Let me treat you to the first passage in which Bella describes Edward in the sun:
"Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal." (260)
Ya'll. The entire chapter is like this. It's like this, interspersed with Edward's self-righteous and condescending monologues about how Bella's blood is "exactly [his] brand of herion," (268), the smell so intoxicating to him that he wants to simultaneously eat her and ravish her. He reminds her once again of how special she is, how desperately he wants to read her mind. If Edward could read Bella's mind, he would realize that she was doing nothing but worship his glittering body for ten goddamned pages, and maybe then she would not be so special anymore. It's also revealed to us in this chapter that Edward ONLY saved Bella from the Tyler's van because he is in love with her, NOT because he goes about saving pithy humans in order to be a good person.
Oh, there's also a moment in which Edward and Bella almost kiss, and Edward springs back and starts running around the clearing and uprooting trees and throwing them at other trees--I'm not sure why, to let off his sexual angst, I guess. He piggybacks Bella at high speed when they go back to her truck, she gets dizzy, they kiss, this time for reals, until Edward decides he's had enough. He then forces Bella to give her the keys because, as he says, "You're intoxicated by my very presence" (284). Bella fusses about this a bit, but relinquishes, realizing that she "couldn't resist him in anything" (284).
Let me be honest. I put this off. And I put if off. And I put it off. Until 10:00 last night when I finally got up the nerve to read this chapter. Remember in my last post how I said a friend of mine told me that the sparkling scene wasn't that bad? Well...
It's not that bad.
I mean, it's bad, but compared to all the other things that this novel does absolutely wrong, sparkling is one of its minor issues, though it's the issue that most people, it seems, have the biggest problem with, particularly people who were fans of the vampire genre already and are jumping at the claim that Meyer "ruined" these mythical creatures. As someone who's been condescended and chastised about the indestructible nature of dwarves' beards, I have to say that I really don't care about what Meyer or any writer chooses to do to vampires, because vampires aren't real. They're just not real. Unless you consider those folks who shop at Hot Topic and claim to love the taste of blood but have never experienced any actual trauma in their lives vampires.
Lots of writers play around with fantasy and horror genres. True Blood vampires can be seen in mirrors and have a weakness to silver. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series, there is a vampire who is able to abate his bloodlust through caffeine addiction. This is Meyer's world, and she can make her vampires sparkle in the sun if she so chooses, without it having any impact on "real" vampires.
That said, it is still very, very...
stupid.
It's stupid for a number of reasons.
- It ignores all obvious connotations.
- It's 100% sincere.
- Plot-wise, the only purpose it serves is to make Edward that much more desirable, so that Bella's big revelation is, "Oh, I thought he was desirable BEFORE, but NOW I'm real hot and bothered!" The sparkling presents no new conflicts to move the plot along.
- It serves absolutely no subtextual purpose, no new ideas or issues to consider, and it's existence is completely shallow, an obvious fantasy of the author.
This makes a lot of sense. Conceptually, Edward's sparkling ranks among those weird ideas that you have in dreams, which, while you are dreaming, you think are spectacular, but then you wake up and realize that the idea was stupid and that it didn't make sense, and you should never let anybody else know about it, and you certainly shouldn't have written it down on paper. Judging from the amount of shit that made it into this novel (i.e., a lot of useless information and pointless scenes) Meyer has no filtering system for her ideas. Everything that pops into her head she views as golden, and everything that she puts into the story is golden, and nothing gets taken out or reconsidered. It's a problem when your biggest issue writing a novel is whether or not you should include the band name Linkin Park, because you're worried that you won't look cool.
I should add too that if Edward's sparkling had been played up as satire, this whole thing could have been pretty brilliant. But it is SO sincere, and the kind of jokes that Meyer seems to favor get cycled ad nauseum: Bella is a frail human (let's make a sardonic comment about it), Edward is miraculously beautiful and way better than everybody else (let's make a sardonic comment about it), Edward and Bella are risking their lives to be together (let's make a sardonic comment about it). If you ever see a girl walking around with the phrase "Stupid lamb" on a black t-shirt, it comes from this conversation:
"'And so the lion fell in love with the lamb...,' he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.
'What a stupid lamb,' I sighed.
'What a sick, masochistic lion.'" (274)
I guess that's supposed to be funny, in the way that people in really bad, intense situations spouting off witty, dark-humored commentary about it is funny. But it's only funny if you buy the intensity of situation, in this case, the intensity of Bella and Edward's relationship.
WHAT'S WORKING: I buy that this chapter is a "transcript" of Meyer's sexual dream, because it would mean that she wrote this scene first, then followed it up with everything that happened beforehand. The prose takes a dive here; it's far inferior to passages in previous chapters, in which Meyer seemed to get her stride (compare Edward's purple prose sparkling paragraph to passages from the La Push chapter). However, the intensity has been turned up a notch; now, instead of references to Edward's beauty on every page, we have it in every other sentence (not exaggerating. I can't list the moments that expound upon Edward's hot bod or golden eyes. There aren't enough hours in the day). This chapter has given readers precisely what they wanted. No surprises. No twists and turns. This is just an everygirl and her supernaturally hot man admiring and pining over each other for 25 solid pages.
Faithful readers want to see Edward, and they get him on a silver platter. He's like a glittery, golden elixer that fills up the page. He takes control of the scene, orchestrates most of the conversation, claims the most air time. He is in control of how soon and how long Bella kisses him, stopping her when she first makes a move, commanding her when it's okay to go ahead, carrying her, taking her car keys from her, forcing her to be a passenger. Bella continues to be a passive agent, relieved of all responsibility. She merely sits and admires, and is admired. Edward is on the page at such an intense and powerful degree that it's understandable how readers would be just as intoxicated as Bella is, how they might not notice, or even identify with or appreciate, her lack of agency.
They also might not notice that Edward's kind of an asshole. He calls Bella "little coward" (279) and "Silly Bella" (281) and "only human" (283), and he tells her, "I can drive better than you on your best day...You have much slower reflexes" (283). Her response, if she responds, is generally something like, "Well, that's true..." and she lets him have his way. Sometimes, she retorts with a snarky, perhaps sulky, comment, and readers probably interpret this as Bella holding her own in Edward's presence, as this is all that they themselves would be able to do in the wake of such a dazzling monster.
So Bella sits. Through no action of her own, she emits a scent, which intoxicates Edward in the same way that he intoxicates her, enrapturing him, drawing him to her (though this chapter makes clear that Edward as better at resisting his urges than Bella is). I might liken this to roping a tiger and bringing him home to your living room, something so small and weak having a grip on a creature so powerful. It's understandable how readers would see that as appealing, even if the relationship itself is problematic and --
Gah!! Go away, Rpattz! Go away! ::shudder:: Why do people think this character is even remotely attractive!?-
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Chapter 14 for next week, Mind Over Matter, which is what I have to keep saying to myself as I push through this novel.
Wish me luck.
Jenchilla
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