333 pages in...
Here come the mutherfuckin' Cullens.
I'm going to spend most of this post discussing characters, not only the characters as they appear in this chapter, but also, after reading some things on Stephanie Meyer's website, how she perceives and utilizes her characters, and comparing it to how I myself have perceived and utilized mine. If you're thinking "Why do I give a flying frog about you?" I can defend this: I feel that, in a way, Meyer sees her characters the way that I saw the characters I worked with when I was in high school. These were characters that existed, not only for a fantasy series that went on and on for seven books solid and was left unfinished at Book 8, but as these sort of alt egos that I could play with and manipulate to my liking. If I've piqued your interest, I will go into this later in the What's Working section. If you are more interested in hyper-feminist rants, you might want to wait around until next week.
By Twilight standards, this chapter wasn't terrible. Bella no longer complains endlessly and has now turned into a kind of silly-nilly school girl, skipping around and making jokes, because Edward spent the night with her. (CHASTELY you guys. Chastely.) Their good chemistry has become more apparent also; they're starting to resemble an actual couple, not just cardboard cutouts glued together by Meyer's own personal whimsy.
As in the previous chapter, Bella takes what she refers to as "human minutes" (313). This is any instance in which she must brush her teeth, comb her hair, eat, or, as is implied, use the toilet, because Edward doesn't have to do any of these things. There is this moment where Edward carries Bella into her own kitchen, seemingly to prepare her a meal.
"'What's for breakfast?' I asked pleasantly.
That threw him for a minute.
'Er, I'm not sure. What would you like?' His marble brow puckered.
I grinned, hopping up.
'That's all right, I fend for myself pretty well. Watch me hunt.'" (315)
Bella then takes it upon herself to fix some cereal while Edward just kind of stands and watches her. I cited this moment because I liked the interplay between them, and it is the closest these two ever get to having a balanced relationship. Edward, this seemingly dignified, perfect man, stands bewildered for a moment, not knowing what to do, and Bella steps in, with good humor, remedying the situation. But these moments are small and short-lived in the Twilight world. In order to genuinely enjoy this chapter, there are two events that I would like to pretend didn't happen.
1) Edward kisses Bella, and she literally faints. Like SWOONS.
"He tilted his head slowly and touched his cool lips to mind for the second time, very carefully, parting them slightly.
And then I collapsed.
'Bella?' His voice was alarmed as he caught me and held me up.
'You...made...me...faint,' I accused him dizzily." (319)
Damn. Caitlin Flanagan wasn't kidding when she called Bella an "old-fashioned heroine." We're officially in 18th century, it's-fashionable-for-ladies-to-suffer-from-consumption territory.
2) Bella cries when Edward plays something on the piano that he wrote for her (because he is also an accomplished composer), and he TAKES ONE OF HER TEARS AND EATS IT.
"He lifted his finger, examining the drop of moisture broodingly. Then, so quickly I couldn't be positive that he really did, he put his finger in his mouth to taste it." (329)
What makes it even weirder is that Bella's reaction is to look at him "questioningly," and then Edward just smiles and offers to show her the rest of the house. The story moves on, and neither Edward nor Bella mentions this incident again.
God, he is such a creeper....
But moving on. The big event in this chapter is Edward taking Bella to meet his family. They make kind of an issue out of Bella being more afraid that the Cullens won't like her than she is of meeting a houseful of vampires, and Meyer describes the Cullen house itself in rather poignant detail. Then, finally, after 300+ pages of build-up for this awesometastic vampire family, only four of the six Cullens make an appearance.
It's a big letdown for readers who actually like to read what's on the page, though the mysterious way that Edward has talked about his family has probably allowed for everyone else to fill in the blanks, the same way they do for the two main characters. The Cullens are defined solely by their vampirism (their good looks, wealth, and superpowers). Carlisle says two lines before drifting into the background, Esme, despite having the most dialogue, deviates none at all from being a polite mother figure, Jasper appears on the scene solely to appear there, and Alice shows up just long enough to twirl around and reveal that she has no inner life and wants nothing more than to be Bella's BEST FRIEND EVAR! (cough manicpixiedreamgirl cough). Emmett and Rosalie are out of scene still, though Rosalie has remained the most interesting to me, simply because she's the only Cullen (and the only major character PERIOD) who hasn't basically thrown a fucking parade for Bella. Of course, Edward explains to us that it's because she's jealous of Bella's humanity (327), not because Bella is an obvious twat.
Edward also tells Bella how Carlisle became a vampire back in the 17th century, during Cromwell's persecution of the Catholics in England. The anecdotal placement here feels odd, especially since Carlisle did nothing but stand up and say hello in this chapter. I would like to know more about him, honestly, and the next chapter is titled "Carlisle," so I assume that I will.
In all, there is nothing egregious about these characters. There's just not much to them. And any decent development or conflict that could have evolved from this chapter is conveniently averted, because Bella's nerves are all for nothing; everybody adores her as soon as they lay eyes on her. Hooray. Again, it's as though Meyer could not have even CONCEIVED of an instance in which a decent person would have reservations about loving Bella unconditionally.
WHAT'S WORKING: So I'm in the DC airport right now on layover, completing the second half of this blog. My Twilight novel is tucked away in my suitcase. I could dig it out in front of God and everyone, but I'm pretty much just gonna wing it. Oh, I'm dedicated. Yes I am.
Continuing on from my earlier observation, in a novel like this, I think it's necessary for the Cullens to give Bella a warm welcome. After a full chapter in which Edward's "big secret" is that he sparkles and Bella's "big revelation" is that she loves him twice as much as she thought she loved him. It fits in with the rest of the fantasy pretty easily. Twilight is, if anything, at least CONSISTENTLY indulgent.
So this supernatural family is depicted, Edward among them, as being not cursed, not evil, but superior, practically omniscient in comparison to their human counterparts. Meyer reassures us that they are able to see into Bella's soul and know how wonderful she is. In fact, I read somewhere that Meyer believes Bella's "tragic flaw" to be a "lack of self-knowledge". That's right. The wining, the negativity, the passive aggression, the neediness, the obsessiveness, the self-absorption, the complete disinterest in people who try to reach out to her...these aren't flaws. Bella's big problem is that SHE DOESN'T REALIZE HOW MUCH SHE DESERVES TO BE LOVED AND ADORED BY EVERYONE. Ha. Don't we all wish that this was our tragic flaw?
In a way, this reminds me of my high school role playing and fantasy days, when the characters that my friends and I created had flaws like: "She CARES too much about other people" and "He's got a troubled past" and "She's got vague anger issues that come out as a killer alter ego." This last one got especially touted in our more complex era, when I was in the 10th and 11th grade. We were always looking for any excuse to have our characters go off on violent fits or act not like themselves, be it demon possession, weird viruses, or personality disorders. We had a lot of free time on our hands...
I was most intrigued with the writer/character dynamic. I honestly never considered my characters to BE me, but they were still kind of...extensions of me, alternate versions of me, even characters that were nothing like me at all. They all led more interesting lives. They could do things that I couldn't do. I always thought of them as CHARACTERS, and myself as a WRITER, but to make this more interesting, I began to imagine a fourth wall realm in which my characters knew that I was in control and resented me for it. For a time, I sincerely believed that particular characters could beg and plead with me, or perhaps influence what I wrote in my stories. I spoke about them with friends as if they were real people, and my friends would talk about their characters in the same way.
This may sound insane, but at fifteen, sixteen, it made our lives feel much richer than they actually were. And I don't think this is entirely uncommon for teenage girls who like to write. From the first page of Twilight, I've sense something very adolescent about Meyer, and reading the way she talks about Edward and Bella on andher website--"Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn't shut up" and "I have no intention of quitting at three [books in the series]. Firstly, Bella and Edward would never forgive me"--I think it definitely rings of that genuine, self-absorbed kind of wonder at one's own imagination. I don't think Meyer's joking around here. I think she believes that her characters fully fleshed-out personalities that exist within her.
Need I remind everyone that a personal connection to your character does NOT mean that your character is well-developed. In fact, a lot of times it interferes with your ability to write about them in a multidimensional way, to not babysit them, to let them make bad decisions and suffer the consequences, and to let them change if the progress of the story requires it. Meyer exhibits this problem in that
a) any character that Meyer likes, everyone within the story likes also (unless he or she is jealous)
b) anything bad that happens to an above character happens outside of that character's control, not because the character made a mistake or a bad decision
c) characters come out of the woodwork pretty perfect (in the writer's opinion) and never really change as a result of what they learn or what happens to them
I suffered from some of these problems as a teenage writer also, though I eventually became self aware of them and did a total about face. For my HarryPotterish male protagonist, I got a great kick out of, not only making other characters fully conscious of his flaws, but also having him make decisions that got him fucked up royally (I think that's referred to as an anti-sue, or an anti-hero; it has its own basket of problems). I was able to write better after that, though my stories lost their emotional resonance; reading back over them now, they seem even cruel in places. I was no longer a character in my own universe. I was a GOD OF DESTRUCTION in my own universe.
I know. This was really no better than what Meyer is doing in Twilight. In fact, it may even have been a little more twisted. But the difference between me and Meyer is that I eventually stopped being a teenager, and, um...I don't think she ever did. I also think that the personal fantasy Meyer is writing is generic enough for a lot of female readers to insert themselves, while mine was limited to pretty much just me and a handful of friends. In reading Twilight, readers sense that they are supposed to connect with Bella, Edward, and the whole Cullen gang, even if the characters themselves aren't on the page.
If I want to be truly honest with myself, I am jealous of Meyer. I'm not jealous of her talent, or even her characters. I'm jealous that Meyer has a multitude of fans that she can talk about her characters with as if they were real people. I feel like I've outgrown this phase of my writerhood, but I am nostalgic about discussing my writing with half-delusional fervor. It was a lonely transition to realize that I was just one person, alone, and that the complicated inner world I was supporting was vastly more important to me than it was to anyone else. But alas, I think that's a sad truth we come to understand when we become adults.
Some of us, anyway. Some of us, it seems, are perfectly fine remaining as teenage girls forever.
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I've gone on about this for a while and I think I should draw it to a close. Thanks for sticking with me this far, if you happen to be reading. Chapter 16 for next week.
Wish me luck!
Jenchilla
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
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
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
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Chapter 13: Confessions
285 Pages in...
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.
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
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
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Chapter 12: Balancing
259 pages in...
This will be a shorter post. On top of feeling hopelessly lazy this week, I also think I should save my energy for next week, as this chapter is clearly a build-up to Chapter 13: Confessions, in which Edward exposes himself to Bella.
No....ya'll...get your minds out of the gutter. This was written by a Mormon.
Edward reveals to Bella what happens to him in the sunlight, and while this might spoil it for anyone who has maybe heard the term "sparkly vampire" in passing and think it's a euphemism or a metaphor, the vampires in the Twilight universe do literally glitter, as opposed to bursting into flames, when the sun hits them.
I've been nervous about this since starting Twilight, though I was recently talking to a friend of mine who had read the book, and who assured me that the sparkling scene "isn't that bad." And considering the ideological inconsistencies I've run into so far, I think that sparkly vampires may be among the least of Twilight's problems.
In this chapter:
"I flew to the door; I had a little trouble with the simple dead bolt, but I yanked the door open at last, and there he was. All the agitation dissolved as soon as I looked at his face, calm taking its place. I breathed a sight of relief -- yesterday's fears seemed foolish with him here." (253)
So here we have our heroine so excited, desperate, because she hasn't seen her man in like eight hours. And he shows up and it's like the seas have parted, and she's filled with joy and wonder. And yet...these two characters constantly slip in and out of being extremely somber, passive aggressive, and pissy with one another (Edward is described as having a "martyred expression" (253) when Bella insists that she drive; he gives Bella "a dirty look" when she insists that he put on his seatbelt). On the drive, they exchange barbs over the danger of Edward being alone with Bella, because this subject has not been run into the ground already, and Bella, when she sees Edward with his shirt open, realizes "with a piercing stab of despair" that he is "too perfect" (256). "There was no way this godlike creature could be meant for me." Oh, and Meyer plays this up big time. It reaches a point where Bella deliberately tries not to look at Edward because "his beauty pierce[s] [her] through with sadness" (257) every time.
So Edward is always either angry with Bella or feels the need to assert his superiority by being condescending, and Bella, while she may experience a temporary euphoria every time she sees Edward, eventually finds herself whipped into a heightened state of agitation and insecurity by being around him. Totes not healthy. And it doesn't look like very much fun either...
Maybe the troubled relationship stems from the fact that Edward and Bella are two people who never really seem to enjoy anything, and when they do it's totally over the top. Or maybe Meyer realized that the action of the novel (i.e., the plot) was lacking, and so she plumbed her memory of those hazy, daydreamy hours in English class over at Brigham Young University, recalling that stories generally utilize conflict, and so she manufactured internal conflicts and treated them with the sincerity you would treat a nuclear holocaust.
Pretty much all conflict is internal in this novel (with the exception of events like Tyler's van's assassination attempt). The Catcher in the Rye utilizes internal conflict in a similar way (for the record, Bella Swan IS more annoying than Holden Caulfield), and this is probably why book reviewers go on about how Twilight is as much a coming-of-age-novel as it is a fantasy novel. Though I should say that just because a story has internal conflict as opposed to external conflict, it doesn't mean that the conflict is valid, or even that it makes sense. Bella MANUFACTURES her fear that her father will find out about Edward being her boyfriend; from what we've read so far, there's no reason for her to hide this information from him. Bella MANUFACTURES her insecurities as well, as Edward keeps repeating how wonderful and special she is, and yet we still see her moaning to herself and metaphorically curling up into a worthless ball of worthlessness, because Stephanie Meyer clearly believes that humility and self-loathing are one in the same. "I'm Bella Swan! I have low self-esteem, and therefore I am a good and humble person!"
Bella Swan. It is not a conflict that your boyfriend is too pretty. Just like caring-too-much and being-incredibly-beautiful-but-not-knowing-it are not valid character flaws.
WHAT'S WORKING? Would it be too tacky to say that "low self-esteem" is required to identify with a character like Bella? Mm, probably. But I already kind of said it.
It's a stereotype (but kind of a truth too) that some women degrade themselves in the hopes that someone will overhear their self-deprecation and contradict them. If you ever hang out with large groups of straight, mainstream women, you can observe this, though I don't think it's typical for females to admit aloud that they're fishing for compliments, or that their most desirable man is one who constantly corrects them when they complain about their imaginary flaws. Bella is portrayed as being sincerely down on herself, and yet also clearly better than everybody around her, as Edward is constantly pointing out.
When you look at Bella as a insert for the reader, the situation becomes ideal; readers observe: "I feel those things that she feels, or at least I've said aloud that I feel those things, and this girl, who is very much like me, is getting back the response that I wish I could experience." The conflicts may be manufactured, but it feels valid to readers who have experienced genuine or simulated feelings about boys, or themselves, or their fathers, etc. The hyper-passionate feelings, even the negative ones, described in Twilight don't have to be logical or even plausible in order be valid, and I think this is something that majorly resonates with readers who can picture themselves as this small, clumsy, weak, but secretly special girl.
The intensity of that connection, I have a feeling, might negate the discomfort that I myself feel in hanging around with Bella and Edward in this clearly unpleasant, clearly dysfunctional relationship.
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Chapter 13 for next week. I need to stock up on wine.
Wish me luck,
Jenchilla
This will be a shorter post. On top of feeling hopelessly lazy this week, I also think I should save my energy for next week, as this chapter is clearly a build-up to Chapter 13: Confessions, in which Edward exposes himself to Bella.
No....ya'll...get your minds out of the gutter. This was written by a Mormon.
Edward reveals to Bella what happens to him in the sunlight, and while this might spoil it for anyone who has maybe heard the term "sparkly vampire" in passing and think it's a euphemism or a metaphor, the vampires in the Twilight universe do literally glitter, as opposed to bursting into flames, when the sun hits them.
I've been nervous about this since starting Twilight, though I was recently talking to a friend of mine who had read the book, and who assured me that the sparkling scene "isn't that bad." And considering the ideological inconsistencies I've run into so far, I think that sparkly vampires may be among the least of Twilight's problems.
In this chapter:
- Jacob hangs around in scene just long enough to remind us that he is a somewhat likable character whose sole purpose is to be doormat for Bella.
- Bella angsts that Billy Black (Jacob's dad) will tell her father that she's dating Edward. (This is a really big deal, for some reason, even though Charlie Swan doesn't know that Edward is a vampire and also thinks so highly of the Cullens that he goes on tangents to defend them.)
- Edward (this is implied, but it's the only solution that makes sense) breaks into Bella's house and rummages through a pile of her dirty laundry to find her car keys. Uh-unnnhg. Ung. *hork*
- There's some unnecessary plotting and scheming in order to plan Bella and Edward's trip to some obscure five-mile trail in the mountains. Totally NOT a murdering rapist u gais.
- Bella takes "unnecessary cold medicine" (251) to help herself sleep the night before her day trip with Edward, which is something she's never done and behavior that she "normally wouldn't condone" (252). (This is extremely funny to me. Because you could pretty much replace the name "Edward" with the word "heroin" and tell the same story here.)
- Bella and Edward bicker.
- Edward does things that...that likable guys just DON'T DO. Like, just before Edward and Bella go on their five-mile hike, Bella comes around the side of the truck and sees that Edward has deliberately removed his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt to expose the "perfect musculature" (256) of his chest. I read this as the Mormon equivalent of a guy stripping down to his whitey tighties and lying across your bed with a rose in his teeth.
- Meyer elevates the prose tremendously toward the end of this chapter, describing the Pacific Northwestern woods as though she totally forgot they were there. Oh, we are about to commit ourselves to some serious sparklemotion. Yes we are.
"I flew to the door; I had a little trouble with the simple dead bolt, but I yanked the door open at last, and there he was. All the agitation dissolved as soon as I looked at his face, calm taking its place. I breathed a sight of relief -- yesterday's fears seemed foolish with him here." (253)
So here we have our heroine so excited, desperate, because she hasn't seen her man in like eight hours. And he shows up and it's like the seas have parted, and she's filled with joy and wonder. And yet...these two characters constantly slip in and out of being extremely somber, passive aggressive, and pissy with one another (Edward is described as having a "martyred expression" (253) when Bella insists that she drive; he gives Bella "a dirty look" when she insists that he put on his seatbelt). On the drive, they exchange barbs over the danger of Edward being alone with Bella, because this subject has not been run into the ground already, and Bella, when she sees Edward with his shirt open, realizes "with a piercing stab of despair" that he is "too perfect" (256). "There was no way this godlike creature could be meant for me." Oh, and Meyer plays this up big time. It reaches a point where Bella deliberately tries not to look at Edward because "his beauty pierce[s] [her] through with sadness" (257) every time.
So Edward is always either angry with Bella or feels the need to assert his superiority by being condescending, and Bella, while she may experience a temporary euphoria every time she sees Edward, eventually finds herself whipped into a heightened state of agitation and insecurity by being around him. Totes not healthy. And it doesn't look like very much fun either...
Maybe the troubled relationship stems from the fact that Edward and Bella are two people who never really seem to enjoy anything, and when they do it's totally over the top. Or maybe Meyer realized that the action of the novel (i.e., the plot) was lacking, and so she plumbed her memory of those hazy, daydreamy hours in English class over at Brigham Young University, recalling that stories generally utilize conflict, and so she manufactured internal conflicts and treated them with the sincerity you would treat a nuclear holocaust.
Pretty much all conflict is internal in this novel (with the exception of events like Tyler's van's assassination attempt). The Catcher in the Rye utilizes internal conflict in a similar way (for the record, Bella Swan IS more annoying than Holden Caulfield), and this is probably why book reviewers go on about how Twilight is as much a coming-of-age-novel as it is a fantasy novel. Though I should say that just because a story has internal conflict as opposed to external conflict, it doesn't mean that the conflict is valid, or even that it makes sense. Bella MANUFACTURES her fear that her father will find out about Edward being her boyfriend; from what we've read so far, there's no reason for her to hide this information from him. Bella MANUFACTURES her insecurities as well, as Edward keeps repeating how wonderful and special she is, and yet we still see her moaning to herself and metaphorically curling up into a worthless ball of worthlessness, because Stephanie Meyer clearly believes that humility and self-loathing are one in the same. "I'm Bella Swan! I have low self-esteem, and therefore I am a good and humble person!"
Bella Swan. It is not a conflict that your boyfriend is too pretty. Just like caring-too-much and being-incredibly-beautiful-but-not-knowing-it are not valid character flaws.
WHAT'S WORKING? Would it be too tacky to say that "low self-esteem" is required to identify with a character like Bella? Mm, probably. But I already kind of said it.
It's a stereotype (but kind of a truth too) that some women degrade themselves in the hopes that someone will overhear their self-deprecation and contradict them. If you ever hang out with large groups of straight, mainstream women, you can observe this, though I don't think it's typical for females to admit aloud that they're fishing for compliments, or that their most desirable man is one who constantly corrects them when they complain about their imaginary flaws. Bella is portrayed as being sincerely down on herself, and yet also clearly better than everybody around her, as Edward is constantly pointing out.
When you look at Bella as a insert for the reader, the situation becomes ideal; readers observe: "I feel those things that she feels, or at least I've said aloud that I feel those things, and this girl, who is very much like me, is getting back the response that I wish I could experience." The conflicts may be manufactured, but it feels valid to readers who have experienced genuine or simulated feelings about boys, or themselves, or their fathers, etc. The hyper-passionate feelings, even the negative ones, described in Twilight don't have to be logical or even plausible in order be valid, and I think this is something that majorly resonates with readers who can picture themselves as this small, clumsy, weak, but secretly special girl.
The intensity of that connection, I have a feeling, might negate the discomfort that I myself feel in hanging around with Bella and Edward in this clearly unpleasant, clearly dysfunctional relationship.
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Chapter 13 for next week. I need to stock up on wine.
Wish me luck,
Jenchilla
Monday, May 3, 2010
Chapter 11: Complications
235 pages in...
This chapter is titled thusly because the word "complications" is mentioned numerous times in the span of its 17 pages, but a better title would be, "Bella's Boring Life with Edward as Her Official OFFICIAL Boyfriend." The chapter follows Bella for a full day and a half, hour by literal hour, as she and Edward explore their young relationship. The complications that arise are as follows:
1. While watching a movie in their science class, Bella realizes that being in a dark room with Edward makes her want desperately to "touch" him (i.e., jump his bones); the intensity of the feeling makes her very uncomfortable. (This scene is depicted TWICE in this chapter, on successive days, and nothing actually happens either time.)
2. Bella has a kind of argument with Mike about Edward in gym class, though it's really just Mike voicing a mildly negative opinion about Edward and Bella telling him to go fuck himself. "He looks at you..." Mike says, "like you're something to eat" (222, MEYER IS MASTER O' IRONY), Bella "choke[s] back...hysteria," and it's unclear to me if she's about to explode on Mike in anger or if she's about to burst out laughing...
3. Bella and Edward have a brief argument about Edward reading Bella's friends minds in order to spy on her. He apologizes for upsetting her, though notice he doesn't promise to not do it again, as she requests (223).
4. Bella briefly mentions that she knows her father wouldn't like the idea of her being into Edward, despite having voiced a positive opinion about the Cullens in previous chapters.
5. Since Bella asked Edward about his hunting habits, Edward claims that day two of their relationship will be "his turn," and so he goes about raking information from Bella in the most inorganic way possible: interrogating her relentlessly throughout the day, which makes her feel self-conscious and perpetually anxious about not being interesting enough. So, instead of her characters learning about each other by having enjoyable, engaging conversation, Meyer clearly got to this point in the story and realized that Edward didn't know anything about Bella, so he was damn well going to do this all at once, and immediately. Here is an example of just one of their many dead-solemn, riveting exchanges:
"'What's your favorite color?'
[Bella rolls her eyes at him!?] 'It changes from day to day.'
'What's your favorite color today?"
'Probably brown.'
'Brown?'
'Sure. Brown is warm. I miss brown. Everything that's supposed to be brown -- tree trunks, rocks, dirt -- is all covered up with squashy green stuff here.'
'You're right,' ... 'Brown is warm.'" (228)
Uuuuuggggggghhnnnnnnng. What a stupid conversation. He's enraptured, of course. I mean, you get the sense that Bella could fart in his face and he would still be enraptured. By evening, his questions have become a little less...stupid (once he gets all the important stuff out of the way, like Bella's favorite gemstone and the kinds of flowers she prefers), and they are talking on for hours. There's a strikingly beautiful paragraph on pg 232 in which Bella nostalgically describes the Arizona landscape, which is so nice that it doesn't belong in this novel. It's so nice that I won't write it down here for fear of finding things to nitpick about it.
6. Billy Black, Jacob's dad, shows up on the very last page of this chapter, and Bella can tell from his expression that he doesn't like Edward.
And that's that, though most markedly, this chapter, while being fraught with "complications," is inescapably, relentlessly and heartbreakingly dull. The structure, bloated with unimportant instances, cycles and repeats itself, and plot points are forever wandering off the edges of cliffs to die. And yet...
Well, we'll get to that in a second. I'm just going to jump into a different subject for a while and meet you all back later at the Twilight station.
WHAT'S WORKING?
Ready to go on a detour? Okay. Bear with me.
I saw two really fun movies this weekend which I would recommend to people who like fun movies: Kick-Ass and (for the younger more easily offended crowd) How to Train Your Dragon. Linked to the trailers if you don't know the premises of either of these movies (HTTYD was better than the trailer makes it seem).
I liked these movies immensely, but they both got me thinking about the roles that female characters play in mainstream film. The depictions of girls in KA and HTTYD didn't BOTHER me (not in the way Bella Swan does at least), but they did get me thinking, and thinking can be a pain sometimes, especially when I'm aware that other people would be yelling at me to just stop thinking and enjoy myself.
In KA, you have Hit-Girl, and in HTTYD, you have Astrid, both of whom are depicted as hyper-strong girls who can do everything the boys can do, and can do it better. Lady viking and dragon-killer-in-training Astrid is the love interest and foil to our protagonist. In previous eras, the girl in animated action movies was there for the male to rescue, but nay, Astrid needs no stinkin' rescuing, and in fact proves herself the best fighter in the village, excelling in all the traditionally masculine areas of using various weaponry with expert precision and enacting a lot of rage. Hit-Girl is something similar, a knife-flinging badass, calling her adversaries "cunts" and killing without mercy. And it's not uncommon to see movies depict female characters in this way, as sleeker, more competent versions of males (Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda come instantly to mind).
And yet, these movies are not about Astrid or Hit-Girl. HTTYD is about Hiccup, who is smart, curious and innovative but also bumbling and kind of pitiful. It's his job in to teach Astrid and the rest of his village the value of learning and understanding as opposed to mindlessly killing things. And we like this guy, our social underdog, and we appreciate it when he educates Astrid, who has until now met all of the village's manly standards in order to gain acceptance . With Hit-Girl, it's a bit more complicated, because I found myself sitting in the theater thinking, "Not only is this girl more awesome than the protagonist, she's just a better CHARACTER. She has a better backstory and a better motive. And yet the movie is about THAT DORKY GUY OVER THERE." And alas, it's the title character who gets to fire the killing shot.
Of course, people may argue with me saying that movies about superheroes and dragons have to be marketed to males, and therefore they require a relatable male protagonist. But this is a trend that spans across gender neutral media as well. ALL Pixar movies have male protagonists, as does the Harry Potter series (written by a woman!), as do most cartoons, TV shows, and books targeted at both boys and girls. There are exceptions, of course--The Golden Compass, A Wrinkle in Time, Coraline, etc--but that's what they are. Exceptions. The default, looking at the bigger picture, is a male protagonist, coupled with a "strong" female character who demonstrates some overbearing feature that gets toned down throughout the course of the plot, be it strength, smarts, assertiveness or really fanatical rule-following (I'm lookin' at you Hermione Granger). Also, story points that are traditionally considered important to females (Romance is the big one) become anecdotes with little bearing on the central plot.
These aren't so much complaints as they are simply curious observations. As a young woman writing fantasy genre fiction, I've seen myself doing this. The protagonist of the novel I'm working on right now is male, though the story also takes detours into the P.o.V of his female counterpart/love interest. (I've also noticed that among the stories submitted to workshop in my supposedly ultra-liberal writing program, you're far more likely to see women writing from the point of view of men than men writing from the point of view of women. That's not to say that the latter never happens, just that it's the exception, not the rule.)
You might be wondering what this has to do with Twilight, unless you've done some thinking for yourself and don't need me to explain it. I read Twilight as the female counterpart to the bumbling, relatable dude with the super-competent love-interest sidekick, though instead of the protagonist having to understand and take responsibility for herself (as is generally required of male characters), the man takes responsibility for her, and instead of romance being an anecdote to the plot, it effectively IS the plot.
Meyer has claimed on her website that she sees Bella Swan as a feminist role model, but maybe a more accurate thing to say would be that Bella is a response to someone like Hit-Girl, a character who seems to imply that, to be awesome, girls should kick as much ass as possible. Bella, passive as she is, raises no real bar for girls; to be her requires little effort. The story asks us to look at Bella and see ourselves, someone inherently and inexplicably special (though she doesn't know it yet). The plot is dull and plodding in the way that your life is dull and plodding, though Bella's life, unlike yours, is punctuated with unforeseeable wonder and peril that extends far beyond her control. Awesome things, like Edward, fall into her lap without her having to do very much.
So in response to these competent, powerful female characters whose inner lives are secondary to those of the male protagonist, we have Bella Swan, who is small and somewhat powerless, but whose thoughts and feelings are treated with import and sincerity (because Twilight, if it does anything, accepts and validates every thought that Bella has). It's a kind of attention that the movies I mentioned previously don't give to female characters, and it's obviously a kind of attention that female audiences are craving. They see Bella as themselves in the same way males see themselves in underdog protagonists like Kick-Ass and Hiccup.
But the reason that Twilight doesn't extend past its particular audience is because Bella just doesn't appeal to people who can't see themselves AS her. She's passive, boring, whiny, constantly allows someone else to make decisions for her, and she's pretty much a social drip. What's interesting is that, if movies with male protagonists were to celebrate passivity to the level that Twilight celebrates it, the male characters would be unacceptable to their audience.
So why is Bella acceptable to girls? The answer I have right now: Twilight fans, for some reason, societal or another, feel threatened by the idea of making choices and taking action, and so it's an encouragement to see a character whose active role is limited, but whose emotions are treated with the weight of a world war, and who essentially gets everything wants (or at least everything the reader wants for her).
-
-
-
I might get back to the usual dissection-like structure next week. This was just something I had on my mind lately. Chapter 12 coming up.
Wish me luck!
Jenchilla
This chapter is titled thusly because the word "complications" is mentioned numerous times in the span of its 17 pages, but a better title would be, "Bella's Boring Life with Edward as Her Official OFFICIAL Boyfriend." The chapter follows Bella for a full day and a half, hour by literal hour, as she and Edward explore their young relationship. The complications that arise are as follows:
1. While watching a movie in their science class, Bella realizes that being in a dark room with Edward makes her want desperately to "touch" him (i.e., jump his bones); the intensity of the feeling makes her very uncomfortable. (This scene is depicted TWICE in this chapter, on successive days, and nothing actually happens either time.)
2. Bella has a kind of argument with Mike about Edward in gym class, though it's really just Mike voicing a mildly negative opinion about Edward and Bella telling him to go fuck himself. "He looks at you..." Mike says, "like you're something to eat" (222, MEYER IS MASTER O' IRONY), Bella "choke[s] back...hysteria," and it's unclear to me if she's about to explode on Mike in anger or if she's about to burst out laughing...
3. Bella and Edward have a brief argument about Edward reading Bella's friends minds in order to spy on her. He apologizes for upsetting her, though notice he doesn't promise to not do it again, as she requests (223).
4. Bella briefly mentions that she knows her father wouldn't like the idea of her being into Edward, despite having voiced a positive opinion about the Cullens in previous chapters.
5. Since Bella asked Edward about his hunting habits, Edward claims that day two of their relationship will be "his turn," and so he goes about raking information from Bella in the most inorganic way possible: interrogating her relentlessly throughout the day, which makes her feel self-conscious and perpetually anxious about not being interesting enough. So, instead of her characters learning about each other by having enjoyable, engaging conversation, Meyer clearly got to this point in the story and realized that Edward didn't know anything about Bella, so he was damn well going to do this all at once, and immediately. Here is an example of just one of their many dead-solemn, riveting exchanges:
"'What's your favorite color?'
[Bella rolls her eyes at him!?] 'It changes from day to day.'
'What's your favorite color today?"
'Probably brown.'
'Brown?'
'Sure. Brown is warm. I miss brown. Everything that's supposed to be brown -- tree trunks, rocks, dirt -- is all covered up with squashy green stuff here.'
'You're right,' ... 'Brown is warm.'" (228)
Uuuuuggggggghhnnnnnnng. What a stupid conversation. He's enraptured, of course. I mean, you get the sense that Bella could fart in his face and he would still be enraptured. By evening, his questions have become a little less...stupid (once he gets all the important stuff out of the way, like Bella's favorite gemstone and the kinds of flowers she prefers), and they are talking on for hours. There's a strikingly beautiful paragraph on pg 232 in which Bella nostalgically describes the Arizona landscape, which is so nice that it doesn't belong in this novel. It's so nice that I won't write it down here for fear of finding things to nitpick about it.
6. Billy Black, Jacob's dad, shows up on the very last page of this chapter, and Bella can tell from his expression that he doesn't like Edward.
And that's that, though most markedly, this chapter, while being fraught with "complications," is inescapably, relentlessly and heartbreakingly dull. The structure, bloated with unimportant instances, cycles and repeats itself, and plot points are forever wandering off the edges of cliffs to die. And yet...
Well, we'll get to that in a second. I'm just going to jump into a different subject for a while and meet you all back later at the Twilight station.
WHAT'S WORKING?
Ready to go on a detour? Okay. Bear with me.
I saw two really fun movies this weekend which I would recommend to people who like fun movies: Kick-Ass and (for the younger more easily offended crowd) How to Train Your Dragon. Linked to the trailers if you don't know the premises of either of these movies (HTTYD was better than the trailer makes it seem).
I liked these movies immensely, but they both got me thinking about the roles that female characters play in mainstream film. The depictions of girls in KA and HTTYD didn't BOTHER me (not in the way Bella Swan does at least), but they did get me thinking, and thinking can be a pain sometimes, especially when I'm aware that other people would be yelling at me to just stop thinking and enjoy myself.
In KA, you have Hit-Girl, and in HTTYD, you have Astrid, both of whom are depicted as hyper-strong girls who can do everything the boys can do, and can do it better. Lady viking and dragon-killer-in-training Astrid is the love interest and foil to our protagonist. In previous eras, the girl in animated action movies was there for the male to rescue, but nay, Astrid needs no stinkin' rescuing, and in fact proves herself the best fighter in the village, excelling in all the traditionally masculine areas of using various weaponry with expert precision and enacting a lot of rage. Hit-Girl is something similar, a knife-flinging badass, calling her adversaries "cunts" and killing without mercy. And it's not uncommon to see movies depict female characters in this way, as sleeker, more competent versions of males (Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda come instantly to mind).
And yet, these movies are not about Astrid or Hit-Girl. HTTYD is about Hiccup, who is smart, curious and innovative but also bumbling and kind of pitiful. It's his job in to teach Astrid and the rest of his village the value of learning and understanding as opposed to mindlessly killing things. And we like this guy, our social underdog, and we appreciate it when he educates Astrid, who has until now met all of the village's manly standards in order to gain acceptance . With Hit-Girl, it's a bit more complicated, because I found myself sitting in the theater thinking, "Not only is this girl more awesome than the protagonist, she's just a better CHARACTER. She has a better backstory and a better motive. And yet the movie is about THAT DORKY GUY OVER THERE." And alas, it's the title character who gets to fire the killing shot.
Of course, people may argue with me saying that movies about superheroes and dragons have to be marketed to males, and therefore they require a relatable male protagonist. But this is a trend that spans across gender neutral media as well. ALL Pixar movies have male protagonists, as does the Harry Potter series (written by a woman!), as do most cartoons, TV shows, and books targeted at both boys and girls. There are exceptions, of course--The Golden Compass, A Wrinkle in Time, Coraline, etc--but that's what they are. Exceptions. The default, looking at the bigger picture, is a male protagonist, coupled with a "strong" female character who demonstrates some overbearing feature that gets toned down throughout the course of the plot, be it strength, smarts, assertiveness or really fanatical rule-following (I'm lookin' at you Hermione Granger). Also, story points that are traditionally considered important to females (Romance is the big one) become anecdotes with little bearing on the central plot.
These aren't so much complaints as they are simply curious observations. As a young woman writing fantasy genre fiction, I've seen myself doing this. The protagonist of the novel I'm working on right now is male, though the story also takes detours into the P.o.V of his female counterpart/love interest. (I've also noticed that among the stories submitted to workshop in my supposedly ultra-liberal writing program, you're far more likely to see women writing from the point of view of men than men writing from the point of view of women. That's not to say that the latter never happens, just that it's the exception, not the rule.)
You might be wondering what this has to do with Twilight, unless you've done some thinking for yourself and don't need me to explain it. I read Twilight as the female counterpart to the bumbling, relatable dude with the super-competent love-interest sidekick, though instead of the protagonist having to understand and take responsibility for herself (as is generally required of male characters), the man takes responsibility for her, and instead of romance being an anecdote to the plot, it effectively IS the plot.
Meyer has claimed on her website that she sees Bella Swan as a feminist role model, but maybe a more accurate thing to say would be that Bella is a response to someone like Hit-Girl, a character who seems to imply that, to be awesome, girls should kick as much ass as possible. Bella, passive as she is, raises no real bar for girls; to be her requires little effort. The story asks us to look at Bella and see ourselves, someone inherently and inexplicably special (though she doesn't know it yet). The plot is dull and plodding in the way that your life is dull and plodding, though Bella's life, unlike yours, is punctuated with unforeseeable wonder and peril that extends far beyond her control. Awesome things, like Edward, fall into her lap without her having to do very much.
So in response to these competent, powerful female characters whose inner lives are secondary to those of the male protagonist, we have Bella Swan, who is small and somewhat powerless, but whose thoughts and feelings are treated with import and sincerity (because Twilight, if it does anything, accepts and validates every thought that Bella has). It's a kind of attention that the movies I mentioned previously don't give to female characters, and it's obviously a kind of attention that female audiences are craving. They see Bella as themselves in the same way males see themselves in underdog protagonists like Kick-Ass and Hiccup.
But the reason that Twilight doesn't extend past its particular audience is because Bella just doesn't appeal to people who can't see themselves AS her. She's passive, boring, whiny, constantly allows someone else to make decisions for her, and she's pretty much a social drip. What's interesting is that, if movies with male protagonists were to celebrate passivity to the level that Twilight celebrates it, the male characters would be unacceptable to their audience.
So why is Bella acceptable to girls? The answer I have right now: Twilight fans, for some reason, societal or another, feel threatened by the idea of making choices and taking action, and so it's an encouragement to see a character whose active role is limited, but whose emotions are treated with the weight of a world war, and who essentially gets everything wants (or at least everything the reader wants for her).
-
-
-
I might get back to the usual dissection-like structure next week. This was just something I had on my mind lately. Chapter 12 coming up.
Wish me luck!
Jenchilla
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