Chapter 8: Port Angeles

178 pages in...

I have six followers! Thank you for taking an interest in this blog. I hope I'm entertaining you somewhat and not offending you too badly if you happen to enjoy Twilight. I want to reiterate that I certainly don't wish to damage anyone's enjoyment of this series by being critical of it. What I want to do is encourage analytical thought about these popular phenomena, because I think considering Twilight to be something fluffy and inconsequential is to be overly dismissive of it. Things that are important to girls are just as worthy of analysis as things that are important to boys.

So anyway, thanks all. And onward.

Picking up where we left off, Bella, Jessica and Angela drive to Port Angeles listening to "whiny rock songs" (152, which is a REALLY ironic thing for Bella to make a jab at, considering the band she was supposedly listening to at the beginning of the previous chapter). The girls dress shop until Bella finds her social capacity worn thin and wanders off alone to find a bookstore. It's getting dark, and she somehow ends up getting lost in the warehouse district. Anyone with two neurons to rub together already knows where this is going...

So Port Angeles' resident gang of shady rapists pursues and corners Bella, and, inevitably, Edward's silver Volvo swerves in to the rescue. Edward orders her into the car and drives around trying to suppress the urge to murder the offending guys, then finally pulls up in front of a restaurant (La Bella Italia -- no acknowledgment in regards to the name) and informs Bella that he is taking her to dinner. They meet up with and quickly say goodbye to Jessica and Angela, who already ate while Bella was wandering around lost.

Edward near about charms the panties off the waitress, and while he does this, he and Bella hold Part II of the conversation in which Bella voices her theories about Edward's true nature. Somehow, she has arrived at the conclusion that he reads minds (!?) and seems to know that her mind is the exception (!!!?), and there is further talk about how Bella attracts trouble by magic, and how she owes Edward her life. While we do learn a little bit more, Edward is still very evasive with his answers. The chapter ends mid-conversation, with Edward preparing to drive Bella home.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: There are only two real instances in which Bella takes action in this chapter. They are: Bella gets lost seeking a bookstore and Bella speaks to and interrogates Edward. In all other instances, Bella is being acted upon, rather than acting.

Can it really be argued that this chapter belongs to anyone but Edward? As soon as he arrives on the scene, Bella's role as an active agent is minimal. And Bella herself has adopted new characteristics in order to appreciate and accommodate his depiction as her perpetual savior and superior. Gone is the girl who feels embarrassed about being weak. Gone is the girl who gets angry about Edward's condescending attitude. The Port Angeles rescue marks the moment in which she becomes unwaveringly rapt in her admiration of him.

"It was amazing how instantaneously the choking fear vanished, amazing how suddenly the feeling of security washed over me...as soon as I heard [Edward's] voice." (162)

Of course, it's understandable that Bella would feel relieved and grateful after Edward saves her from a bunch unruly men, and she does thank him, her voice "fervent with gratitude" (174). But the story doesn't dwell on Bella's gratefulness. In fact, her thanks is almost an afterthought. Bella seems more fascinated by the idea that Edward is in complete control; she submits to his orders without questioning them, drinking her soda "obediently" (169, this is Bella's own word!) when he tells her to, eating when he tells her to, even when she says she isn't hungry, and at this point it feels gracious for Edward to allow her to pick the entree of her choice (Oh, sorry, that's an active instance I left out: Bella selects mushroom ravioli from the menu. Though if Bella had picked tuna steak or something, I could certainly see Edward putting his foot down: "No ma'am. The mercury content is too high. You're having the spaghetti.")

More prominently than ever, Bella is in awe of Edward. She marvels at how he "effortlessly" parallel parks the Volvo (165). When she shivers, he gives her his jacket, which "smell[s] amazing" (170) because he apparently emits a naturally "delicious" odor. By the end of the chapter she is sniffing it whenever he's not looking (178). Ung...

And Edward is still so creepy! He flat-out admits to stalking Bella (she responds critically for a moment: "I wondered if it should bother me that he was following me," then her brain, unable to take the stress of actual thought, shuts down: "instead I felt a strange surge of pleasure" (174)). He also confesses to being potentially violent, to "[having] a problem with [his] temper" (164) (Bella doesn't specify a reaction to this, but I picture her twirling her hair and staring blankly). Every time Edward opens his mouth, he is either mocking Bella for her frailty -- "Ordinary people seem to make it through the day without so many catastrophes" (174) -- or slathering undeserved praise for qualities that I have yet to see from her -- "You're much more observant than I gave you credit for" (173) (we'll get to this; it's a plot point that really threw me for a loop).

Edward also exhibits this bizarrely-attractive brand of androgyny, with his pale, long-fingered hands and angelic face. He opens Bella's car door for her like an old Victorian-era gent wearing a "light beige leather jacket" and "ivory turtleneck sweater" (170, ivory turtleneck sweater! Lol! I don't know if he's a serial killer or a douchebag from an 80s teen movie).

PLOT DEVELOPMENT: It's an improvement over the previous chapter in that we no longer have multiple pages devoted to Bella's epic internet voyage. Also, shit happens. Who am I to complain that there's no real sense of causality and our heroine has no control over what happens to her?

But I'm astounded at how information develops from the conversation Bella and Edward have. In this chapter, we arrive at a conclusion about one of Edward's many special abilities, and it's implied that Bella not only knows about this ability, but also knows its limitations, saying, "Let's say...that...someone...could know what people are thinking, read minds, you know -- with a few exceptions" (173). Later she is "grateful" that he doesn't seem to know what she's thinking (178). I've been reading this novel pretty closely. Bella has NEVER ONCE reflected on the idea that Edward can read minds. It's never come up. And when the information comes to the surface there is never an "aha" moment on Bella's part. It's as though she's not so much finding things out, but merely affirming things that she already knows. And how would she know that, honestly?

This is what makes Edward comment on how "observant" Bella is, but I have been in Bella's head for 173 pages now and never once saw her "observing" how Edward reads minds, or how he's incapable of reading her mind. The clean answer for this is that Meyer simply forgot to include these observations; as Meyer has understood these facts about Edward from the beginning, Bella comes to this conclusion without any real effort.

The whole book plunks along this way. Bella and Edward both just "know things" because the author knows them. It colors the plot with this super-obvious kind of artificiality. There are no surprises. It seems that the characters are never in any danger of being wrong or failing, which, for some readers, could be more of a comfort than it is a frustration. I'll address this later.

LANGUAGE: I had no outstanding beefs with the language in this chapter. In fact, the descriptions of Bella getting lost struck me as chillingly effective. There's one moment when she turns a corner, and I can sense her fear in the language so plainly:

"The street was lined on both sides by blank, doorless, windowless walls [a passive sentence, but it's still a pretty terrifying image]. I could see in the distance, two intersections down, streetlamps, cars, and more pedestrians, but they were all too far away. Because lounging against the western building, midway down the street, were the other two men from the group, both watching with excited smiles as I froze dead on the sidewalk." (160).

I mean, if you were a teenage girl, reading this might make you scared to go off somewhere by yourself.

I'm also aware that Bella and Edward's banter is supposed to be entertaining. Meyer isn't TERRIBLE at progressing conversations naturally, and I can see how, if you had a major emotional attachment to Bella and Edward, reading the moments when they interrogate and theorize about each other would be a lot of fun. It's not very fun for me, because I don't like either of these people. Edward makes what passes as a joke in this novel -- "Only you could get into trouble in a town this small. You would have devastated their crime rate statistics for a decade you know" (173) -- and the humor of it is lost on me, because I can't get over how condescending he is.

SUBTEXT: Caitlin Flanagan, how exactly could Bella have chosen to not be with Edward? She can't not chose him. The story deliberately dictates this.

I can't help but read this chapter as the Twilight Universe finally shattering Bella's spirit, afflicting our heroine (who we're otherwise supposed to see as intelligent and mature) with this sudden urge to go wandering around in a warehouse district by herself, in a city she doesn't know. "See!" Meyer cackles, "You DO need a man! Think about that the next time you go out in public without a chaperon, you arrogant hussy!" To Bella's credit, she does go through self-defense lessons in her head when the men approach her, moves that include -- not kidding -- "breaking the nose or shoving it into the brain. Finger through the eye socket -- try to hook around and pop the eye out" (161). Jesus Christ! Did she go to the Pai Mei School of self defense!? It's no wonder Meyer thinks women are better off subordinate if she believes that self-defense classes teach you how to shove a guy's nose into his brain.

But I digress. Now that the novel has gotten through that troublesome love-hate phase (it skipped the "Lets get to know each other" phase almost completely), Meyer can move onto to more important things, like praising Edward for his ability to parallel park and the way he smells nice without cologne, which seem to be the highlight of this book for many of its readers, and the bane of it for those who hate this series.

On a minor note, there is also this really weird subtext about food. I'm not going to go back through the chapters to cite a bunch of stuff, so you'll just have to take my word for it, but Bella is never interested in eating. She cooks solely in a perfunctory, housewifely way and is always too nervous or depressed to be hungry or to enjoy what she eats; in this chapter she nibbles at things only because Edward tells her to. I picture her as a looking really sallow and unhealthy too...as embodied by Kristen Stewart. And before everyone freaks out, I am not saying that Meyer promotes anorexia, just that it bothers me that she's glossing over one of the big conflicts that arises with vampirism: that is, giving up human pleasures (I am human, and I LOVE FOOD) for a cursed immortal life. While it's supposed to be ironic that Bella faints at the sight of blood, it would be even more ironic if she professed a love of something that vampires can't enjoy. But alas, Meyer seems intent on emphasizing the superiority of the vampire lifestyle, and so Bella shows no interest in food.

(Note: sunlight has the potential to be the exception here. Bella loves sunny weather, and vampires don't go out in the sun. But this nuance will be shattered in a later chapter, which will be, I have a feeling one of the most painful things I ever have to read in my life.)

WHAT'S WORKING: Edward tells Bella: "I've never tried to keep a specific person alive before...and its much more troublesome than I would have believed" (174).

Oh, I can hear the siren call of this relationship all right. If Edward's most important quality is his looks, his second most important quality is how unreasonably obsessed he is with Bella, and how explicit he is about how she is the FIRST person he has ever been unreasonably obsessed with. For the readers of Twilight, little is more romantic than a guy showing how much he cares, and little does that more than a guy saving you from peril. Peril is, coincidentally, something that follows Bella around like a puppy.

On the surface, Edward's statement has a loving sentiment. But has he ever been given the chance to rescue people before? Has he consciously passed it up? If Bella is the first human being he's ever cared about, this implies that any other girl would have been left to get raped in that alleyway. This doesn't seem too outlandish if Edward is as disdainful of average people as Bella is, if he considers his greatest blessing to be NOT killing every human he comes in contact with. And yes, I'm reading into Edward a little here, but I'm trying to keep in mind also how this story treats characters who don't have these too-good-to-be-true supernatural qualities (Bella, with her inexplicable magnetism, I would put in this category). Meyer, and any reader who shares her misanthropic sentiments, would probably deem it inconceivable that Edward could form an emotional attachment to any human other than Bella.

For those who can see Bella as admirable (or better yet, as themselves), Edward confirms what they have already presupposed: Bella is special. She gets it. She knows what's what. And Edward is the same way. And the two of them share this special connection, getting it and knowing what's what between them. And I think this stems back to the idea of the plot providing comfort rather than conflict. Perhaps there is something reassuring in reading about the escapades of these two superior people: Bella, the blameless innocent whose problems are beyond her control, and Edward, the all-powerful guardian who sets things right for her every time.

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The weather where I am has been so wonderful lately; I've taken to working on this project on coffee house porticos and in parks and such, which has its pros and cons. Pro, because being outdoors makes reading Twilight a less grueling experience by proxy. Con, because you risk being seen reading Twilight in public. Chapter 9 for next week.

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla