BLOGGING TWILIGHT, pt. 10: Three Characters In Search Of A Jacket

About three things I am absolutely positive. First, I am reading Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. Second, there is a part of me – and I don’t know how potent that part is – that is kind of enjoying this. And third, previous entries can unconditionally and irrevocably be found in the archives.

Chapter 10: Interrogations

So the first thing you have to understand about this chapter is that there is a lot of business involving jackets. Bella left her jacket in Jessica’s car way back in Port Angeles, so at the restaurant and on the ride home Edward gave Bella his jacket [Fig. 1]. She obsessed giddily about the smell, but declined to actually take it into her house because she’d have to explain to her father that she was with Edward (at which point she would have to tell her father that she even knows Edward at all).

Bella has also (obviously) not made Charlie aware that she’s planning on going to Seattle with Edward this weekend. She’s playing this one pretty close to the vest. So the morning after Port Angeles, Bella steels her mind in preparation for a trip to school sans jacket [Fig. 2]. But Edward is waiting in her driveway to pick her up (and provide the services of his jacket a second time).

A Few Visual Aids To Assist In Comprehension Of The Whole Jacket Thing (Click To Enlarge):

[Fig. 1]

[Fig. 2]

Edward walks her to class, which gives her the opportunity to at least delay filling Jessica in on the details from the previous night (since they're meeting before class to exchange jackets). Jessica is almost literally frothing at the mouth when she returns Bella’s jacket, at which point everyone now has the jacket they started out with (for the record). But Bella still has to explain her night on the town (to Jessica, who I am assuming has her own jacket, but it's never mentioned) come Trig.

I don’t have much of a grip on Bella’s school schedule. She goes to English first, it seems, then Trig, then lunch, then Biology, then Gym. But Spanish is in there somewhere. And she’s not taking History? I suppose we’ve already established that Forks High is doomed to government intervention someday anyway. Won’t somebody set up a perimeter of charter schools and put this place out of its misery?

So Bella and Edward start a little courtship. There is a lot of talking in the next few chapters, and utterly no fucking, whatsoever. Or even kissing, for that matter! You’re really just going to talk for a hundred pages, Edward and Bella? Whatever floats your (vampire) boat (in a sea of blood) I guess. But I feel like they should be fucking by now.

I’ll give S. Meyer credit for managing to work the word “ostentatious” into chapter ten on three different occasions. Edward says it every time; I think someone has a word-of-the-day calendar, no? It seems the rest of the Cullen clan drove to school in Rosalie’s (the apparently unspeakably hot blonde one—I say unspeakably because I think she hasn’t been mentioned since chapter one) red convertible. We later learn it is a BMW M3, which is essentially Greek to our heroine. “I don’t speak Car and Driver,” she says (I am you, Bella). The males of Forks High are nonetheless impressed. The fact that they are more impressed with the car than the apparently mega-hot driver makes me worried for these boys. But Forks is a curiously desexualized town. Is Morrissey the mayor here? Is there something in the water? Injun magic? I’m awaiting an explanation.

So there’s a bit of business involving the fact that Bella realizes Edward will be reading Jessica’s mind when she inevitably has to fill Jessica in on her little date. Obviously Bella isn’t going to tell her about the mind-reading vampire shit. Not that Jessica would even think to ask. She literally asks “So you like him, then?” and her follow up is “I mean, do you really like him?” (page 205). This is some Frost/Nixon shit up in here. Bella isn’t shy about making her feelings known, even though Edward is listening. She likes him. She really likes him.

Jessica says she doesn’t understand how Bella is brave enough to be alone with Edward; Jessica finds him intimidating. “He is unbelievably gorgeous,” Jessica says—“as if this excused any flaws,” Bella editorializes (pg. 204). Uhhh, I think this is a little of the ol’ pot calling the kettle superficial, you know? Haven’t we been listening to Bella rhapsodize about Edward’s physical attributes for the better part of 200 pages now? Bella manages to distract Jessica by talking about Mike, but not before she lets slip that she thinks her feelings for Edward are stronger than Edward’s for her.

Edward and Bella have lunch together; Bella ends up daring Edward to eat a bite of food and, kind of shockingly, he does it. He eats a bite of pizza. Is that going to be in his stomach forever? How does this work? If vampires CAN eat food without any problems, why wouldn’t they do it? Edward compares it to eating dirt, but is it really that bad? The prime directive for the Cullens seems to be “blend in”—this is Edward’s explanation for why Rosalie doesn’t ordinarily drive the M3 to school, and he mentions it a few other times. Clearly all of the other students have noticed their family habit of buying a bunch of food and not eating it, so don’t you think they should change-up a bit? If the Cullens are all so old, why are they so stupid?

Edward confronts her about the whole I-like-you-more-than-you-like-me thing. “His liquid topaz eyes were penetrating,” Bella says (pg. 209). Jesus. Liquid Topaz is my new band name. Anyway, he says he likes her just as much as she likes him. Thankfully, they don’t get into one of those “No, I love YOU more” arguments. Yet.

There’s still a lot of tension, though. Bella tells Edward she feels like when he’s saying one thing, what he’s really trying to do is say “goodbye.” This theme has been hinted at for the last few chapters (and in most songs from the 1990s), but I thought Edward had already decided, Huck Finn-like, to just go ahead and do what he knew to be bad. So what’s with all the misgivings a hundred or so pages later? He’s also hurt that Bella won’t tell her father about him.

“Won’t you want to tell your father that you’re spending the day with me?” There was an undercurrent to his question that I didn’t understand. (pg. 213)

You don’t understand the need to be accepted, Bella? Have you no soul?

“Why in the world would I do that?”
His eyes were suddenly fierce. “To give me some small incentive to bring you back.” (pg. 214)

Oh um, okay. Not really what I was expecting. Sorry Bella.

Bella asks what exactly they were hunting over the weekend, mentioning that her father said no one camps wherever Edward said they'd been camping (Goat Balls Rocks? No, that can't be right) because of all the bears. Edward confirms it: they were hunting fucking bears. Badass.

He goes on to compare Emmett’s hunting style to that of a bear. It’s basically like Hans Landa’s speech about Jews and Rats the beginning of Inglourious Basterds except not anywhere near as creepy or interesting.

“Are you like a bear, too?” I asked in a low voice.
“More like the lion, or so they tell me,” he said lightly. “Perhaps our preferences are indicative.” (pg. 216)

Perhaps you shouldn’t be so fucking transparent with your symbolism, Stephanie Meyer!

That's all for this week, but a few weeks ago Suzette posited that maybe I was suffering from some sort of Stockholm Syndrome, identifying with Bella so much. Maybe that's true; I just know now that research for this blog is taking a real toll. Check it out.