Chapter 14: Mind Over Matter

311 pages in...

The title of this chapter is a reference to Edward's remarkable "restraint" where Bella is concerned. That is, he's much better at refraining from laying siege to Bella's jugular than she is at refraining from jumping his bones. This is also the chapter in which you learn the INTENSITY of Edward's obsession and just how much of a total CREEPER he is.

This is another one of those dialogue heavy chapters, so much so that I'm not going to address the prose. Trying out a new medium, I've made a script of unchanged dialogue (with the exception of my own insertions), though, disclaimer: this chapter I had to pirate from the internet, as I am on vacation and, like a genius, forgot my copy of Twilight. Some of the punctuation was messed up; my apologies if it's not 100% accurate.

So Edward drives Bella back to her house one-handed, holding her hand with the other; the sunset comes through the windshield and sets off his discoball glow.

B: You listen to fifties music?

I prefer to believe that they are listening to The Coasters' "Yakety Yak." You can't tell me it isn't so.

E: Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh! [shudders] The eighties were bearable.

Love how Edward shuts down everything from late-era Beatles to Bob Dylan to the Velvet Underground; he only listens to music from the McCarthy Era, Heart, and also Linkin Park...because they are cool.

B: Are you ever going to tell me how old you are?

E: Does it matter much?

It DOES matter, sir; that's why we have statutory rape laws. But after some finagling on Bella's part, Edward reveals that he was born in 1901 and was turned by Carlisle in 1918, while he was dying of the Spanish influenza. He also talks about other vampires and how they manage.

E: [They are] Nomads for the most part. We've all lived that way at times. It gets tedious, like anything else. But we run across the others now and then, because most of us prefer the North.

B: Why is that?

E: Did you have your eyes open this afternoon? [he's teasing her, but it reads as jackassery to me] Do you think I could walk down the street in the sunlight without causing traffic accidents? There's a reason why we chose the Olympic Peninsula, one of the most sunless places in the world. It's nice to be able to go outside in the day. You wouldn't believe how tired you can get of nighttime in eighty-odd years.

Hm. If I were driving down the road and saw a sparkly man, I don't think the first thing to go through my mind would be: OMG, VAMPIRE. But no matter, Bella takes Edward into her house, and prepare yourself for some deep creep as Edward opens the door for her...

B: The door was unlocked?

E: No, I used the key from under the eave

Bella recalls how she's never used this key when he was with her.

E: I was curious about you.

B: You spied on me? [she tries to be outraged, but she's flattered. FLATTERED.]

E: What else is there to do at night?

Oooooooh, it gets better. A few moments later, in the kitchen...

B: How often did you come here?

E: I come here almost every night.

B: Why?

E: You're interesting when you sleep. [oh Jesus] You talk.

Bella gets upset to hear this, but she is only embarrassed and worried about Edward seeing how obsessed she is with him(she says his name in her sleep); she never reflects on the fact that this is not only a gross infringement of her privacy and a horrifying act of entitlement on Edward's part, but it's also ILLEGAL.

E: [whispers] Don't be self-conscious. If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I'm not ashamed of it.

...Ung. So anyway, Bella's dad comes home and Edward hides out somewhere in the house. Charlie Swan recognizes that Bella is acting like a spaz, but she dodges conversation and makes a show of going upstairs to bed.

B: See you tomorrow, Dad. [disdainful aside to the audience] See you creeping into my room tonight at midnight to check on me.

Wow. A boy just admitted to stalking you, and you're getting all snotty and condescending at the idea of your father being concerned about you? Thank you, Bella, for making young women everywhere aspire to be self-centered, passive-aggressive bitches.

B: [opens the window to her bedroom and looks out into the darkness] Edward?

E: HELLO, CLARICE. SS-SS-SS-SS-SSSSS.

Just kidding. He doesn't say that. But when she turns around, she does see him lying on her bed with a shit-eating grin on his face, and it terrifies her. He apologizes, though it's clear that her fear amuses him.

So now that he's in her room without asking to be there, Bella then goes through an anxious nightly routine, brushing her teeth, showering, regretting that she left her nice lingerie in Phoenix, which implies that she would like to have sex with him. Back in her room, Edward slips himself under the covers with her, and the two talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, mostly about how intensely they love each other. This is funny though:

E: You have a very floral smell, like lavender -- or freesia. It's mouthwatering.

B: Yeah, it's an off day when I don't get somebody telling me how edible I smell.

Ha! Man, Bella, every once in a while, you land some zingers. Though my appreciation of her sardonic wit is short-lived.

B: Why do you do it? [she's talking about Edward not eating people] I still don't understand how you can work so hard to resist what you are. Please don't misunderstand, of course I'm glad that you do. I just don't see why you would bother in the first place.

Is it really that hard to understand why someone would bother to refrain from killing people? Why is Meyer trying to tout this as Edward's great humanitarian accomplishment? This wasn't even Edward's idea; it was a value that Carlisle imposed upon him.

E: That's a good question, [no it isn't] and you are not the first one to ask it. The others -- the majority of our kind who are quite content with our lot -- they, too, wonder at how we live. But you see, just because we've been dealt a certain hand, it doesn't mean that we can't choose to rise above, to conquer the boundaries of a destiny that none of us wanted. To try to retain whatever essential humanity we can.

Edward's response isn't a terrible one. I can see how other vampires, who maybe have forgotten the value of humanity, would look at Edward's family and call them pussies. But Bella IS a human. I don't understand why Edward would need to explain to her his family's choice to NOT slaughter and eat humans. It doesn't speak well of Bella's perception of her own race.

But moving on, as the conversation continues, Edward talks more about his family and their special abilities, which is kind of interesting actually (I'll mention it later). And then E & B start talking about sex. Of course, they never mention the word "sex," as Meyer clearly has very squeamish objections to talking about sex frankly.

B: Well, I did wonder about you and me -- someday? [having sex]

E: [goes all serious] I don't think that – that [sex]-- would be possible for us."

B: Because it would be too hard for you [THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID], if I were that close?

E: That's certainly a problem. But that's not what I was thinking of. It's just that you are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we're together so that I don't hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by accident. If I was too hasty, if for one second I wasn't paying enough attention, I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake. You don't realize how incredibly breakable you are. I can never, never afford to lose any kind of control when I'm with you.

Oh, now that's romantic. What throws me is how guarded Edward is about saying the word "sex" and yet he has no qualms about saying "crush your skull." God, how much more fascinating Twilight would be if this bloated monologue were actually a diversion meant to hide Edward's extreme sexual anxiety, as it's made clear in this chapter that he's never had sex before, not in his 100+ years of existence. "Oh...yeah...I can't have sex with you because...I could kill you! Yeah, yeah. It doesn't have anything to do with my own personal masculine insecurities or the size of my glittery, sparkling--I AM A MAN, GODDAMN IT! I COULD KILL YOU!"

But alas, while Bella and Edward are necking, Meyer makes sure to point out that he's "good at it," even though he's never done it before, leading me to think he would demonstrate sexual prowess in the same way. My interpretation is wishful thinking. Edward is, indeed, so powerful that having sex with Bella could break her like a plastic CD case.

At the end of the chapter, Bella falls asleep in Edward's arms, "exhausted from the long day of mental and emotional stress," and I push away my computer screen, exhausted from the mental and emotional stress of reading this chapter.

WHAT'S WORKING: I'm starting to feel that I'm the exact opposite of the kind of girl that Twilight seeks to target. I have a rather, um, guarded sense of personal space. The very thought of a boy sneaking into my home without my knowledge, even if I DID like him, awakens a fury in me such that you would not believe. I also think I'm savvy enough to know that people who do things like that, in real life, don't do it with the best of intentions.

It throws me for a loop how fans of the series so easily dismiss Edward's behavior as romantic or protective. Firstly, the dialogue makes it quite clear that he's not spying on Bella to protect her. He's spying on her because he doesn't have anything better to do. Secondly, he's flippant and remorseless about his actions, like he believes he has the perfect right break into Bella's house and watch her sleep. This indicates to me that he has no genuine respect for Bella (I mean, whatever, I don't have any respect for her either). But it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing. I don't care how good-looking he is.

Still, there is clearly something about the creepy that draws readers in, whether they read these actions AS creepy, or flattering, or cute. To make a light comparison, Edward reminds me a little of Ricky Fitts in American Beauty, skulking around and filming a girl he likes without her knowing it (he does this at some point, right? I haven't seen the movie in a while. Even if that's not the case, there's still something inherently creepy about wanting to film shit all the time.) Similarly, Edward has selected plain, unsuspecting Bella as his object of relentless affection; he wishes to peel away her layers, find her secret self, a beautiful part of her so deeply hidden that she does not know it's there.

I'm sure we, as women, would all like for someone strong and commandeering to approach us and educate us on why we are so captivating. We would like to learn that this person has been watching us closely, and as a result, he knows more about us than we do about ourselves. He lets us know that we are much better than we give ourselves credit for. It's self-affirmation bundled up and placed at our feet with a ribbon on it.

As a young woman and a citizen of the world, I tend to not to indulge in fantasies like these, mainly because I put a lot of stock in self-reliance. But I'm aware that the idea of self-reliance is frightening for many, particularly teenage girls, who are always getting bombarded by contradictory messages in the media: "Get out there and kick some ass, but be pretty about it." (Um, that's a bastardized rendition of what I said in my Chapter 11 post, which talks about how female characters are represented in mainstream film.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that Edward and his stalker tendencies might seem comforting by comparison. Scouring a forum, I encountered one Twilight fan who liked the interplay between Bella in Edward because she said it was "refreshing" to see a female character who was portrayed as weak and getting rescued all the time (as opposed to strong and acting aggressively ) because you never see that. Apparently, some Twilighters have very short memories.

The stalking thing is a big hump for me to get over. But there were things about this chapter that I enjoyed. While I start to feel ill every time Edward goes on and on about how special Bella is, as he's prone to do, I liked hearing about his family and how these characters became vampires and the abilities they developed as a result. It led me to understand that Meyer is capable of thinking beyond the small, claustrophobic Edward-Bella sphere, and that she has a broader universe in mind. I'm also interested in the idea of vampirism amplifying characteristics that you have when you are human (Edward claims that his special ability to read minds probably came from him being particularly sensitive to peoples' emotions before Carlisle turned him. ....It would make SO MUCH SENSE if this kid had sexual insecurities). Here are the other abilities as Edward describes them:

Alice: precognitive powers
Jasper: emotional manipulation
Emmett: strength
Rosalie: tenacity (pigheadedness)
Carlisle: compassion
Esme (Edward's mother): her ability to love passionately (essentially the same thing as Carlisle)

Ohboyohboy. Wouldn't I love to get turned into a vampire and have my special power be COMPASSION. Though last time I checked, being compassionate was a behavioral choice, but in Meyerworld, apparently you have to develop a superpower in order to be a good person.

Silliness aside, I was invested for a brief period of time. I'm also irritated and kind of surprised that the rest of the Cullen family has been M.I.A. for the most part, since I've heard that the minor characters are the reason why some more intelligent readers, who don't like Edward and Bella, enjoy this series. But the Cullens have barely been in scene, and at this point I'm wondering how someone who doesn't like Edward and Bella could make it this far into the book just to become attached to characters that only get air time past the 200 pg mark.

So the short of it is: I have high expectations for the Cullen clan, and Chapter 15 is called "The Cullens," so I assume they'll be present. I'll be pissed if I finally get to see them in scene and they're all dipshits who spend most of their energy fawning over how special Bella is.

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I like these less-structured posts better. Next week, if I can fit it in, I want to talk a little about my own writing in regards to Twilight, because this is my blog and I can do that.

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla