Chapter 19: Goodbyes

404 pages in...

Well, we've passed the 400 mark and Meyer is ratcheting up the tension by making things far more complicated than they need to be. We have now launched headlong into The Most Convoluted Escape Plan Ever, Part II.
Basically, Bella must be incredibly mean to her dad in order to make him think that she can't stand to be in Forks with him for another second. That way, she can take off with Alice and Jasper, and Edward will stay in town, so Charlie Swan will know he isn't involved and won't be suspicious. (If all of this sounds a little silly, don't worry; it's not you.)

This could have been an interesting situation in which Meyer opens up the more painful corners of Bella's relationship with her dad, delving maybe into her feelings of abandonment, or her anxiety about how the divorce forced her into an early adulthood. But no. That would be something to expect for more nuanced and intuitive writers. Meyer keeps everything in the shallow end:

"I can't do this anymore! I can't put down any more roots here! I don't want to end up trapped in this stupid, boring town like Mom! I'm not going to make teh same dumb mistakes she did. I hate it -- I can't stand here another minute!" (393)

And this:

'"Just let me go, Charlie.' I repeated my mother's last words as she'd walked out this same door so many years ago. I said them as angrily as I could manage, and I threw the door open. 'It didn't work out, okay? I really, really hate Forks!'" (394)

Chief Swan is, of course, devastated, because he adores Bella as much as everybody in this novel. And thankfully, Bella takes a moment to be upset about her cruel solution to the problem. But still, Edward's all like, "Oh, whatever. He'll get over it," and it infuriates me how dumb this book wants me to think Charlie Swan is, that he needs to be constantly duped and shoved around. There's even a weird kind of self-righteousness to this scene, as though, deep down, Meyer believes that Bella's speech was something that her father needed to hear.

But you know, what the hell ever. This book barely gives a shit about Charlie Swan, so why should I? Now we are running desperately back to the Cullen's place and Laurent is there to confirm what Edward perceived about James. He is after Bella and will not stop until he gets her. So the Cullens decide to try to "confuse Bella's scent" to get James going off in a different direction when she leaves town. Around here is where we get our very first line of dialogue from Rosalie, who says, after Edward orders her to trade clothes with Bella:

"Why should I?"..."What is she to me? Except a menace -- a danger you've chosen to inflict on all of us." (401)


Wait, is it...?

IS IT!?

YES! YES IT IS!


YES YES YES YES! SOMEONE IS THE VOICE OF REASON AGAINST EVERYBODY INEXPLICABLY LOVING THIS DETESTABLE TWAT -- oh, wait. Everybody just ignored her....

Neeevermind.

As though Meyer is afraid that some readers might actually take Rosalie seriously (completely silencing her and having the blond bitch pretty much shunned by everyone in the family isn't enough), we take another moment to have another character (Jasper this time) remind Bella that she actually is quite special, and that she is totally worth all this trouble, even though Jasper has known our heroine for less than two days. Cullens just Know Things about people.

"Jasper and I looked at each other. He stood across the length of the entryway from me...being careful.
'You're wrong, you know,' he said quietly.
'What?' I gasped.
'I can feel what you're feeling now -- and you are worth it.'
'I'm not,' I mumbled. 'If anything happens to them, it will be for nothing.'
'You're wrong,' he repeated, smiling kindly at me.'" (404)

It's SUPER IMPORTANT to remember that Bella's tragic flaw is a lack of self-knowledge. That is, she doesn't know how awesome she is, and therefore constantly needs to be reminded of it by Edward and a plethora of other characters, whom she generally rebuffs.

Off she goes to Phoenix, where this book's climax will take place, if it indeed has a climax.

WHAT'S WORKING: At this point, I feel like there's no need for me to point out the appeal of a self-insert character who does nothing, and yet stands at the center of a great, masculine ruckus. A whole clan of supernatural beings have rallied together to protect Bella simply because she happens to be there. She's unhappy about this, of course, feeling guilty about putting them in danger (though they seem rather invincible, so I'm not 100% convinced they're actually IN any danger; Bella seems more worried that they will have to relocate on her account). Nonetheless, I can totally feel Stephanie Meyer's glee as she writes this stuff. The only character who even questions protecting Bella with her life gets instantly shut down and disrespected. For girls reading this novel who connect with Bella, it is a further manifestation of a supreme desire: yes, they ARE the center of the universe. Other people, like Charlie Swan, don't matter one wink. And Bella's human friends haven't been mentioned for hundreds of pages.

I don't see much else I can add to this chapter than I didn't say about the last one, which was rather similar. I do have something else to add in regards to what Twilight may be counteracting in media. Movies that feature a male character, like Zach Braff in Garden State, often have a female counterpart, like Natalie Portman, who has no real concerns of her own aside from "fixing" the dude's depression and getting him to, like, embrace life or something. (See: manic pixie dream girl) Edward Cullen is no less like an Objectified Relationship Toolbox, designed to protect, serve, adore, make decisions for, and forever inflate the ego of his One True Love. But audiences are more accepting of the fanciful depiction of the relationship in Garden State, which did very well to my knowledge, and which I myself liked the first time I saw it. (Granted, it did have a little more going on in it.)

I know I compare Twilight to popular movies a lot, which maybe isn't fair. I guess I just see it as being on that same brain-popcorn wavelength. But just so that everybody in the world knows, these complaints I have about a lack of attention to the female psyche extend their tentacles into contemporary fiction as well. I mean the big boys. I mean Pulitzer prizewinning big boys.

This article. Read it. Granted, the kind of people reading Cormac McCarthy probably are NOT going to be reading Twilight. Just a guess. But there are interesting points to be made.

I don't want people to misunderstand and get mad, though. It's not my desire that people stop reading books by men or about men, and I don't intend to say, nor do I think this article intends to say, that a story is worthless if it doesn't have a female character in it. The reason people write articles like these is not to say that men are worthless. It's to point out that the scales are tilted in a particular direction, because you have overly-lauded writers like Cormac McCarthy who throw up their hands and say that women are simply "too difficult" to write in a way that makes them seem like genuine human beings. We're just too mysterious. We're like a mythical creature whose inner workings can never be fully understood. As someone in the comment section of this article pointed out, McCarthy has no problem writing about cannibals or murderers, and yet women, whom I'm going to assume he comes into contact with pretty much every day, are simply too scary to deal with.

To any dudes out there, imagine what it might feel like to watch a movie or read a book and realize to yourself, "Heeeeey. Wait a minute. There are absolutely NO men in this story."

The more I broaden my scope, the more I start to wonder if blaming Stephanie Meyer and her hoards of fans for indulging in something is the wrong way to go about it. After all, if story-writers treated their female characters with more complexity, I have a feeling Twilight would not even exist, or if it did, its fans wouldn't defend it to such a violent degree. But Twilight stands as a bastion of light against stories that constantly ask of women to be these quirky, sexy, witty, ass-kicking, mysterious creatures. This is why fans of Bella Swan say they like her because she is "real," they like her because she is "weak." She is those things, and she is still the glorious focal point of it all.

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Chapter 20: Impatience for next week. ...That title does not bode well for me. Impatience, like I will be more impatient in this coming chapter than in previous chapters? Bad omens, everyone. Bad, bad bad.

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla

Chapter 18: The Hunt

389 pages in...

My apologies for another late post. No real excuse for it other than laziness, and being super absorbed by the newest episodes of True Blood. Btw, who else saw this awesomeness?

What I find so great about this is that it was most likely Snoop Dogg's idea. I seriously doubt the creators of True Blood APPROACHED him and asked him to make something for the show. Rather, I think he was sitting on his couch Sunday night thinking, "Mm, yeah. Sookie Stackhouse," then went down to the studio like, "Hey, I made this for ya'll. Use it."

So anyway, moving on.

A PLOT HAS ARRIVED IN TWILIGHT!!! And when I say plot, I mean a genuine obstacle that has arrived due to actions of prominent characters, which requires an immediate solution. Sort of anyway. It's the closest we're going to get.

In this chapter:

1. Rival vampires shown up, the first antagonists we have encountered aside from Lauren (remember Lauren? Don't feel too sad if you don't. She was so very obviously somebody that Meyer didn't like in high school.) and maybe Rosalie, who STILL HASN'T HAD A SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE
   
2. One of the rival vampires, James, is a "tracker" according to Edward, and he will not stop until he has Bella for a snack
3. Edward freaks the fuck out and throws a tantrum, forcing Bella into the jeep and proceeding to drive her far away from Forks against her will
   
4. Alice does something that briefly makes her adore me a little.

The vampires that show up are Laurent, "the most beautiful" (376), olive-toned and "with the slightest of French accents" (377) (he is the leader, and the only one of the three with dialogue), fiery-haired Victoria, and James, who has "regular features" and is "nondescript" (376). We know these characters are of dubious morality because they are not dressed as sharp as the Cullens and are not quite as attractive, and their eyes are "burgundy" instead of gold, like the vegetarian Cullen clan.

Meyer likes to play up tension rather than have things actually happen. I kind of appreciated Laurent, who is, for the most part, painfully cordial, though his dialogue is punctuated with creepy one-liners like "We just ate outside of Seattle," leaving readers to imagine the worst. When James catches Bella's scent and crouches toward her, Laurent promises that they won't hurt her(378) though he doesn't come off the page as the most trustworthy soul ever. He is surprised and curious, rather than threatened, to see vampires hanging out with a human.

As for the other two villains, they are not particularly developed, but we'll see what Meyer does with James in later chapters.

So after this non-event of a meeting, Edward is suddenly carting Bella back to the jeep, Alice and Emmett with him. They force her in and strap her down without explanation and ignore her when she demands one. We find out later that the pivotal discovery has taken place by Edward reading James' mind and "just knowing" that "Tracking is [James'] passion, his obsession" (382), and there will be no way to stop him until he gets Bella. Because that is exactly what this novel needs. Somebody else who is completely obsessed with Bella.

Whether or not you accept Edward's freak-out, controlling behavior depends entirely on how much you trust his judgment. The book wants us to believe that the situation has suddenly become extremely dangerous, that Edward is 100% correct about James, and that the hissy fit is warranted. This goes back to one of the biggest problems I have with the novel, which is that Bella is barely an active player in any of this. This entire James event came about simply because Bella just happened to be standing in a field smelling good, and while she does get to see some vampires snarling at each other, actual UNDERSTANDING of the situation is a privilege that only Edward has, being able to read mind. Bella reacts solely to what Edward and the Cullens tell her, since she's physically incapable of judging the full situation for herself.

To Meyer's credit, much of this chapter focuses on Bella stepping up and holding her own among vampires that are a great deal stronger and more informed than she is. The entire plan-forming conversation is 8 pgs long, so I can't cite it, but it basically goes something like this:

Alice: Let's calm down and think about this rationally.
Edward: THERE IS NO OTHER FUCKING OPTION!!!11!!11one
Emmett: If they attack us, there's only three of them. We can fend them off easy.
Edward: THERE IS NO OTHER FUCKING OPTION!!!11!!11one
Bella: Take me back to my house! Charlie's gonna lose his shit!
Edward: Ignored.
Emmett: We need to take Bella back to her house.
Edward: THERE IS NO OTHER FUCKING OPTION!!!11!!11one
Bella: But, but I haz a idea!
Edward: Ignored.
Alice: Let's listen to Bella's idea.
Edward: *sighs* FINE.

It's good that Emmett and Alice are acting as voices of reason to the overly-passionate Edward, though Emmett seems most excited about bashing someone's head in. In the end, Bella's plan is only a convoluted version of Edward's plan: he wants to cart her out of town, and she wants to go and see her father before she gets carted out of town. In the end, Bella is going to say something to Charlie so that it doesn't seem like she's being kidnapped, Alice and Jasper are going to drive Bella to Phoenix, for some reason, while the rest of the Cullen clan stays behind to protect Bella's father, because apparently two Cullens in Phoenix can protect Bella better than seven Cullens in Forks.

No one stops to consider actually discussing things with Laurent or James, because apparently Edward already knows that this is an impossibility. Whatever. Nobody ever discusses anything reasonably in this novel anyway.

As Edward is saying goodbye to Bella, he is extra douchy: "If you let anything happen to yourself -- anything at all -- I'm holding you personally responsible. Do you understand?" (388)

What, is that supposed to be cute? Is it supposed to be funny? The book seems to want us to see Edward as being serious here, but...really. What does that say about him? "I put you in this situation by stalking you and being otherwise completely irresistible, and yet it is YOUR fault for smelling good and making other vampires want to eat you"? What a stand-up fellow Edward is.

But the best part of this chapter takes place at the very end, when Edward doubts Alice's abilities.

"'Can you handle this?' he asked.
And graceful little Alice pulled back her lips in a horrific grimace and let loose with a guttural snarl that had me cowering against the seat in terror." (389)

I enjoyed this moment, because I didn't quite expect it, and I've been waiting for a while now for Alice to do something unexpected, since so many fans like her. It is a rare moment for females in this novel to display anything other than mediocre passive-aggression (like our sweet-smelling Pretty Bird), and it shows me that there may be some hope for Meyer's women yet.

WHAT'S WORKING: Bella has long since officially fit the bill as a genuine Mary Sue, but one element was missing: a villain who is unreasonably and insurmountably obsessed with killing her. Meyer seems to like for Bella to be the victim, and victimized in a way that makes her desired, and desired simply for existing, not because she actually, like, DOES anything. I feel like I've talked about this to death, but it's consistent with the fantasy: Bella is a blank slate of a girl, wanted by all, good or evil, and if anyone doesn't want her, it is out of jealousy. We of course see the valiant way in which Rosalie argues the case against Bella Swan, with Meyer not giving her a single line of dialogue so far (I'm PISSED about that, ya'll!).

However, this chapter does mark a moment in which Bella stands up for herself, makes her voice known and, sort of, has her way. Only time will tell if Edward really does hold Bella accountable for getting herself hurt.

I still think that a character like Bella is counteracting the female characters that appear in mainstream media. I found this article, "Why Strong Female Characters Are Bad For Women," which talks about Transformers having Megan Fox play a character that is a super sexy mechanic who ends up the love interest for weasely Shia Lebouf or however you spell his name. It's of course played to a male audience, who identify with weasely Shia Lebouf and would prefer to believe that Megan Fox has no desires of her own beyond fixing your car and sticking her ass out. The article goes into detail about how Hollywood responded to feminists saying "We want more strong female characters, less damsels in distress," and got it completely wrong. Though, what feminists probably SHOULD have said was "We want more DEVELOPED female characters. We want BETTER female characters." For example, in mainstream movies (excluding chick flicks, though most chick flicks avoid this as well) you rarely ever see women who have problems that aren't men, who want things other than men (or babies), or who have genuine inner lives beyond men. To my knowledge, there is NO female counterpart to mopey, male characters with white middle class malaise in cinema, no female version of Zach Braff in Garden State (the closest we get is maybe miserable rich girl Kate Winslet in Titanic).

If you think I'm going off on a feminist rant, I am, but that doesn't make these observations any less factual. If you doubt me, artist Alison Bechdel brought this issue up in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For. A movie only passes the Bechdel test if:

1. It features two female characters
2. The two female characters have a conversation together
3. That isn't about a man or men

You will be ASTONISHED at the percentage of Hollywood movies that pass this test. It is SLIM, my friends. SLIM. And I'm not saying this because I want an army of people working around the clock to make movies that feature only women and exclude men completely. I'm saying it to point out that, in media, the thoughts and desires of men get attended to in a way that the thoughts and desires of women do not. Whether or not your care about that is hardly the issue. But it's still true.

I think Twilight still fails the Bechel test (if there are any featured conversations between girls in which Bella isn't talking or thinking about Edward, I've forgotten about them). But, like I've said before, Twilight is INTERESTED in Bella's inner life. It focuses on her thoughts and desires with a seriousness that most media doesn't. Girls are drinking Bella up 1) because the book has Bella thinking and feeling things that they themselves think and feel, and 2) because the book is pretty much 100% supportive of Bella's feelings. It never judges her, and she gets the man without having to change herself.

That is all for this week.

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Now that things are actually happening in this book, I am a little less despondent! Next thing you know, I will be seeing myself in Bella, and her love will become my love, and I will see and understand the beauty of her relationship with Edward Cullen! And then I will remember that I like my significant others to have heartbeats, and to respect my personal space, and to cook me spinach alfredo pasta. LET'S SEE YOU COOK A MEAL WHEN YOU CAN'T TASTE IT, YOU PASTY ASSHOLE.

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla

This is just an observation...

I don't know how relevant this is, but it's something that has me in a perpetual state of astonishment. Twilight may have launched into the mainstream, but there are some REALLY SPECTACULAR SONGS on the soundtracks to those movies. I mean, there's some super trashy stuff on there too, but holy Jesus god! Beck?? BATS FOR LASHES!? Oh Christ, and Florence + the Machine. Wow. I do love a good epic, thunderous love song. EDWARD AND BELLA DO NOT DESERVE MUSIC OF THIS CALIBER. NO.

http://www.box.net/shared/static/1lsayxgh4c.mp3

Of course, you have to buy the whole damn album to get the good stuff, unless you download it illegally of course. And I would never do anything like that. Never. Nope. ::sidles off to Google::

Jenchilla

Chapter 17: The Game

374 pages in...

I think I'm in that stage of the project where my patience is waning. At this point in the novel, all we're getting here is a rinse and repeat cycle. I wait for a moment in which I can experience just a fraction of what the fans feel when they read this and really enjoy it, and then I am let down. I was hoping to see some goddamn vampire baseball, and the actual scene in which the Cullens play baseball is less than three pages.

Still... Look at them in their little uniforms! Ain't they cute!? Aw my goodness!

One of my biggest sources of frustration...well, it's not Edward and Bella anymore. I mean, they're themselves. But I've kind of become immune to them. My responses are more just eye rolls than spasms of fury. "Oh, look. It's Bella being a little shit towards her dad. Yay." or "There's Edward calling Bella a child and making another insecure show of overpowering her. Big effin deal." Now I'm mostly frustrated because of the complete mediocrity of the Cullen clan and their presence in this chapter, as the individual characters within the Cullen family are supposed to be a big selling point if this series. I'll get to them later, as they're absent for more than half of the chapter.

Most of this chapter focuses on Bella having a bland conflict with Billy Black (Jacob's father, in case no one remembers; I know I didn't) about dating a Cullen. Bella's a little bitch to him, but Billy convinces her to let Chief Swan know about it.

The actual scene in which Bella tells her father about dating Edward is kind of sweet, but uneventful, not nearly the huge issue Bella was making it out to be in earlier chapters. His response, as Bella describes it: "It appeared that Charlie was having an aneurysm" (357), then her father "thunders" out a few questions and Bella explains that she and Edward are "the same age," and Chief Swan gets Edward's name wrong twice ("Edwin"), and Bella petulantly corrects him, and then he calms the hell down as though he never had a problem with anything. He meets Edward and everything is just gravy. The scene in the movie that has Billy Burke cleaning his gun and drinking a beer while having this conversation is more enjoyable, in my opinion. LOCK & LOAD MO-FOS!

So then Edward drives Bella off to the location of the baseball game in Emmett's bromobile (a big red jeep). And there is a repeat of a scene that we have seen before in the previous four chapters, which is Edward and Bella taking seven pages to discuss their relationship. The following piece is from pg 365.

B: You were mad.
E: Yes.
B: But you just said --
E: That I wasn't mad at you. Can't you see that, Bella?
B: See what?
E: I'm never angry with you -- how could I be? Brave, trusting...warm as you are.
B: Then why?
E: I infuriate myself. The way I can't seem to keep form putting you in danger. My very existence puts you at risk. Sometimes I truly hate myself. I should be stronger, I should be able to --

Shuuuuut uuuuuuuup. Do we really need another conversation like this, in which Edward moons over these magical qualities that Bella never genuinely exhibits? We get it. Her attraction is to strong to resist, powerful as you are. You love her. She is your life. I suppose the fans who believe that they are Bella need to be reminded of this extensively, and in every chapter. NOW LET'S SEE SOME FUCKIN' BASEBALL!

Okay. Well. We get baseball. Sort of.

The thing is, vampires swing their bats so powerfully that they can only play baseball if there's a thunderstorm over town, which Alice can predict, because she is convenient like that. I was excited to get to this scene because I thought that seeing the Cullens interact with one another would be a nice way to exemplify their character. But...I need to take a step back and understand how Meyer thinks. The baseball scene isn't here to reveal anything we don't already know; it's simply another instance in which Meyer can showcase her vampires' superpowers and how happy and perfect they are as a family. Period.

It's not really a scene though. Much of the actual play is summarized, and its further dulled by the fact that Bella (and by extension, Meyer) doesn't seem to know very much about the game, and can't actually see what's going on, everybody is moving so fast. And here's where I started to get really vexed:

"The score constantly changed as the game continued, and they razzed each other like any street ballplayers as they took turns with the lead. [Shooooooow this. Show it. I am thirsting for character, THIRSTING. Let me see vampires razzing each other, please] Occasionally Esme would call them to order. [SHOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!] The thunder rumbled on, but we stayed dry, as Alice had predicted." (371)

Thanks Bella. You worthless hack.

Anyone who's ever been in a writing class knows the saying "Show don't tell." It's more complicated than that though, because Meyer does in fact SHOW a lot, but the things she SHOWS are worthless, 7 pg conversations like the one I just cited, and many instances of Bella fixing herself breakfast and getting on the computer. Meyer prefers to TELL things that should be shown, like...interesting things: Bella's social anxiety, Edward's angst about his status as a bloodsucker, the individual characters of the Cullen family, AND A GAME OF VAMPIRE BASEBALL. DAMN YOOOOU!

Well, it's not totally true that the Cullens have no character. Some are more distinguishable than others. I decided to make a list of each of them and give you my current perceptions of them:

Carlisle: Doesn't do much to distinguish himself beyond being a McFatherFigure. His dialogue is
quite bland.

Esme: Doesn't play baseball, but prefers to act as the ref and keep order in the family. I was interested to find out that Esme had thrown herself off a cliff after her newborn baby died. These were the circumstances in which Carlisle turned her. She introduces this information "matter-of-factly" as though it doesn't bother her at all, so I'm not sure what purpose this information serves. Esme also wants for Edward whatever Edward wants, though she seems to have some unspoken reservations about Bella being there.

Alice: Annoying. And still defined solely by her clairvoyance and physical appearance, dancing everywhere, slapping everyone "dainty high-fives" (371). Maybe I just have something against characters that are perky all the time.

Jasper: Ahh, I got nothin'. I think Jasper is supposed to be the "charismatic" one, but he has only one line of dialogue (that I remember) in this chapter. Really, I think he's just there so that Alice can have a mate.

Emmett: I think I might genuinely like him. He's the bear-obsessed, he-man one, and he shows some glimmer of a personality when he compares Edward's...I guess...arguing to sounding like "a bear choking" (367). He also winks at Bella, making me believe that he is also one of her admirers and would dump Rosalie for her in a hummingbird's heartbeat given the opportunity. Hump away, my overly-masculine friend. Hump away.

Rosalie: Continues to be the most interesting for me simply because she dislikes Bella (as most people realistically should), and guess what: SHE DOESN'T HAVE A SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE IN THE WHOLE DAMN CHAPTER.

Oh yeah...and Alice envisions some bad vampires a-coming. They were mentioned vaguely in a previous chapter, so vaguely that I don't think I brought it up in the blog. Everybody becomes anxious (because they will undoubtedly want to eat Bella, and I will be undoubtedly cheering them on), but for now Alice claims that they are merely interested in joining the baseball game.

Fun fun.

WHAT'S WORKING: I'm pretty sad to come to find out that individual characters within the Cullen clan are merely blank canvases. Like Edward and Bella, we are told that they have certain characteristics, but what we see of them is quite limited.

It's possible, however, that part of the fun of Twilight is the way in which is leaves these blank spaces. This generic style of character development, I would assume, is perfectly designed fanfiction fodder. I mean, there might be a reason people don't write a lot of fanfiction for Catcher in the Rye or Lolita. ...There might be other reasons for that too though.

What's lacking in Twilight that would make this fun and enjoyable for me (not, mind what would make it good, long-lasting fiction; what would make it FUN and ENJOYABLE) is some level of cleverness or surprise. I like to be surprised when I read. I like to read things that I myself would not be able to come up with. I never really get that as I read this novel, and that just makes me angry, and kind of envious. I read Terry Pratchett novels with enthusiasm, and though I would never tout the Discworld Series as lasting, literary genuis, Pratchett does VERY WELL what he does, and he's much cleverer than I am. I think I get some of this from the Harry Potter series as well. It's clear to me that J.K. Rowling has an expansive imagination teeming with all sorts of interesting mythology, which she has researched and built upon.

As for the mass appeal of Twilight...well...I feel like Philip J. Fry sums it up pretty well.




The plot of Twilight follows this pattern as well. It seems as though Meyer is terrified of anything that would upset the flow of Edward and Bella's relationship, foreshadowing things to death and never really venturing to make conflict where it would intensify an emotional situation. Emotionally intense situations are limited strictly to how much Edward and Bella love each other, and how dangerous that is. But intensity to me would be Edward or Bella thinking, "You know, I don't know very much about this person. Maybe they would betray me." Or even a moment of, "Maybe this obsession really IS unhealthy, and maybe I should consider that seriously instead of brushing it off as something more powerful than me." But the characters of this novel never consider those questions, because it is clear that the author has never considered them, nor are they questions that an audience, caught up in the fantasy, would WANT to consider.

The lack of substance in this story...I don't know if it was INTENTIONAL. I mean, I think that Meyer probably believed that she was producing fully fleshed-out characters; I don't doubt at all that she loves them like her children. But the lack of substance, for the particular audience at which this book is aimed, I think, actually WORKS FOR the experience rather than against it. The problem, of course, is it doesn't do much for anyone beyond that audience.

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EMMETT, I HOPE YOU HAVE MORE TO SAY IN CHAPTER 18. PLEASE TURN THINGS AROUND FOR ME, BUDDY.

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla

Chapter 16: Carlisle

347 pages in...

This chapter is pretty short, only about 13 pages, and nothing really happens, so I'll try to be quick. Edward continues to talk on about Carlisle (mind, when Edward was learning about Bella's history, those conversations were dealt with almost exclusively in summary, and the conversations we got in scene focused on things like her favorite color, flower and gemstone). Granted, Edward's life IS more interesting than Bella's. We find out how Carlisle managed to abstain from human blood and why he started his vampire "family" (specifically, to cultivate vampires into making his life choices, so that they could all be vegetarian together). We also get to see Edward's bedroom.

I was wondering why Meyer decided to set these 13 pages aside in their own chapter, and then I realized what ecstasy it must be for Meyer and her avid fans to finally enter into Edward's secret lair. It would, of course, be an instance important enough to warrant its own chapter.

There's also a moment when Edward throws Bella down and pins her to the sofa, just for funzies.

Okay, I'll put it in context. So this chapter continues making a tremendous deal about Bella not being scared of vampires as she should be. "You're really not as scary as you think you are," she quips at Edward, to which he replies, "You really shouldn't have said that," and pounces on her.

"I didn't see him leap at me -- it was much too fast. I only found myself suddenly airborne, and then we crashed onto the sofa, knocking it into the wall. All the while, his arms formed an iron cage of protection [protecting her from what? The couch, that he pummeled her into on purpose??] around me -- I was barely jostled. But I still was gasping as I tried to right myself.
"He wasn't having that. He curled me into a ball against his chest, holding me more securely than iron chains. I glared at him in alarm, but he seemed well in control, his jaw relaxed as he grinned, his eyes bright only with humor." (345)

They exchange some banter, with Bella sarcastically calling him a "very, very terrifying monster," and Edward laughing at her when she asks if she can get up. When Alice and Jasper come into the room, Edward still doesn't release her, rather he "readjust[s] [her] so that [she is] somewhat more conventionally seated on his lap" (345-6)

I see how Meyer reassures the reader by making it clear that Edward is just goofing around, teasing, the way a taller guy might hold something above his girlfriend's head so that she can't reach it. Meyer also strategically slips in words like "protection" and "securely," so that if readers don't get the joke, they can fall back on the belief that Edward's actions are a display of his ability to keep Bella safe. Or maybe this is even a display of his every-strengthening restraint. Mind, he was recoiling from her touch just chapters earlier. Now, he is self-controlled enough that he can literally tackle her and not rip into her jugular.

So maybe it you're really into Edward, you can read this and resort to these explanations. But I'm not into Edward, and I'm very disturbed to read this kind of thing in a popular YA novel, especially when it's made out to be cute or loving. Edward proves to us that he is capable of making Bella completely immobile, even as she struggles to free herself. Then he literally arranges her on his lap like a ventriloquist dummy.

Is it old hat by now to point out that Bella has no agency? This whole instance rings symbolic of the dynamic of their relationship.

But moving on, the chapter ends with people talking about an epic game of vampire baseball. Ah-haaaaaah. So the baseball chapter is next. I've been anticipating this. But then, I anticipated meeting the Cullens, and they turned out to be a drag. Carlisle has a couple of more generic lines of dialogue here, Alice is always dancing, chirping, or bounding anywhere she goes (seriously, WHY do people like her? She's just really annoying to me...), and Jasper shows only a glimmer of character when he reacts kind of stunned to see Edward holding Bella in his lap with an iron grip. If Edward happened to be reading Jasper's mind just then, I would have liked for him to hear "God, you're such a controlling douche, Edward." Because he is. He's a controlling douche.

WHAT'S WORKING (In the Twilight movie): I've seen the Twilight movie, though only with Rifftrax. When I watched it, I knew I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it without the snarky commentary, mainly because its script is pretty bad, and I don't find Rpattz attractive in Edward's persona, and KStew mumbles and grimaces all the way through it, and everything has that fucking pretentious blue tint to it. But it's interesting for me to see how the movie changed its source material. These are some alterations that stood out to me:

The scene where Bella tells Edward she's not scared of him and he pounces on her is changed. Observe:


"I could always make you," said the totally NOT controlling boyfriend. But even so, he doesn't pin her down on the couch in the movie. He takes her lightly on piggyback, and what follows is an invigorating romp through the treetops. It sends a message of "Hey! Look at how fun it is hanging out with Edward!" as opposed to, "Hey! Look at how much more powerful Edward is than Bella!"

There's also a scene in the movie in which Edward pauses to explain what a 1oo-yr-old vampire is doing at high school. I believe his wording is, "The younger we are at a given location, the longer we can stay there." Kind of dumb, since it seems like there are plenty of other things one can do to seem older. But so far, the book hasn't even given the weakest reason as to why these relatively mature-looking young people are in high school, other than the convenience of being there for Bella to meet Edward. It seems to be a question that Meyer never considered, and which the movie was forced to consider, since they were casting 22-yr-old Rob Pattinson as a vampire stuck forever at 17.

I also think the movie does a better job of painting the atmosphere of Forks High School. The book asks us to see Bella's social group as a pretty vile and unlikable bunch, but the movie is more forgiving, giving each of them quirks and idiosyncrasies, with characters like Jessica depicted as simply chatty and friendly, rather than nosy and annoying, and Mike depicted as being just kind of cluelessly nerdy, rather than pathetic. Bella herself seems more genuinely awkward (though still a drip) in the movie, whereas in the book she just seems self-absorbed and arrogant. There's a shot in the beginning, when she first arrives in Forks, of her just standing in the middle of her room with an air of uncertainty, holding a tiny potted cactus. The shot says ten times more about Bella missing Arizona than hundreds of pages worth of incessant whining.

So even though the movie by itself isn't my cup of tea, I think it's better than the book.

I'm not sure about the general fan response to the Twilight movie. But I bring this up because I wonder how aware Twilight fans are of the tonal difference between the book and its adaptation, and which they prefer. What you lose with the movie, of course, is the intense focus on Bella's emotions. Her thoughts and feelings take a backseat to eye candy shots of beautiful scenery in the Pacific Northwest and Edward's pasty face. There's also a lot of sardonic humor in the book that the movie either overlooks or interprets as dead serious (the lion and lamb conversation from Chapter 13, for instance). On a whole, the book has the tone of a "fluffier" story than the movie, and even though the movie feels less claustrophobic and self-involved in the way it, you know, actually seems to give a shit about the human characters, it interferes a little bit with the consistency of the fantasy.

I will be on the lookout for more movie comparisons as we go along.
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Ugh. Not really feeling it this week. Despondence is the only excuse I have for posting late. Next week, lets see some baseball action, AWWW RIIIIIIGHT!?!?

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla