BLOGGING NEW MOON, pt. 23: The Italian Job

Previous entires can be found in the directory.

Chapter 20: Volterra

Alice's driving style gets severely cramped by the traffic going into Volterra; it's a walled off city – literally a tourist trap! I'll be here all week – there's only one way in. She tries to comfort a stressed-out Bella, but isn't exactly mellow herself. At then end of the last chapter we learned that their elaborate plan essentially consists of getting Bella into Edward's field of vision before he sees Alice or gets killed by anyone or anything else. That plan, such as it is, starts to fall apart immediately. (Sudden imposition of a new threat and subsequent plot? Check. Poorly thought-out plan that immediately starts to fail? Check. Are we reading Twilight again?) As they wind through the traffic, they come to a road block; people are getting out and walking. Obviously in the bright sunlight that's not a possibility for Alice, so she starts to prepare Bella for going solo. “You're going to have to run,” Alice says. “Just keep asking for the Palazzo dei Priori, and running in the direction they tell you. Don't get lost.” I'm not entirely sure I'm confident investing Bella with this kind of responsibility.

There's a darkly symbolic moment where a woman's scarf is blown off of her head by a gust of wind, and she tries in vain to retrieve it as it blows away. Impressively, Bella doesn't say something like, “it made me think Edward might already be out of my reach.” As they approach the road block, Alice abruptly veers around the security guard directing traffic, coming to a stop in front of the entrance to the city and another guard. Bella notes that Alice has angled the car in such a way as to leave herself in the available shadow. Still, she's visible enough that when the guard crankily approaches the car he sees her and is like SCHWING.

Alice grabs something from her bag as the guard starts telling her only buses are allowed in. (He somehow instinctively knows to speak to them in English; was it the deliberate sense of entitlement that tipped him off?)

“It's a private tour,” Alice said, flashing an alluring smile.

She reaches out the window into the sunlight, and Bella flinches instinctively, but Alice is wearing an “elbow-length tan glove.” Very classy, but what is with the Cullens and flesh-tones? You know in a page or two we'll see Edward in a tan mock-turtleneck – they're the cornerstone of his wardrobe. Wear a little black, guys! Flaunt what you got!

See what I'm saying?

Anyway she grabs the guy's hand, pulls it into the car, the blood rushes to his dick so fast there is an audible pop. But don't worry, she just shoves a wad of cash into his hand. A comically enormous wad of cash:

His face was dazed as he retrieved his hand and stared at the thick roll of money he now held. The outside bill was a thousand dollar bill.

Okay, how much money would that really have taken? I get that foreigners don't necessarily have a grip on the value of American money, so you might have to overcompensate a little with your bribe, but c'mon. Dude would have let them through for a quarter and a flash of that – wait for it – smile.

“Is this a joke?” he mumbled.
Alice's smile was blinding. “Only if you think it's funny.”

The guard lets them through, and Alice races through the narrow streets, pedestrians literally diving out of her way to avoid being run over. So much for the rule about vampires staying inconspicuous – you know, the whole justification for the threat that prompted this trip. I guess “rich cunt in a Porsche” can excuse away the reckless driving (in the deleted chapters from Twilight we saw how Alice and Jasper revert to asshole mode as a way of obscuring their weirdness) but not the glittery skin Edward's about to show off.

I do actually think the central premise of Edward's gambit makes no sense. When I walk through Faneuil Hall in Boston, I see people impersonating statues with gold- and silver-painted skin. I see dudes hammering nails into their noses. Are we sure the citizens of Volterra aren't going to think Edward is just a busker? They reach the entrance to the square, so Alice stops the car. She says the Volturi are everywhere, but nevertheless sends Bella off running toward certain doom. Nice.

Once she's out in the open air, a bunch of cinematic-sounding shit happens. The wind blows her hair all over the place. She catches faint glimpses of leering tourists, a kid with fake plastic vampire teeth. Bella stops just short of saying, “It was almost as if I was running in slow motion, dramatic music swelling around me.” There might as well be a sticky-note on this paged marked “ATTN Chris Weitz.”

There are too many tourists for Bella to move very quickly (story of my life). Bella feels defeated, but keeps shoving her way through, crying and hoping Alice will be able to escape back to Jasper. (Wouldn't Alice know if Bella was going to be successful or not? Even if Alice didn't have a vision before Bella took off running, shouldn't Alice have just pretended she had a vision of Bella succeeding to bolster her confidence? That's how JK Rowling would have done it.) She eventually comes to a fountain and runs through it to save time and to make for another cinematic moment. You'd think a scene in which a character is running would move, you know, quickly, but it takes three pages to get across the damn square. The bell tolls again and again, but Edward must be dithering because Bella doesn't hear anyone screaming about the diamond-man.

Finally she comes upon a family standing at the entrance to an alleyway; Edward is behind them. The description of him that follows is oddly like the nameless narrator's description of Marlow at the beginning of Heart of Darkness: his eyes are closed, his palms are held outward, his expression is peaceful. “And this also,” Edward says suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.” Okay, not really.

He has also taken his shirt off, in keeping with New Moon's thematic density. By my count this book has had four running themes:

1. Romeo & Juliet
2. Misunderstanding
3. Cliff Imagery
4. Shirtlessness

The family at the mouth of the alley is just starting to notice Edward when Bella screams past them and collides with him at full speed. Good, I'm sure they'll just turn around now and head back to the festival! Bella realizes how much she loves Edward, which was not something I was aware she'd forgotten; she says something about what he'd said in the forest meaning nothing. For a second I thought she'd finally gotten wise to Edward's “I'm just not that into you” ruse, but it turns out she's really saying she loves him too much to care that he hates her. She's prepared to follow him around, pathetic and obsessed, until she dies. Cool.

There's a really silly moment where Edward thinks he has died and is in some kind of afterlife. “Carlisle was right,” he says, looking at Bella in his arms. That seems like a pretty insane leap to make before you realize that maybe the news you got third-hand might have been inaccurate. And it gets worse. Astoundingly, he proceeds to quote Romeo & Juliet, apparently unaware of the irony both in this scene and IN THE SCENE HE IS FUCKING QUOTING. “Death, that has sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power on thy beauty," he says. I see what you are trying to do there, S. Meyer! Edward is so Romeo right now! But seriously, does he not remember what happens next in the play? (And is this scene supposed to read as romantic? I didn't think our lovers would have such a cruelly ironic reunion. Is this not supposed to be that?) He also kind of insults Bella.

“You smell just exactly the same as always,” he went on. “So maybe this is hell.”

Hey! What are you saying about the way she smells, dude? Bella doesn't really notice, because she's going, “Wake the fuck up motherfucker so we can get the fuck out of here!” Edward finally understands what's happening, and he throws Bella against a wall and fucks her right there. I mean, he throws her against the wall and stands protectively in front of her, because two guys in dark cloaks are approaching. Edward greets them pleasantly. Always with the exchange of niceties, these vampires!

We gradually learn that the two Volturi are Felix and Demetri – suitably vague foreign names. Felix is kind of a dick, and Demetri seems kind of nice. It seems like mostly they are trying to move the conversation away from the alleyway, out of the sun and away from onlookers, which is not unreasonable; Bella watches the nearby family as they get the attention of the (human) guards and a small crowd gathers to watch the exchange in the alley. Demetri says Aro, one of the Vampire Popes, just wants to chat with Edward again. It actually doesn't even seem that ominous, but they want to bring Bella which is a dealbreaker for Edward. It gets tense, and then Alice reappears and joins the standoff. Why didn't she bail? Get out while you still can, Alice! For a minute though, it looks like Alice's presence is going to be enough to ensure a peaceful resolution. Then we meet yet another new villain. Great.

A little, hooded figure shows up, and Bella first takes her for a boy, but her face is too pretty. “The wide-eyed, full-lipped face would make a Botticelli angel look like a gargoyle,” Bella says. Okay. This “androgynous” child is called Jane. I know this is Dakota Fanning's character, but right now I'm picturing her as like, a miniature David Bowie. For whatever reason, when Jane tells everyone to come along they just do it, Alice leading the way.

As they walk, Edward and Alice chat, though it seems like they are just talking out loud as a pretense while Edward gleans the necessary information from Alice's mind. Do you think being able to know about everything that happened is worth Edward having to endure the nonstop parade of pornography that is probably his sister's stream-of-consciousness under normal circumstances? Anyway, it does allow Alice a great line.

“In summary, she did jump off a cliff, but she wasn't trying to kill herself.”

They come around a bend in the path, and suddenly Jane has seemingly disappeared into a brick wall. I thought we were headed for a Diagon Alley situation, but it turns out everyone is just jumping into an open manhole, I got excited for nothing. Alice goes down first ("as always"-Alice, you're welcome) and Edward drops Bella down to her. Edward, Demetri and Felix follow, and Bella hears the manhole cover slide closed “with metallic finality.” Metallic Finality is my new band name.

On the walk, Bella occasionally feels Edward press his face into her hair, like he's trying to get what he can while he can. She thinks he just feels guilty about everything, but says “I didn't care what his motivation was.” She's happy to get sexual attention no matter what reason the guy has. Again, very healthy stuff. Being held against Edward's body in the cold, underground tunnel with still-wet clothes is making Bella shiver, but when Edward tries to release his grasp she won't let him. I don't know Bella. Maybe you should trust your body on this one.