Here we go. S. Meyer finally gives us a worthwhile chapter, and she's just in time; I don't know how much longer I would have been able to go on. All of this time I thought our author was going to kill me with some awful, amoral plot twist, or some over-obvious religious allusion. But she very nearly simply bored me to death! I thought I was going to throw my book across the room, not just slump and drop it to the floor! In this chapter, Jacob imagines himself about to endure a long period of suffering. Fittingly, I feel like we're already on the other side of it, looking back at him. So long, Jacob! (Did everybody make it out? Can we do a head count? Anybody get lost fifty pages back? Marco! Marco!)Previously: What's In A Name?
Chapter 17: What Do I Look Like? The Wizard Of Oz? You Need A Brain? You Need A Heart? Go Ahead. Take Mine. Take Everything I Have.
And the award for most passive-aggressive chapter title goes to. God, I can't wait to get a new narrator. We're due for one, whether it's Edward or Bella or (fingers crossed!) Alice. The single charm of Jacob's narration, the nifty stuff involving the pack mind and Edward's ability hear it, is all but completely gone. There are a few moments in this chapter where it is referenced, like Jacob will say something aloud and then note that he didn't want to wait for Edward to pick it out of his thoughts. But the honeymoon is over, I'm ready to move on.
Jacob heads to the Cullen garage, angsty as ever, and realizes he's been given (by Edward) the keys to an Aston Martin Vanquish, which I'm guessing is a nice car. It sounds very fancy, but we get little in the way of physical description (surprise, surprise). He notes that ordinarily he'd have popped a boner at the sight of such a car (more or less) but his desire to flee is too strong to really enjoy it. He drives south (symbolic!), apparently at 200 m.p.h. (sure), and thinks back to a suggestion put forth by Leah that if he imprinted on someone, all of his pain over Bella would go away. So Jacob is cruising for pussy! All right!
“Why didn't you invite me, motherfucker?”-Alice Cullen
He considers stopping by a mall, where there will be girls his age, but second-guesses himself. “Did I want to imprint on some girl who hung out in a mall all day?” he wonders. Uh, yeah! Girls who hang out in malls are hot and slutty! Instead he stops at a “big park full of kids and families.” Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Jacob, maybe let's reconsider this? Playgrounds are not ideal places to look for dates. But it's suggested at least that the girls Jacob sets his sights on here are relatively age-appropriate, if a little stunted, maturity-wise. (What are you doing in the park, girls? Go to the mall! Go to one of those blowjob rainbow parties! You're teenagers and you're DOING IT WRONG!) Though he does disconcertingly note which ones “looked good in braces.” NONE OF THEM LOOK GOOD IN BRACES. If there are braces on the field, don't play ball, or put your balls anywhere near that field! That should be obvious for MULTIPLE reasons.
But it doesn't matter. Jacob is so hung up on Bella he can't help but be a judgmental asshole, even when he says he's looking for “something interesting about each face.”
This one had a really straight nose; that one should pull her hair out of her eyes; this one could do lipstick ads if the rest of her face was as perfect as her mouth...
What are you, my grandmother? Stop nitpicking! At the risk of sounding crass, let's get real: What do THEIR TITS look like? What is WRONG with this guy that he doesn't look!? How does he know that's not how imprinting works?
Anyway, a girl approaches Jacob and basically does everything short of rip her clothes off and drop to her knees: she introduces herself, talks to Jacob about the car while jokingly assuming he's stolen it, brings back the joke about him being a criminal (if only you knew how right you are, Lizzie) a few times, and so on. All around, she does an A+ flirting job. She's probably licking her lips a lot, too. And it's a fun little scene, but our narrator just glowers and mumbles until she gives up. Christ. This guy is literally never going to get laid.
On the drive home Jacob contemplates his suffering-filled future existence and the possibility of sharing it with Leah. If you were still imagining that these two could be romantically involved, Jacob puts the kibosh on that, using the term “companion” multiple times like he's a grandfather in a retirement home trying to convince little Timmy that no one will EVER replace his Nana.
I knew that Leah was strong enough to face with me the months that were coming. Months and years... So much time coming, and then so little time before it started.
Kill yourself while you still can, Leah. Jacob returns to the Cullen house to find Edward waiting in the garage for him. He opens by telling him to, speak of the devil, get Leah under control. Apparently while Jacob was elsewhere, Leah seized the opportunity, phased to human form, went into the Cullen house and bitched out Bella for being a manipulative asshole. “Whoa,” Jacob says. Whoa, indeed. Apparently Bella's been crying over it all afternoon. Good! I wish we could have been there to see it! When Edward mentions that Bella is with “Rose” rather than “Rosalie,” Jacob notes that Edward has “completely crossed over to the dark side.”
He ignored that thought, continuing with a more complete answer to my question. “She's... better in some ways. Aside from Leah's tirade and the resulting guilt.”
Edward informs Jacob that the baby is aware enough that it is now trying to avoid hurting Bella. He continues to refer to it as a he, even though we know it is going to be a she; Renesmee is too awful a name to pass over. Jacob feels newly betrayed.
He couldn't hurt what loved Bella. It was probably why he couldn't hate me, either. There was a big difference, though. I wasn't killing her.
Edward went on, acting like he hadn't heard all that.
We've passed the phase where S. Meyer has made use of her innovations like Alice's visions and Edward's mind-reading. Now she's only ever finding ways to factor them out of the equation. We learn that Alice and Jasper have returned but Carlisle (and presumably Esme and Emmett) will still be gone for a day or two; Carlisle wasn't able to acquire as much blood as he wanted. So all of that stuff about remaining in Forks for the medical resources was just bullshit, I guess. But Jacob realizes that Edward is now of the opinion that Bella will survive the pregnancy, and he therefore makes an unexpected overture to our narrator: Edward asks Jacob, as the true heir of the last of the Mohicans or whatever, if he will officially make an exception to the treaty (the same one Jacob said was “dead' one chapter ago) and allow Bella to be vamped. Jacob stalls for the 30 seconds it takes to go back to the living room and see Bella (“I wanted to punch Leah right in her stupid mouth,” he says, disconcertingly), talks to Bella for a second, realizes he wants her to be around no matter what, and then agrees to it. Well, yeah.
Chapter 17: What Do I Look Like? The Wizard Of Oz? You Need A Brain? You Need A Heart? Go Ahead. Take Mine. Take Everything I Have.
And the award for most passive-aggressive chapter title goes to. God, I can't wait to get a new narrator. We're due for one, whether it's Edward or Bella or (fingers crossed!) Alice. The single charm of Jacob's narration, the nifty stuff involving the pack mind and Edward's ability hear it, is all but completely gone. There are a few moments in this chapter where it is referenced, like Jacob will say something aloud and then note that he didn't want to wait for Edward to pick it out of his thoughts. But the honeymoon is over, I'm ready to move on.
Jacob heads to the Cullen garage, angsty as ever, and realizes he's been given (by Edward) the keys to an Aston Martin Vanquish, which I'm guessing is a nice car. It sounds very fancy, but we get little in the way of physical description (surprise, surprise). He notes that ordinarily he'd have popped a boner at the sight of such a car (more or less) but his desire to flee is too strong to really enjoy it. He drives south (symbolic!), apparently at 200 m.p.h. (sure), and thinks back to a suggestion put forth by Leah that if he imprinted on someone, all of his pain over Bella would go away. So Jacob is cruising for pussy! All right!
“Why didn't you invite me, motherfucker?”-Alice Cullen
He considers stopping by a mall, where there will be girls his age, but second-guesses himself. “Did I want to imprint on some girl who hung out in a mall all day?” he wonders. Uh, yeah! Girls who hang out in malls are hot and slutty! Instead he stops at a “big park full of kids and families.” Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Jacob, maybe let's reconsider this? Playgrounds are not ideal places to look for dates. But it's suggested at least that the girls Jacob sets his sights on here are relatively age-appropriate, if a little stunted, maturity-wise. (What are you doing in the park, girls? Go to the mall! Go to one of those blowjob rainbow parties! You're teenagers and you're DOING IT WRONG!) Though he does disconcertingly note which ones “looked good in braces.” NONE OF THEM LOOK GOOD IN BRACES. If there are braces on the field, don't play ball, or put your balls anywhere near that field! That should be obvious for MULTIPLE reasons.
But it doesn't matter. Jacob is so hung up on Bella he can't help but be a judgmental asshole, even when he says he's looking for “something interesting about each face.”
This one had a really straight nose; that one should pull her hair out of her eyes; this one could do lipstick ads if the rest of her face was as perfect as her mouth...
What are you, my grandmother? Stop nitpicking! At the risk of sounding crass, let's get real: What do THEIR TITS look like? What is WRONG with this guy that he doesn't look!? How does he know that's not how imprinting works?
It is very funny, and pathetic, to imagine Jacob storming around a park staring into faces like this with his furrowed, stupid brow. He's intense enough that some of the easy girls he sees appear to return his interest, but he's too much of a dipshit to really take advantage of it. His pain over Bella, which until now has been ill-defined but mentioned in passing with great regularity, now rears its ugly head with New Moon-levels of irritating ferocity.
I felt nothing. Just the same desperate drive to find a way out of the pain.
Jacob later goes on to imagine an “ocean” of pain spreading out before him; he knows he's going to have to spend a long time wallowing in it before he gets to the other side. I'm no psychiatrist, but I feel like PLANNING on long-term suffering is a kind of weird thing to do. Just fuck someone, Jacob! Someone, something, anything! (My solution is a lot simpler than Leah's: you don't need to imprint on a girl's face so much as “imprint” on her chest, you know? Or on her face or inside her or whatever.) He leans on the car and wonders, if Billy's thesis is correct, what would make for a stronger wolf. A white girl? A Latina? How about a rhino? Or an elephant? I mean, try to make it consensual, but even if it isn't, what's one offended rhino? Or do something freaky; cum on a rock! See what happens, make it will make a superwolf! It's just as plausible as anything else.
I felt nothing. Just the same desperate drive to find a way out of the pain.
Jacob later goes on to imagine an “ocean” of pain spreading out before him; he knows he's going to have to spend a long time wallowing in it before he gets to the other side. I'm no psychiatrist, but I feel like PLANNING on long-term suffering is a kind of weird thing to do. Just fuck someone, Jacob! Someone, something, anything! (My solution is a lot simpler than Leah's: you don't need to imprint on a girl's face so much as “imprint” on her chest, you know? Or on her face or inside her or whatever.) He leans on the car and wonders, if Billy's thesis is correct, what would make for a stronger wolf. A white girl? A Latina? How about a rhino? Or an elephant? I mean, try to make it consensual, but even if it isn't, what's one offended rhino? Or do something freaky; cum on a rock! See what happens, make it will make a superwolf! It's just as plausible as anything else.
Anyway, a girl approaches Jacob and basically does everything short of rip her clothes off and drop to her knees: she introduces herself, talks to Jacob about the car while jokingly assuming he's stolen it, brings back the joke about him being a criminal (if only you knew how right you are, Lizzie) a few times, and so on. All around, she does an A+ flirting job. She's probably licking her lips a lot, too. And it's a fun little scene, but our narrator just glowers and mumbles until she gives up. Christ. This guy is literally never going to get laid.
On the drive home Jacob contemplates his suffering-filled future existence and the possibility of sharing it with Leah. If you were still imagining that these two could be romantically involved, Jacob puts the kibosh on that, using the term “companion” multiple times like he's a grandfather in a retirement home trying to convince little Timmy that no one will EVER replace his Nana.
I knew that Leah was strong enough to face with me the months that were coming. Months and years... So much time coming, and then so little time before it started.
Kill yourself while you still can, Leah. Jacob returns to the Cullen house to find Edward waiting in the garage for him. He opens by telling him to, speak of the devil, get Leah under control. Apparently while Jacob was elsewhere, Leah seized the opportunity, phased to human form, went into the Cullen house and bitched out Bella for being a manipulative asshole. “Whoa,” Jacob says. Whoa, indeed. Apparently Bella's been crying over it all afternoon. Good! I wish we could have been there to see it! When Edward mentions that Bella is with “Rose” rather than “Rosalie,” Jacob notes that Edward has “completely crossed over to the dark side.”
He ignored that thought, continuing with a more complete answer to my question. “She's... better in some ways. Aside from Leah's tirade and the resulting guilt.”
Edward informs Jacob that the baby is aware enough that it is now trying to avoid hurting Bella. He continues to refer to it as a he, even though we know it is going to be a she; Renesmee is too awful a name to pass over. Jacob feels newly betrayed.
He couldn't hurt what loved Bella. It was probably why he couldn't hate me, either. There was a big difference, though. I wasn't killing her.
Edward went on, acting like he hadn't heard all that.
We've passed the phase where S. Meyer has made use of her innovations like Alice's visions and Edward's mind-reading. Now she's only ever finding ways to factor them out of the equation. We learn that Alice and Jasper have returned but Carlisle (and presumably Esme and Emmett) will still be gone for a day or two; Carlisle wasn't able to acquire as much blood as he wanted. So all of that stuff about remaining in Forks for the medical resources was just bullshit, I guess. But Jacob realizes that Edward is now of the opinion that Bella will survive the pregnancy, and he therefore makes an unexpected overture to our narrator: Edward asks Jacob, as the true heir of the last of the Mohicans or whatever, if he will officially make an exception to the treaty (the same one Jacob said was “dead' one chapter ago) and allow Bella to be vamped. Jacob stalls for the 30 seconds it takes to go back to the living room and see Bella (“I wanted to punch Leah right in her stupid mouth,” he says, disconcertingly), talks to Bella for a second, realizes he wants her to be around no matter what, and then agrees to it. Well, yeah.
The legal implications of Jacob's decree are a little suspect, because even though he has the blood-claim to power or whatever, he doesn't plan on actually seeking it. He could speak for the wolfpack, but isn't actually going to. Edward would make a shitty diplomat.
So Bella and Jacob talk for a moment, and then Bella tells Rosalie she needs to go to the bathroom. She asks if she can walk there herself, but after a few steps she drops her cup of blood on the floor and automatically bends to catch it as it falls.
There was the strangest, muffled ripping sound from the center of her body.
Rosalie catches her, but then Bella screams. And then we get, probably, the best paragraph in the entire series.
It was not just a scream, it was a blood-curdling shriek of agony. The horrifying sound cut off with a gurgle, and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body twitched, arched in Rosalie's arms, and then Bella vomited a fountain of blood.
Hot damn! Now it's a party!
So Bella and Jacob talk for a moment, and then Bella tells Rosalie she needs to go to the bathroom. She asks if she can walk there herself, but after a few steps she drops her cup of blood on the floor and automatically bends to catch it as it falls.
There was the strangest, muffled ripping sound from the center of her body.
Rosalie catches her, but then Bella screams. And then we get, probably, the best paragraph in the entire series.
It was not just a scream, it was a blood-curdling shriek of agony. The horrifying sound cut off with a gurgle, and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body twitched, arched in Rosalie's arms, and then Bella vomited a fountain of blood.
Hot damn! Now it's a party!
2 comments:
I wish I had something interesting to say about this post, but I'm too distracted being psyched beyond belief to read the next post to think straight.
This section is actually pretty funny, but I'm with Ally on this one. I kind of can't wait for the next section. Most of my excitement about the movie is based on the hope that they will actually include it.
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