BLOGGING ECLIPSE, pt. 30: I'm With You In Rockland

I knew one of these days S. Meyer was just going to wear me down, and I was going to be unable to muster the moral outrage that any reasonable person would be able to muster in the face of this shit. The problem, for me, is having everything that has happened between Jacob, Edward and Bella in total, fucked-up context. What's another outrage, at this point? I've burrowed so deeply into the world of Twilight that normal things seem crazy and crazy things seem normal. I lost my moral compass somewhere back in New Moon. Now, if you read the following chapter to an uninitiated person, they would be appalled (they would be appalled if you told them this was a book popular among pre-teens. That's one of the unspoken assumptions of this blog that needs to be occasionally spoken aloud, okay, written out – were it that this book was intentionally bleak and dark and morally repulsive and for adults it would be fine. Hell, even if it was intentionally morally repulsive and for CHILDREN it would be fine, what the fuck do I care? But the unintentional repulsiveness is the thing). Anyway, I read this chapter and I am not appalled. I really should be, but I am not. Because I am dead inside. #MLIT. Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 23: Monster

Bella wakes up in the tent, sweating next to Jacob's hot body (you're welcome). Edward tells her it's warmer, that she won't need “the space heater.” Hey, no offense Edward, but after last night I'm not totally confident in your ability to read weather patterns, okay? He unzips the sleeping bag, and Jacob falls out onto the cold ground. The still-mostly-unconscious Jacob instinctively rolls away from the cold and end up on top of Bella, momentarily crushing her--

And then the weight was gone. I felt the impact as Jacob flew into one of the tent poles and the tend shuddered.

And the tent didn't collapse? Good tent pitching, Edward! Maybe I should trust his Eagle Scout bonafides after all (he is, of course, a 109-year-old virgin). Anyway, I applaud everyone's instinctual reactions here: Jacob tries to smother Bella and put her out of her misery, and Edward tries to kill Jacob and put him out of his misery. Everybody wins/dies! So there's a tense (GET IT? TENTS) moment in the inexplicably still standing tent while Edward and Jacob growl at each other, but Bella eases them down.

Under my touch, Jacob began to calm himself.

It's not really supposed to work that way, but whatever. Edward apologizes. Jacob asks him gleefully if last night was one of his worst nights ever; Edward concedes that it may have cracked the top ten. Then, even though Edward is ice-cold, he reminds us that he can still burn a motherfucker if he wants:

"But," Edward went on, "if I had been able to take your place, it would not have made the top ten of the best nights of my life. Dream about that."

YA SO BURNT, Jacob! Naturally Mr. Black decides to leave the tent at that point, heading toward the battlefield. If S. Meyer's dialogue patterns weren't predictable enough already, Bella and Edward make a few seconds of smalltalk before she questions him about the aforementioned best nights ("If someone talks about a good night that they had in Act 1, someone should ask them about that shit right away in Act 1 scene 2."-Chekov).

"Well, this one time for Emmett's bachelor party," Edward said excitedly. "Alice hired a bunch of strippers, and..."

Just kidding all of Edward's best nights involve being with Bella! Of course they do. What a shitty first century this guy must have had. This happens as Bella and Edward recount each of their favorites:

"Well, there was the first night. The night you stayed," [I said.]

"Yes, that's one of mine, too. Of course, you were unconscious for my favorite part."

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The more they talk the more the conversation begins to take on the air of a plot recap. "Remember that time we went to Italy?" and so on. HOW COULD WE FORGET? Apparently that night is in both Edward's and Bella's top ten. Is that in spite of or because of all the mass murdering you guys shrugged past? Then Edward says the night Bella finally agreed to marry him was his favorite night. Of course it was.

"Remember that time I finally convinced you to go along with my bizarre and outdated and inconsistent religious world view in exchange for finally having sex with me? That night was awesome," Edward said.

And you didn't even have sex that night! Before we have to contemplate this for too long, suddenly a loud, pained cry rings out from the forest. Jacob was listening, and now knows that Bella and Edward are engaged. Bella didn't know Jacob was listening, but of course, Edward did, and he just said that shit anyway. YES. SO GOOD. Edward is the man. Fuck you forever, Jacob!

The howl choked off into a peculiar gurgled sob, and then it was quiet again.

I don't feel bad at all that I smiled at Jacob's pain. I hate that Edward and Bella are getting married, but I love that it hurts Jacob. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Bella blames herself for hurting him.

"Don't torment yourself," he pleaded.

"Yes," I agreed bitterly. I should save my energy to torment Jacob some more. I wouldn't want to leave any part of him unharmed."

I know, she's being sarcastic (Note that S. Meyer fails as usual to properly identify sarcasm) but AMEN, BELLA. In New Moon we went after his penis, now we destroy his heart! Bella goes raggedly stumbling out into the light after Jacob, and realizes Edward is following her when she sees "glittering rainbows" in front of her like she's being trailed by a disco ball. Edward stops her from fruitlessly groping through the woods and offers to go get Jacob so she can talk to him. What a guy.

He leaves, Bella starts crying, feeling terrible for the pain she is causing both Edward and Jacob. Then she (and S. Meyer) remember this book is supposed to loosely parallel Wuthering Heights, so Bella applies some narrative duct-tape. What follows possibly the laziest analogy not just in this series but in like, the world. To wit:

I was like Cathy, like Wuthering Heights, only my options were so much better than hers, neither one evil, neither one weak. And here I sat, crying about it, not doing anything productive to make it right. Just like Cathy.

JUST LIKE HER. What? I'm pretty sure it should be "I was like Cathy, IN Wuthering Heights," But I like the typo. Like Bella is just going to compare herself to a physical book. I was like Wuthering Heights. You could basically use the above metaphor for any book, by the way.

I was like Hamlet, like Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, only my options were so much better than his, neither one evil, neither one weak. And here I sat, crying about it, not doing anything productive to make it right. Just like Hamlet.

I was like Gatsby, like The Great Gatsby, only Daisy was a vampire or a werewolf, and the green light was immortality maybe, and yet here I was just wallowing around in my swimming pool or whatever. Just like Gatsby.

Please tell me this is the last time S. Meyer attempts an extended literary allusion, because she is somehow getting SO MUCH WORSE at it. Bella goes and gets a drink of water from a canteen that is inexplicably not frozen into a solid block of ice. Then she is briefly terrified by the notion that the battle may have started started and Edward and Jacob may have gotten caught in it, but that doesn't happen and Jacob comes back.

There's apparently some shit going on down the mountain, so Edward takes Seth Clearwater (in wolf form) a ways away so that he can use him as a paranormal telephone (even though he as a normal phone; are we worried the newborns have a wire on them?), leaving Jacob and Bella to talk in private. Oh, great. When these two end up alone together it always goes well. Okay, well, it always goes.

Pretty much immediately, Bella says she'll stay out of his life and Jacob makes a counter-offer: how about I kill myself instead? For real, that's what he says: "There's a pretty serious fight brewing down there. I don't think it would be that difficult to take myself out of the picture." Very healthy threat, Jacob. Call his bluff, Bella! Instead she bends pretty much immediately to his will:

"I've changed my mind. We'll work something out, Jacob. There's always a compromise. Don't go!"

Lesson for the younger readers: THREATEN SUICIDE. Always works. She tells him she'll do "anything" he wants, and he very strongly hints that she should ask him to kiss her. If you ask her to ask you I don't think that really counts, Jacob. But it works; a sociopath is born. Physical rape won't be enough for Jacob anymore; once you've had a taste of MIND-RAPE, you never go back.

"Will you kiss me, Jacob?"

His eyes widened in surprise.

Oh, fine. Whatever, S. Meyer. Do what you will with me. I'm just going to close my eyes. Tell me when it's over.

I could feel his anger as his mouth discovered my passive resistance...his lips, disconcertingly soft and warm, tried to force a response out of mine.

There's nothing left to throw up anymore. I'm dry-heaving.

His lips gave up on mine for a moment, but I knew he was nowhere close to finished.

And neither is S. Meyer. Jacob moves to Bella's neck, telling her "You can do better than this, Bella." Bella shivers. We shiver. Finally she gets angry and grabs the back of Jacob's head, probably intending to smash it against a rock or something. But Jacob mistakes it for passion, intensifies his effort, and...

My brain disconnected from my body, and I was kissing him back.

Fine. I guess we should go with this. What's another outrage? Bella makes out wildly with Jacob, and inexplicably immediately starts fantasizing about settling down with him and starting a family. "I saw the bobbing heads of two small, black-haired children, running away from me into the familiar forest," she says. Does Jacob know what kind of response his kiss is provoking? Because I feel like he'd probably cool his rape jets a little if he did.

But in a way, this vision is her way of breaking up with him? She takes that part of her mind and locks it away, where nobody can incept it back out. Jacob starts to leave for the battle, but stops to kiss Bella again. UGH. Fine. I'm like Wuthering Heights right now. Like, literally, a paperback copy. I have no spine to speak of, Bella has worn it away.

There was no reason to resist. What would be the point?

Well put.