaha. Ha. Haaa. Don't judge me. I need the snark to help alleviate the nausea.
SO. Onward.
It's later on, that same day Edward hypnotizes Bella into going with him to Seattle. At lunch in the cafeteria, he's sitting apart from his family and beckons her to come sit with him. They participate in a 7 pg Q&A over Bella's theories about what kind of supernatural being Edward is, and the consensus that Bella arrives at is that Edward is trying to tell her he is dangerous, and this is why he doesn't want them to be friends. However, Bella's also set on the idea that he is "not bad," because he of course hasn't done or said anything remotely creepy lately. (We'll get to this. Oh we will.)
After lunch, Bella goes on to Biology while Edward ditches class, but, lo and behold, they are testing blood types, and the sight of all the students pricking their fingers sends Bella into a swoon. Lovesick Mike helps her to the nurse's office but Edward reappears, intercepting Bella, literally carrying her the rest of the way. When Bella recovers from her faint, Edward eye humps the elderly nurse into letting her go home early (gross...), so he walks with her out to the parking lot. When she starts to head off to her car he GRABS HER JACKET AND DRAGS HER ACROSS THE PARKING LOT TO HIS VOLVO, FORCING HER TO GET IN.
Stranger danger! STRANGER DANGER!!!
Of course, the pretense is that Bella shouldn't drive in "her condition," and Bella, noting that it's not in her power to defy Edward, complies. On the way home, they have a conversation spurred by Edward playing Debussey, and the subject comes up about their home lives and about the upcoming trip to the La Push beach that Mike is planning. Edward won't go. He has a "camping trip" planned with his brother Emmett. Edward ends their conversation with this little gem, just before he drops Bella off at Charlie's: "Don't be offended [ladies, prepare to be offended], but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So...try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right?" (109).
...You asshat. Bella's mad at him and slams the door when she gets out of the car.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: While Bella continues to be her insipid self, the real star of this chapter is Edward, who demonstrates himself to be, in multiple instances, the kind of love interest who likes to have the upper hand in conversation, who manipulates people's emotions unabashedly, and who prefers to keep Bella confused and guessing. And he is all kinds of creepy. He summons Bella from across the cafeteria, beckoning her with his index finger and winking (87) -- when is it ever not repulsive for a guy to do that! -- and Bella comes to sit by him as if pulled by some inescapable magnetism. When she mentions the change in his behavior, he responds with a series of unsettling comments:
"I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly." (87)
Yes, those first four women I raped and murdered, I think they sealed the deal, so one more won't make much of a difference.
"I think your friends are angry with me for stealing you." [And he says this next line with a "wicked glint in his eyes"] "I may not give you back, though." (87-88)
You see, I'm gonna take you down this dirt rode where a good friend of mine lives. They call him the Misfit.
"[I'm] giving up trying to be good. I'm just going to do what I want now, and let the chips fall where they may" (88)
Aaaand that's my moral compass, SIGNING OUT.
I'm not going to cite every single creepy thing Edward says, because pretty much everything comes off with this psuedo-civil Hannibal Lector flair. It's also important to note that none of this triggers any noticeable alarms in Bella, though his cryptic statements do frustrate her, and she is aware, at least, that his default mode is I'm-good-looking-enough-to-be-perpetually-condescending-to-women. He's always chuckling, smirking, snickering, or stifling a laugh or a smile any time Bella gets irritated, embarrassed, or tries to demonstrate that she is in any way self-sufficient. To her credit, she does deliver a couple of eerily well-spoken monologues to him on pg 90 about how his behavior pisses her off.
But no matter Bella's frustration with Edward, she always finds herself completely transfixed by his good looks, and therefore unable to actively defy him. It is the ONLY thing she seems to notice about him. When she says, "I don't believe you're bad," she never rationalizes with the logic typical of one making a statement like this, e.g., You saved my life, therefore you must be good. That NEVER comes up. It seems as if she only has to look at his beautiful face to make her judgments, which, unsurprisingly, seems to be the way the story would like for us to read all of its characters.
PLOT DEVELOPMENT: Five chapters in. Twice now Edward has played savior to Bella. Not only is Bella's swooning spell repetitious and unnecessary, it also perpetuates the idea that Bella has no agency. Both incidents, the car accident and the blood lab, are circumstantial, authorial interference sending our narrator once again into Edward's arms. The events of Bella's life are not based on her decisions or character, and Meyer tries to explain this by having Edward say that Bella is a "magnet" for trouble...just...by some kind of glittery Mary Sue magic apparently.
I have never read a romance as inorganic and contrived as this one. Bella is being manhandled into this relationship; she can't resist Edward, mentally or physically.She WILL be in love with Edward, plot be damned, and Edward, though he seems to have marginally more agency than Bella, is basically saying, "I'm having some major problems with this INEXPLICABLE DESIRE, so I'm just going to give up and pursue this girl who I'm obsessed with for no reason."
This is not a plot. It's is a game with a couple of one-dimensional chess pieces.
LANGUAGE: The conversations Bella and Edward have are long. Like, really long. They take up maybe 70% of this chapter. To imagine them, picture the conversations between Hannibal Lector and Clarice Starling, mesh them together with the quick-witted bickering of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, throw in some 80s teen movie, then remove all of the nuance, psycho intellectualism, and social commentary. That's about what we have here. Bella spouts sentences like, "I think you've made your opinion of the subject of my intellect clear" (89) and "I just wondered...if you could warn me beforehand the next time you decide to ignore me for my own good. Just so I'm prepared." You can almost hear where she's supposed to lapse into a British accent, desperately trying to evoke Pride and Prejudice for any 14-year-old who may have seen the Kiera Nightly rendition. A page or so later, Bella is back to saying things like "Holy crow" (who the fuck says "holy crow"?), and "Dang" (92). (Btw, nobody swears in this book...unless they mutter "low oaths.")
We also have Meyer's typical disrespect for Writing 101 standards. '"No,' I disagreed quickly" (90) may be the most atrocious thing I've ever seen I've ever seen in print, and, young writers, never use the word "infinitesimally" (103) unless you're writing a scientific paper.
SUBTEXT: Edward is a puzzle to me. Do fans love him a) in ignorance of his qualities or b) in response to them? If it's a, they're not reading closely and probably aren't interested in reading closely, but if it's b, then maybe I'm overlooking something.
I guess I've been into the bad boy. I mean, when I first saw Silence of the Lambs and watched the scene where you see that Hannibal Lector has drawn a picture of Clarice Starling with a lamb, my initial response was, "Aw, he really respects and cares for her!" Subsequently, Hannibal then ripped a guy's face off and wore it. So, if you have a character that is charismatic and interesting enough, you will still root for him, regardless of his behavior. But in this case, Edward isn't particularly charismatic or interesting, and Bella is CERTAINLY no Clarice Starling, which just makes the power play between these characters all the more unsettling to me when it's acceptable, even admirable, to fans of the series.
So far, the story is telling me that Bella, who is embarrassed at the idea of being weak and who shows some desire to be a self-sufficient young woman (the one quality in her that I actually LIKE), really needs to be taken down a peg and shown that she does need someone to take care of her, because she is fragile and vulnerable. And I could maybe understand this theme (even if I don't agree with it) if Bella was portrayed as the kind of person who actively takes risks, who maybe decides, "I'm going throw myself in the middle of a dangerous highway accident because people might need my help" or "I'm going to try to donate blood today even though I didn't eat lunch," and these choices could result in Edward having to save her and set her straight.
But Bella DOESN'T take risks. She doesn't DO anything. She's just trying to go about her normal boring day and attracts trouble through some magical magnetic forcefield. The universe of Twilight is constantly saying to Bella, "Oh? You think you can survive today without someone around to rescue you? Well guess what. YOU'RE A HEMOPHILIAC NOW!"
And in all of this, Edward is right. He's always right. He's right in ways he has no right to be right. When Bella finds herself on her back in the nurse's office, she remembers that Edward decided to play hooky instead of going to biology, and that he justified this decision to her.
'"You were right,' I moaned letting my eyes close.
'I usually am -- but about what in particular this time?'
'Ditching is healthy.'" (98)
Yeah! Even though Bella being a hemophiliac and Edward skipping class have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER, ditching is fucking healthy! Remember that kids. Edward wants you to make the right decision...
WHAT'S WORKING? I'll put it in bullet points:
- This courtship takes all the pressure off of the female participant
- Edward is enough of a blank slate to insert whoever you like into his character
- If Meyer's already convinced you that YOU ARE BELLA, it's easy to insert yourself too
Here's an interesting thing. This cool lady brings this up in her video review of the My Little Pony movie, where she talks about how boys' cartoons have considerably more conflict than girls' cartoons, which is acceptable because girls are more interested in the stories they can elaborate upon, rather than the story that is ACTUALLY there. I understand what she's saying because I remember the cartoons I watched as a kid/young teen, how the characters were bland and one-dimensional, and yet the imaginary games I played and the stories I thought up involving those characters were much more nuanced and complicated. I took what I saw and imagined greater things.
Hmm...this might explain a) why there are so many female fanfiction writers, and b) why so many women are attracted to fixer-upper boyfriends. Whoops.
Maybe that's part of what's going on with Twilight. Girls fill in the blanks. They have decided from the start what they want Edward and Bella to be, and they imagine accordingly. Even if Edward has a creepy undertone, they know in their heart of hearts that he is good, just as Bella does, because the narratives they have already established in their heads say so.
And Meyer's not doing absolutely everything wrong. There are some interesting albeit forced moments going on when Bella and Edward talk about their families. It's the first time Bella shows an interest in Edward's personal life and the first time the two of them actually share things in common, which is what teenagers do when they like each other. This was, however, about 3% of the chapter, and by the time it occurred I had already witnessed Edward pulling Bella across the parking lot by her jacket, so any respect this asshole had for this girl seemed moot.
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You guys, this...this is hard. I'm trying to set aside all of my feminist and literary sensibilities but...after reading this far into the book, I feel like I've just polished off an entire box of ho-hos. I mean, I feel physically ill. Here's to hoping I can get through Chapter 6.
Wish me luck
Jenchilla
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