Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 is here. (And for the time being, recent/notable posts can be found in the top right sidebar.) For the first time in a while, here is a post that covers a complete chapter! I'll try to do this as much as I can to make it easy for those of you who are reading along. But sometimes there is just too much (horror) for a single post. Share your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading.Chapter 2: Long Night
Edward and Bella are relaxing in bed and she remarks on his apparently unbelievable ability to resist her blood. It reads like Bella's trying to convince herself she's still “got it.” (“I knew the smell of my blood still caused him pain,” she says.) I'm so delicious, how is Edward keeping himself from biting my neck open? Bella's death fetish is going to get a lot more difficult to maintain when she's immortal.
Irritatingly, she starts rhapsodizing about how beautiful his soul is: “More beautiful than his brilliant mind or his incomparable face or his glorious body.” I know soul-beauty is in the eye of the soul-beholder, but him? The moral monster? The virginity-obsessed vampire? The compassionate (paranormal) conservative? Speaking of compassionate conservatives, this happens:
He looked back at me as if he could see my soul, too, and as if he liked what he saw.
What does that remind you of?
Bella oddly chooses this moment to remind us that Edward can't read her mind; it's the first of a few sections in this chapter that seem oddly grafted-on. We know about the mind reading thing and the exceptions already; what's it doing here? It's a long shot that anyone's going to be breaking into the series with this book. Why are we bothering recapping the plot details, then? The only other explanation I can think of is S. Meyer thinks we're so dumb, we've already forgotten this shit. But I haven't forgotten anything.
It's the night before their wedding, which we learn because Edward is trying to get out of going to a “bachelor party” with Emmett and Jasper. But Alice hired (or is) the stripper, right? Actually, we'll eventually learn that it's not even a bachelor party: the three of them are just going hunting. So it's kind of inexplicable that Edward says, “Bachelor parties are designed for those who are sad to see the passing of their single days. I couldn't be more eager to have mine behind me.” It sounds like your bachelor party is for people who are hungry, dude. S. Meyer is trying to wring two different kinds of jokes out of this premise: 1. Edward is an atyptical bachelor, 2. Vampires have atypical bachelor parties. But you can't have both!
Bella complains about needing Edward so much closer, but he's got cold skin, so there's a blanket between them. It leads to this rather awkward sentence:
At least if I had to be bundled up, Edward's shirt was on the floor.
I mean, it's nothing compared to some of the other awkward sentences we've encountered, but still notable. Edward, who is shirtless by the way, is trying to confirm Bella still wants to marry him; he starts invoking her friends and family members she'll no longer see. It's the eve of the wedding, dude! Buzzkill!
“I'll miss my friends, too.” I smiled in the darkness. “Especially Mike. Oh, Mike! How will I go on?”
YA BURNT, MIKE! Actually, that is kind of harsh. “I care about you so little that the fact that I will literally never see you again prompts no emotional reaction in me other than a caustic remark. Have a fun death.” Anyway, then something CRAZY happens. Edward starts asking if she remembers Charlie thinking she was pregnant. You mean the thing that happened five pages ago? Yes, we remember.
“I just wish... well, I wish that he'd been right.”
Whoa now, Edward. This is really happening? This is happening. Okay. I remember listening to a Slate podcast about Toy Story 3 where Dana Stevens was talking about Pixar's remarkable ability to hit all of the theoretical things that could happen to a toy in its “life,” were it “alive” in the Toy Story sense. Sometimes I feel like Stephenie Meyer has a similarly uncanny ability: to hit on every single topic that could offend a reasonable human being.
“Gah,” I gasped.
Right on, Bella. Edward clarifies that he doesn't necessarily want a child now, he's actually upset that he's taking away Bella's biological ability to reproduce at all; this is Rosalie's cautionary tale from Eclipse, redux. Recall that Rosalie's story didn't make a lot of sense anyway: she's upset that Carlisle made her a vampire after she got gang-raped to death because that ruined her ability to have babies. But of course, it was actually getting gang-raped to death that did that to her; S. Meyer was trying to finally give us a negative consequence to immortality and she got desperate. Now she's taking another crack at it, but “you can't have babies!” is still all she's got.
Before Edward can get too ridiculous, he's interrupted by Emmett and Jasper's arrival. Edward takes off (leaving Bella to get ridiculous all by herself), but not before Jasper pops into the window with the aforementioned promise that Edward won't be banging any strippers tonight. (He also brings a calming air into Bella's room, which brings with it another awkward paragraph re-explaining Jasper's powers.)
“We Cullens have our own version. Just a few mountain lions, a couple of grizzly bears. Pretty much an ordinary night out.”
No big deal. Unless they're planning to fuck those animals. You have to admit: Jasper didn't specify. Bella thinks about the fact that it's her last night as Isabella Swan. “Tomorrow night, I would be Bella Cullen.” Is she going to legalize her nickname on the marriage certificate, too? She lets her mind wander worriedly through some other wedding shit. For one thing, the vampires from Denali are coming down, and Bella is totes lime green Jell-o of how pretty they are. Of course, this is before she's even seen or met them. Insecure much? Tanya (the apparent head of the Denali gang) once declared her love for Edward, which is the source of Bella's (totally one-sided) tension. Of course, Edward rejected her, which is kind of important. I'd hate to think how psychotically jealous Bella would have gotten had Edward actually had like, an actual ex-girlfriend.
Come to think of it, Edward is kind of like George W. Bush (violent yet prudish, stupid),
and Bella is a lot like Vladimir Putin (manipulative, paranoid, inexplicably adored).
Bella oddly chooses this moment to remind us that Edward can't read her mind; it's the first of a few sections in this chapter that seem oddly grafted-on. We know about the mind reading thing and the exceptions already; what's it doing here? It's a long shot that anyone's going to be breaking into the series with this book. Why are we bothering recapping the plot details, then? The only other explanation I can think of is S. Meyer thinks we're so dumb, we've already forgotten this shit. But I haven't forgotten anything.
It's the night before their wedding, which we learn because Edward is trying to get out of going to a “bachelor party” with Emmett and Jasper. But Alice hired (or is) the stripper, right? Actually, we'll eventually learn that it's not even a bachelor party: the three of them are just going hunting. So it's kind of inexplicable that Edward says, “Bachelor parties are designed for those who are sad to see the passing of their single days. I couldn't be more eager to have mine behind me.” It sounds like your bachelor party is for people who are hungry, dude. S. Meyer is trying to wring two different kinds of jokes out of this premise: 1. Edward is an atyptical bachelor, 2. Vampires have atypical bachelor parties. But you can't have both!
Bella complains about needing Edward so much closer, but he's got cold skin, so there's a blanket between them. It leads to this rather awkward sentence:
At least if I had to be bundled up, Edward's shirt was on the floor.
I mean, it's nothing compared to some of the other awkward sentences we've encountered, but still notable. Edward, who is shirtless by the way, is trying to confirm Bella still wants to marry him; he starts invoking her friends and family members she'll no longer see. It's the eve of the wedding, dude! Buzzkill!
“I'll miss my friends, too.” I smiled in the darkness. “Especially Mike. Oh, Mike! How will I go on?”
YA BURNT, MIKE! Actually, that is kind of harsh. “I care about you so little that the fact that I will literally never see you again prompts no emotional reaction in me other than a caustic remark. Have a fun death.” Anyway, then something CRAZY happens. Edward starts asking if she remembers Charlie thinking she was pregnant. You mean the thing that happened five pages ago? Yes, we remember.
“I just wish... well, I wish that he'd been right.”
Whoa now, Edward. This is really happening? This is happening. Okay. I remember listening to a Slate podcast about Toy Story 3 where Dana Stevens was talking about Pixar's remarkable ability to hit all of the theoretical things that could happen to a toy in its “life,” were it “alive” in the Toy Story sense. Sometimes I feel like Stephenie Meyer has a similarly uncanny ability: to hit on every single topic that could offend a reasonable human being.
“Gah,” I gasped.
Right on, Bella. Edward clarifies that he doesn't necessarily want a child now, he's actually upset that he's taking away Bella's biological ability to reproduce at all; this is Rosalie's cautionary tale from Eclipse, redux. Recall that Rosalie's story didn't make a lot of sense anyway: she's upset that Carlisle made her a vampire after she got gang-raped to death because that ruined her ability to have babies. But of course, it was actually getting gang-raped to death that did that to her; S. Meyer was trying to finally give us a negative consequence to immortality and she got desperate. Now she's taking another crack at it, but “you can't have babies!” is still all she's got.
Before Edward can get too ridiculous, he's interrupted by Emmett and Jasper's arrival. Edward takes off (leaving Bella to get ridiculous all by herself), but not before Jasper pops into the window with the aforementioned promise that Edward won't be banging any strippers tonight. (He also brings a calming air into Bella's room, which brings with it another awkward paragraph re-explaining Jasper's powers.)
“We Cullens have our own version. Just a few mountain lions, a couple of grizzly bears. Pretty much an ordinary night out.”
No big deal. Unless they're planning to fuck those animals. You have to admit: Jasper didn't specify. Bella thinks about the fact that it's her last night as Isabella Swan. “Tomorrow night, I would be Bella Cullen.” Is she going to legalize her nickname on the marriage certificate, too? She lets her mind wander worriedly through some other wedding shit. For one thing, the vampires from Denali are coming down, and Bella is totes lime green Jell-o of how pretty they are. Of course, this is before she's even seen or met them. Insecure much? Tanya (the apparent head of the Denali gang) once declared her love for Edward, which is the source of Bella's (totally one-sided) tension. Of course, Edward rejected her, which is kind of important. I'd hate to think how psychotically jealous Bella would have gotten had Edward actually had like, an actual ex-girlfriend.
I like that the Denali clan ends up representing the Cullens' fucked up extended family: there are all kinds of hurt feelings and complications stemming from the fact that one of the Denali people was dating Laurent when the werewolves killed him, so they refused to help the Cullens when the newborn army was coming and now feel guilty about it. I mean, the exact same drama is happening in my family right now. Yours too, I'm sure. Well, maybe not exactly.
Talking about Tanya and the Denali clan allows Bella to transition semi-smoothly into the revelation that the Alaska Vamps used to have a Carlisle-like mother-figure (or maybe their actual mother? It's kind of unclear) who was killed by the Volturi. Explaining her death takes a shitload more exposition, and Bella's transitions get increasingly jagged. Eventually she goes, “Oh hey, Carlisle told me a story once” and goes from there. Okay, whatever. This chapter is not coherent in a narrative sense (Bella goes from bald exposition to apparently dreaming, and in trademark S. Meyer fashion Bella points out that it's kind of weird that she went from narrating to dreaming just then. Ugh.) but it's coherent in a thematic sense. Too bad so far the theme is “something something something abortion.”
So back in the vampire days of yore, there was a rash of empty-nest-feelin' vampire ladies who could not contain their need for children. You know how bitches be. Insatiably thirsting for babies, all the time. (Making them, not eating them. This chapter actually wouldn't be that awful if the women were eating the babies.) So somebody got the idea to vamp a toddler. Nice work, women. First original sin and now this? Fuck.
So a bunch of beautiful vampire two-year-olds started wreaking havoc across the world. Take a minute to consider the optics of that. Two-year-old vampire babies running around, killing whole villages. VAMPIRE BABIES. This is not a parody of Twilight, this is Twilight.
The Volturi apparently commissioned some kind of Blue Ribbon commission, and at the end of a period of study concluded that the babies had to be killed. Well duh. This is like Don't Ask Don't Tell or something. Was there a vampire John McCain demanding they wait until the report was released? And then once the report was released did he try to come up with some other reason to stall? (Do you ever feel like John McCain is running out the clock because he has accepted the inevitability of gays serving openly but he just wants to die before that happens?) Anyway, concluding that the pretty babies had to die was a controversial opinion in vampire circles. “Covens fought to the last man” to save the babies, Carlisle says. (Remember that Carlisle is saying this inside Bella's nebulous flashback/dream. On second thought, just ignore that. It's easier.) Tanya & the gang's mom made one of these vampire babies, obviously, and was killed by the Volturi for it. This all happened before Carlisle was even born, and they still apparently haven't gotten over it. Good grief. GET IT?
So. Can you see S. Meyer fashioning her crude abortion parallel here? She's stacked the deck against herself; Carlisle has told us these babies were deadly and uncontrollable. But obviously S. Meyer is going to come down on the side of “don't have abortions" eventually. That is the rough beast slouching toward us right now, I can feel it. The first three Twilight books were about why you shouldn't have sex. It only figures that now that S. Meyer can't get any more mileage out of that she's going to write a parable about why you shouldn't get an abortion. Not that it is going to be a particularly deft parable.
Bella has her dream, then. Okay. How'd we get here? It doesn't matter. It's an admirably bleak dream, and if it's longer than one second in the film version that will be nice: Bella's in the middle of a field surrounded by the dead and burning bodies of a bunch of vampires. It's strongly suggested the bodies belong to the Cullens, but she can't bring herself to look too closely. Instead she walks toward where the Voluri are huddled around a “beautiful, adorable” toddler sitting on a “hillock.” When she gets closer, she realizes the toddler is actually sitting on a pile of dead bodies containing her friends and mother and father. Creepy! Awesome! But I skipped something kind of important:
I was struck with such a powerful need to save the lovely, terrified child that the Volturi, despite all their devastating menace, no longer mattered to me.
Uh-oh. I can't tell where this is going exactly, but I know I'm going to hate it.
So. Can you see S. Meyer fashioning her crude abortion parallel here? She's stacked the deck against herself; Carlisle has told us these babies were deadly and uncontrollable. But obviously S. Meyer is going to come down on the side of “don't have abortions" eventually. That is the rough beast slouching toward us right now, I can feel it. The first three Twilight books were about why you shouldn't have sex. It only figures that now that S. Meyer can't get any more mileage out of that she's going to write a parable about why you shouldn't get an abortion. Not that it is going to be a particularly deft parable.
Bella has her dream, then. Okay. How'd we get here? It doesn't matter. It's an admirably bleak dream, and if it's longer than one second in the film version that will be nice: Bella's in the middle of a field surrounded by the dead and burning bodies of a bunch of vampires. It's strongly suggested the bodies belong to the Cullens, but she can't bring herself to look too closely. Instead she walks toward where the Voluri are huddled around a “beautiful, adorable” toddler sitting on a “hillock.” When she gets closer, she realizes the toddler is actually sitting on a pile of dead bodies containing her friends and mother and father. Creepy! Awesome! But I skipped something kind of important:
I was struck with such a powerful need to save the lovely, terrified child that the Volturi, despite all their devastating menace, no longer mattered to me.
Uh-oh. I can't tell where this is going exactly, but I know I'm going to hate it.
6 comments:
So, about the random and awkwardly inserted recaps. I do really doubt that anyone will be coming into this series at this point (and if they do accidentally they'll probably stop reading and start over at Twilight) but I'm not totally against it. As someone who followed multiple vampire series at a time in highschool, sometimes you pick up the next installment at the library and think, "Wait, which one is this again? The ones with the magic or the ones who can go out in the daylight or what?" Most of these novel series are not good enough to ever intend to buy, so there's no convenient way to recap. Plus, they might suck the second time reading them. I assume these books were written without the intent to do any better than other trashy vampire novels...
Okay, that makes sense. But when Bella notices that there's a calming air in the room, wouldn't that sufficiently jog your memory about Jasper? Do you need more than that? How many different vampire stories are you reading at once?
SHIT FUCK DICKS! I totally stopped reading the blog. I promise to catch up!
This series would be way better if there were more psychotic killer vampire babies. None of the villains have been as awesome as that.
Totally, the Jasper thing is more than a bit too much. Also, I was a teenage nerd girl who at one point got really sick and was bed ridden for two months... I read whatever I could get my hands on. I started Twilight then, actually.
I'm getting so excited about the book again. Oh man, it's the juiciest read ever,
The vampire baby abominations aren't a new idea. Anne Rice had that creepy little girl that Lestat vamped, whose intelligence kept maturing but who stayed stuck in a little girl body. Yiiiiiiikes times infinity.
Also, I had a bummer boyfriend once who would get disappointed every time I got my period, because he was always hoping I'd accidentally get pregnant. Like I'd reproduce with that nutbar.
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