BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN pt. 8: A Perfect Day For Bananafish

Try doing an image search for Isle Esme sometime. There's really nothing like it. Previously: The Honeymooners.

Chapter 6: Distractions

Edward makes use of the sights and sounds of Isle Esme to distract Bella from the sights and sounds of sex. The film version of Twilight and this book were released in the same year (2008) which probably explains S. Meyer's sudden urge to write basically an island vacation montage: Edward and Bella go snorkeling (Edward doesn't have to wear a snorkel, ha ha, he's a vampire!), they watch the sunset over the water, they swim with porpoises and play with parrots. All in the space of a paragraph! (We have this paragraph to thank for "Jumping Rob," by the way. Thank you, this paragraph!) The accountants at Summit read this part and they were like, "that bitch." To Bella it's apparent that he is trying to keep her too tired to have sex-- she uses the phrase "the sex thing" which is a (weird) step in the right direction, if you are still keeping track of S. Meyer's willingness to use the word "sex" in a sexual context, which I am. Bella mentions trying to coax Edward into staying indoors and watching movies (good move, Bella, I played it that way all the time), "but he would lure me out of the house with words like coral reefs and submerged caves and sea turtles."

Those italics are S. Meyer's own, I'm not sure why they are there. Have you noticed that the Internet and blogging and Twitter have sort of dealt a death blow to italics? I still use them for emphasis (and titles, because Blogger does not have an underline button-- though for what it's worth I tend to only italicize Twilight when referring specifically to the first book. I indicate Twilight as a general phenomenon by absence of italics. I'm sure you found all that very interesting) because I'm old school, but the general style these days is CAPITAL LETTERS, which has made italics sort of a man without a country. I'm all for capital letters (and I use them to indicate emphasis mixed with exasperation, wow I'm being SO ENTERTAINING today), but that basically leaves italics for when you have to emphasize the word "I." If this blog had footnotes all of this would be in a footnote, but it doesn't. If I had my way they would, but again, Blogger. And the necessity of incorporating exemplary sentences into this paragraph. But anyway, my point is, since when is Bella this outdoorsy explorer who wants to kick it with sea turtles?

It's hard to know when S. Meyer's double (and even single) entendres are intentional and when they aren't. "We were going, going, going all day," Bella says, referring to everything but "the sex thing," sadly. Every night after their adventuring, Bella tries to "press [her] case"-- by "case" I assume she means "body up against Edward"-- but falls asleep before she can get too far. "I tried reasoning, pleading, and grouching, all to no avail," Bella says. Well, there's your problem. You should be trying licking, stroking, dry humping before you give up like that. She has nightmares, and GET READY FOR THOSE, but that's all we hear for now.

Bella resorts eventually to wearing the lingerie Alice packed for her. "I wondered if she'd seen a vision of why I would want such things," Bella says, "and then shuddered, embarrassed by the thought." Good point, Bella! Jeez, how did Alice contain her hysterical laughter around Bella during the whole wedding?

She starts with the most modest stuff, realizing that "revealing more of my skin would be the opposite of helpful." Another good point, Bella! When you want to turn Edward on, you can't think "is this what a normal man would like?" You have to think "would Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri approve?" (I mean, maybe it's because she doesn't want him to see the bruises, but you have to admit that Edward would prefer a turtleneck over a tube top.) She works herself up to a "black, lacy, and embarrassing" number that makes Edward's eyes "pop open wide" (whether it's with attraction or disapproval is uncertain). She proposes they make a deal. Edward refuses, and Bella says "you haven't even heard what I'm offering." A blow job? A strip-tease? A strip-tease AND a blowjob? No. She offers to go to college for a semester as a human. Edward gets angry, as expected. I'd be bummed too if that was all she was offering, but for a different reason.

It is a little weird that Bella is suddenly willing to move the (un)deadline back like that; her justification is that she likes having sex so much, she wants to keep her human vagina around for a while. But don't vampires have like, heightened senses and everything? Isn't she only upgrading her software, so to speak? Edward bit a bunch of pillows when he had sex, after all. (If I'd done that metaphor for Edward I would have said hardware. I put more work into this than you'd think. That's what she said.) Edward starts trying to sing Bella to sleep, and let's not even get into that, and Bella says she's been having nightmares. He presses her for specifics, but she's reluctant to tell him "about the child." She's been dreaming about a human baby. It's not sitting on a pile of dead bodies anymore, but the Volturi are still coming after it. GET READY NOW:

I simply had to protect the unknown child. There was no other option. At the same time, I knew that I would fail.

Welcome back, nebulous abortion symbolism! S. Meyer has this horrible way of seeming to come down on the religious side of issues while representing the worst stereotypes about them. Edward is a condescending and sexist theologian, but he gets his way and protects Bella's virtue. Bella is irrationally pro-life, and in fact, that she's irrational about it is the ONLY DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC of her pro-life-ness, but still, you can see where this is going. Of course you can. Bella falls asleep, and after the first of several very suggestive line breaks, wakes up from what we realize eventually is a sex dream.

Outstanding. Well done, Internet!

She's disoriented, as usual. S. Meyer is getting worse at doing these "disoriented" scenes, though. "The dream had been so real," Bella says, and then a few lines later realizes it was "just a dream." WE/YOU KNOW. But anyway, when Bella's dream ends mid-fuck, she starts crying. Edward panics, and starts asking her what is wrong. "We were on the beach..." Bella says. [EDIT: There was a period missing there earlier, sort of like how there will be for Bella soon!] (Dream) Sex on the (dream) beach? I'm impressed, (dream) Bella! Edward susses out what the dream was about, and his opposition is suddenly very weak. I know that makes a certain amount of intuitive sense-- a girl starts crying and the guy just gives in-- but Dr. Noam Sobel has recently conducted a study that reveals that women's tears actually reduce a man's sex drive. Via Jezebel:

According to Pam Belluck the Times [sic], researchers in this amusing-sounding study recruited women who were "easy criers," then harvested their tears during screenings of sad movies. As a control, they also poured saline solution down the women's faces. Then they bottled both, and instructed men to sniff them. Those who sniffed real tears were less aroused by the sexy movie 9 1/2 Weeks than those who only got a whiff of saline.

But then again, Edward does not act like a normal dude, and it makes a certain amount of intuitive sense that he would get off on misery. He surrenders "with a groan" and it is once again (only) implied that they have sex. There's another line break and we cut to the next morning. S. Meyer is messing with us, trying to get us hot with text formatting. People confess to reading Twilight over and over again-- do you think by now some of them have a Pavlovian sort of reaction to double-spacing?

Next morning, Edward is still in a weird mood, but Bella inspects herself and is free of new bruises. Edward tells her she slept for twelve hours, and whenever she tries to move she gets dizzy. Okay. Again, they survey the damage. Bella's lingerie is torn to shreds. Nice work, Edward. Also: large chunks of wood have been gouged from the headboard. S. Meyer continues with the nasty habit of calling attention to her own writing problems:

"Hmm." I frowned. "You'd think I would have heard that."

"You seem to be extraordinarily unobservant when your attention is otherwise involved. It really strains credulity, but you have to wonder if anyone is engaged with this book at this point anyway, right?" Edward said.

Edward indicates he might be willing to screw Bella again. It's ridiculous that this feels like a victory, but it does. Edward himself calls attention to this problem, telling Bella she shouldn't feel guilty for seducing her "all-too-willing husband." Very charitable for Edward to describe himself as that, eh? Bella goes and cooks herself breakfast, and GET READY NOW: Edward calls attention to how many eggs she has been eating this week. Oy gevalt.

They start talking about going to Dartmouth in the fall, which isn't going to happen, but let's pretend for a second it is. Edward remarks that sex was the key all along, he could have "saved myself a lot of arguments." Sure, if you weren't a virtue-obsessed religious bigot. But anyway, should we be mad at Bella for selling out like this? We've been waiting for this fucking vamping almost as long as we've been waiting for the fucking! Now as soon as we get one we lose the other? I call bullshit.

Edward tells her he already owns a house near Dartmouth. "Real estate is a good investment," he says. Not with the property taxes in New Hampshire, buddy! But anyway I wonder if there is a way we can blame the sub-prime crisis on Edward? The cleaning crew shows up, because of course, Carlisle's deserted island no one has been to for years requires a staff, and Bella looks for a movie to watch while Edward speaks in Portuguese to the help. "The two Brazillians looked incredibly short and dark next to him," Bella says. My god, woman, can you go thirty seconds without picking on the visual appearance of minorities? What the FUCK?

The "coffee-skinned" (thanks, S. Meyer) woman in the crew seems to have an aversion to Bella, and Edward explains that she more or less suspects that Edward is a vampire. Well, it's nice that Carlisle keeps them employed on his PRIVATE ISLAND. First Rule of Vampire Club: Keep a low profile. So only buy ONE ISLAND and only employ ONE SUSPICIOUS PORTUGUESE WOMAN. Edward and Bella start making out, and Edward kisses Bella's neck, and the woman (Kaure) walks in and gasps. Busted. S. Meyer doesn't wait very long to use her punchlines, huh?

"She was thinking what I was think she was thinking, wasn't she?" I muttered.

He laughed at my convoluted sentence.

HA! I know that feeling too well, Edward. Anyway, for what it is worth, we finally have something close to a sexy scene undiluted by S. Meyer's creepiness. After the crew leaves, Edward suggests they go swimming with the dolphins to burn off the calories from lunch. Bella says she has other ideas for burning calories, and Edward carries her into the bedroom. Line break. Just a very sexy line break. No bruises, no weird post-sex guilt, nothing. But then you remember the dreams, and the eggs, and you get it. That should put more of a damper on your sex drive than a vial of tears ever could.