BLOGGING TWILIGHT, pt. 14: Preach On, Vampire Man

I've been reading/blogging about Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer. Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 14: Mind Over Matter

Edward drives home, minding the speed limit this time out of deference to Bella. Our heroine also notes that Edward drives one-handed, which is how we know he’s cool. He starts singing along to some oldies song Bella has never heard.

“You like fifties music?” I asked.
“Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh.” He shuddered. “The eighties were bearable.”

Okay, so he’s either gay or a Republican, right? I guess this explains his preference for open collared-shirts under sweaters. This guy dresses like he’s an extra in a music video in a film adaptation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

This Rock and/or Roll garbage sounds like noise to Edward. What this song needs is either a barbershop quartet or a synthesizer.

Edward fills in his backstory. He was born in 1901, and nearly died of the Spanish Influenza in 1918. I guess technically he did die, if that’s what becoming a vampire is, because he was attended to in his illness by a certain Dr. Acula—er, Cullen.

Edward says Dr. Cullen acted from loneliness, but I guess Edward wasn’t much of a companion because he found Esme (his wife) soon after. “She fell from a cliff,” Edward explains. “They brought her straight to the hospital morgue, though, somehow, her heart was still beating” (pg. 288). First of all I feel like there are too many commas in that sentence. Second of all: that’s a badass way to die. Or not die, or whatever.

You don’t have to actually be dying to become a vampire, it turns out—that’s just Dr. Cullen’s style. But let’s be honest with ourselves: you have to be hot too, right? Bella is always talking about how sexy the Cullens are, so clearly the man has a second set of criteria. People die in hospitals all the time, but the Cullens don’t live on a polygamist compound so you have to keep the family unit small. So if Dr. Cullen reserves his fangs for only the hottest and most-near death he’s got a workable policy. I’m not judging either way.

"A man’s got to have a code." –Omar

We get a lot of back-story in the next few chapters. It turns out that Dr. Cullen originally intended Rosalie to be a wife for Edward, but it didn’t take. Rosalie eventually found her man, Emmett, in the woods about to be eaten by a grizzly bear. She saved him, somehow summoning the power to not drink his blood so Dr. Cullen could vamplify him. I guess she couldn’t do the same for Timothy Treadwell, or she just didn’t make it there in time or something.

Alice and Jasper were not “created” by. Dr. Cullen—they fell in with the family for ideological purposes. Alice, who I’m sure you remember—

—Alice apparently cannot remember her life before becoming a vampire. She just woke up in the woods one day and was one. This strikes me as a detail that will pay off down the line, but if Alice can see the future and she someday finds out about her mysterious past, wouldn’t she know already?

Edward mentions meeting another band of similarly-minded “vegetarian” vampires in Alaska, with whom they lived for a time. “Those of us who live…differently tend to band together” (pg. 290). Whoops, S. Meyer—I think you just unintentionally paralleled the plight of the gay community!

So they eventually get back to Bella’s house and she invites him in, but it turns out he’s pretty familiar with the place already because he’s been showing up every night and WATCHING BELLA SLEEP.

“You spied on me?” but somehow I couldn’t infuse my voice with the proper outrage. I was flattered.

That’s every voyeur’s dream, right? The person you’ve been spying on is turned on by the act? Very healthy reaction there, Bella.

He was unrepentant. “What else is there to do at night?”

Go to a movie, maybe? There’s more though—it turns out Bella’s been talking in her sleep, and he’s been listening. She says his name a lot, and Edward tells her not to be self-conscious about it. “If I could dream at all, it would be about you,” he says (pg. 294). I know this is a corny line embedded in a very creepy scene played inexplicably as romantic, but I like that very Gothic conceit. I wish it were explored a little further, but suddenly Charlie is pulling into the driveway and Edward is making himself scarce.

There’s a funny bit of business where Charlie gets (naturally) suspicious of Bella electing to go to bed early on a Saturday night, thinking she’s probably going to sneak out for some post-dance parties or something. Bella gets to do a little bit of Dexter-style narration:

“See you in the morning dad.” See you creeping into my room tonight at midnight to check on me. (pg. 296)

She’s going to bed early because she hopes Edward is up in her room waiting, which he is.

“Edward?” I whispered, feeling completely idiotic.
The quiet, laughing response came from behind me. “Yes?”
I whirled, one hand flying to my throat in surprise.

Good instinct, Bella. Protect that throat. So Edward is going to just hang around. It turns out he has basically no sense of personal space—Bella has to excuse herself for a “human moment” to take a shower, etc.—and then he sticks around the whole night. Let the girl have some alone time! You’re being smothering, Edward.

Brand Name Watch, by the way: Bella mentions regretting having left her “Victoria’s Secret silk pajamas” down in Arizona, so she resorts to a “holey t-shirt and gray sweatpants” (pg. 298). It seems like there is probably a middle ground between these two outfits, Bella. You could have sexed it up a little.

Back in the bedroom, Bella notes that Edward seems to have his killer instinct under control.

“Does it seem that way to you?” he murmured, his nose gliding to the corner of my jaw. (pg. 299)

These two, with the weird-body-part-touching, oy! Still, it drives Bella to the brink of sexual insanity. She’s very easily turned on, this one. I don’t remember it being this easy in high school. Edward mentions how pleased he is to have found her:

“In the last hundred years or so,” his voice was teasing, “I never imagined anything like this. I didn’t believe I would ever find someone I wanted to be with … in another way than my brothers and sisters.” (pg. 301).

Hold up. Is Edward claiming to be a hundred-year-old virgin? Not buying it, Bella! Use a condom!

Bella keeps expressing disbelief that Edward would overcome his urges so easily—and his face gets “abruptly serious” (pg. 301). Can we ban “abruptly” for the rest of the book, please? Oh, wait—Edward’s face is “abruptly full of ancient grief” on page 305. Anyway, Edward worries out loud that if he is away from Bella too long he’ll lose this new self-control and have to start up again with the conditioning and the telling himself not to kill her, etc., so she tells him to never leave. Which, let’s face it, is probably what he was going to do anyway. That’s basically what he’s been doing—Bella just didn’t know until now. He tells her that never leaving suits him (duh). “I’m your prisoner,” he says. But Bella notices that “his long hands formed manacles around my wrists.”

What a disconcerting moment! Too bad S. Meyer skips right over it like it never happened! Is she even reading what she’s writing? They literally immediately transition to talking about how awesome it is to be in love:

“Isn’t it supposed to be like this?” He smiled. “The glory of first love, and all that. It’s incredible, isn’t it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?” (pg. 302)

First of all, the pictures? Edward is an OLD MAN. I bet he drinks “tonic water” too. There’s a lot of stuff early in the book about Bella being an old soul, being born middle-aged and all that—but usually when people say that sort of thing they don’t mean “literally has the mannerisms of a resident of a nursing home.” Bella may be an old soul, but Edward is just old. Secondly, I like how this rhetorically sets up Twilight as better-than-your-average romance novel. It’s a more real love than in the movies and books! I see what you did there, S. Meyer.

They talk for a while longer about how much they love each other—Edward talks about how he felt when he first heard Bella say his name in her sleep. You know, when he was spying on her. It’s a heartwarming moment, like the way you sort of have heartburn after you’ve finished vomiting a lot.

He was serious now, thoughtful. “For almost ninety years, I’ve walked among my kind, and yours…all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren’t alive yet.” (pg. 304)

Where’s Jeff Magnum when you need him to write an album about this bizarre predicament? The world just screams and falls apart.

Charlie eventually turns up and pokes his head in to check on Bella—Edward hears him coming and hides. Then, you know, they have the night, if you know what I’m saying. And Bella doesn’t want to sleep.

“So if you don’t want to sleep…” he suggested. My breath caught.
“If I don’t want to sleep…?”
He chuckled. “What do you want to do then?”
“Fuck.”

Okay, I changed the last line. She says “I’m not sure.” They end up talking more. And like many a late-night conversation between teenagers, shit gets deep.

“So where did it all start? I mean Carlisle changed you, and then someone must have changed him, and so on…” (pg. 308)

S. Meyer doesn’t mention the bong but I’m assuming it’s there. I needed to interrupt this exchange because you need to be prepared for what you are about to read. Basically, Edward takes this moment to make a case for Intelligent Design.

“Well, where did you come from? Evolution? Creation? Couldn’t we have evolved in the same way as other species, predator and prey? Or, if you don’t believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?” (pg. 308).

This strikes me as a very boneheaded place to raise such an issue. Assuming that S. Meyer is a Mormon, I’m thinking it’s more than likely that she is not one of the something like 29% of Americans who do believe in evolution. And yet, here she is writing a story about vampires, which are not real (S. Meyer presumably does not actually believe in vampires) and using them to bolster an argument, apropos of basically nothing plot-wise, for what amounts to Intelligent Design—invoking delicate creatures being one of the rhetorical hallmarks of ID proponents. This isn’t helping the cause any. Using a fictional, mythical creature to argue on behalf of a real-world belief is not only jarring character-and-story-wise (“which is hard for me to accept myself”?) you’re also building your house on sand, so to speak. Because vampires aren’t real! All in all, just a very weird moment.

One thing is for sure: the religious influence is finally showing. Bella starts asking if vampire “marriage” is the same as it is for humans. At first, it sounds like she’s talking about marriage, but it turns out “marriage” is Bella’s euphemism for “sex.” How quaint. “Most of the human desires are there,” Edward says. “Well, I did wonder…about you and me…someday.” Bella replies (pg. 310). When I thought she was talking about marriage-marriage I was thinking, Jesus Bella, you just met the guy! When I realized she meant sex I was even more incredulous. He’s in your bedroom right now! What are you waiting for?

Edward says it wouldn’t be possible for them to fuck. “Because it would be too hard for you, if I was that…close?” That’s what she said. Bella, I mean. That’s what she said in reply.

“That’s certainly a problem, Edward says (pg. 310). “But every guy has to concentrate a lot the first time” (citation needed). Edward’s actual concern is that Bella is too fragile. “I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake” (pg. 310). Or he could mean to playfully knock her head against the headboard and put her through a wall, or try to touch her chest and rip her heart out, or try to put her leg over his shoulder and tear it off—there are all kinds of potential problems.

Then, get this—Edward wants to know if she is a virgin too. Bella is a little embarrassed he even asks (of course, he barely fucking asks—this chapter is written to sail over the heads of younger audiences—I barely understood what was happening).

“I know. It’s just that I know other people’s thoughts. I know love and lust don’t always keep the same company.”

This chapter brought to you by the 700 Club.

Also this week, my show Rock and Sock and Robot turned one year old! Happy Birthday, RSR!