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