Chapter 19: Goodbyes

404 pages in...

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

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

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

And this:

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

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

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

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


Wait, is it...?

IS IT!?

YES! YES IT IS!


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

Neeevermind.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla

Chapter 18: The Hunt

389 pages in...

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

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

So anyway, moving on.

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

In this chapter:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is all for this week.

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

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla

Chapter 17: The Game

374 pages in...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay. Well. We get baseball. Sort of.

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

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

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

Thanks Bella. You worthless hack.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fun fun.

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla

Chapter 16: Carlisle

347 pages in...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Wish me luck,
Jenchilla

Chapter 15: The Cullens

Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn't shut upI have no intention of quitting at three [books in the series]. Firstly, Bella and Edward would never forgive me"

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

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.

1. It ignores all obvious connotations.
   
2. It's 100% sincere.
   
3. 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.
4. 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.
   

On her website, Meyer claims that Chapter 13 of Twilight is "essentially a transcript" of a dream she had, though many people may already know this. The sparkling idea originated from Meyer's dream about a vampire and his lover (I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Meyer) having an intense conversation in a meadow.

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

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:

• 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.

This week, I think all I'm going to do is address the discomfort that I feel hanging around with Bella and Edward. For me...it's like having your histrionic female friend and her meatheaded boyfriend driving you around town for a weekend, and all they do is fluctuate between pining breathlessly and snapping at one another. It's very confusing to me, because this book keeps asking me to believe that Bella and Edward are meant for each other; as soon as Edward appears before Bella, she is filled with comfort and security and pleasure. Observe what happens when Edward shows up to drive her to the undisclosed hiking trail:

"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