You know what? I'm declaring jihad on commas. For a while now I've tried not to sweat the small stuff in these books. For one thing we've already covered most of S. Meyer's grammatical issues; they have not improved nor have they evolved. Plus, Reasoning With Vampires is out-fine-tooth-combing even me. But S. Meyer fucks up what could be a perfectly good last sentence to chapter 19 with a stray comma:The killing games continued in the clearing, and I stared at the hazy moon.
Oh, well. You know, S. Meyer, there are better ways to force a pause if you really need to. I use chapter headings. Previous entries can be found in the directory.
Chapter 19 (cont'd): Selfish
So Bella's super-manipulative ploy to get Edward out of the fight actually works. She invokes her New Moon-era heartbreak (get over it, Bella!) and coldly twists Edward's arm until he agrees to abandon his family for the coming battle. She feels guilty, but not guilty enough to stop. Bella's priorities become very clear here: Edward's life is more important than any other's. Surprisingly, Alice seems to rank a close second.
I knew what he was thinking of – the same thing I was thinking of. Carlisle. Esme. Emmett. Rosalie. And... I forced myself to think the last name. And Alice.
Hard to know where Jacob ranks with respect to Edward and Alice. All kidding aside, it would truly be interesting if Alice suddenly declared her love for Bella now. We have enough heterosexual love triangles already, S. Meyer. Impress me. Speak of the vampire, Edward calls her to come hang out with Bella while he hands his white flag to Jasper. While she's en route, Edward gives us a lesson on how relationships work.
He shrugged. “You are my first priority.”
“I didn't mean it that way – like you have to choose me over your family.”
“I know that. Besides, that's not what you asked. You gave me two alternatives that you could live with, and I chose the one that I could live with. That's how compromise is supposed to work.”
Edward should get a job as a professional mediator. But seriously folks, I kind of like the weird-ass lesson this scene is imparting: even perfect, paranormal romances are full of the day-to-day shit. Sure, maybe you and your husband are arguing about where to move or whether or not to have children, whereas Edward and Bella are arguing about who, precisely, will be involved in a war with a legion of newborn vampires, but it's basically the same deal. Relationships take work.
A MAYBE KIND OF OBVIOUS DIGRESSION
Do you notice that Edward and Bella never really talk about anything other than plot mechanics? I mean, Bella gives us plenty of “And Edward and I spent the summer together” expository bullshit where we can assume some other sort of conversation took place, and this book, for the most part, cuts out any time Bella ever shoots the breeze with anyone, but isn't that a terrible mistake? I get more and more frustrated trying to summarize these long scenes of dialogue, mostly because almost no one ever says anything interesting, ever. Most of the time, dialogue is employed to reveal some new plot twist like a riddle. It gets boring; just say it already! And doesn't it eventually start to feel like the basis of Edward and Bella's relationship is... their relationship? WHY DO THEY EVEN LIKE EACH OTHER? I know this is all kind of obvious, but it isn't something I've said before. It needs to be said.
END OF DIGRESSION
Alice shows up and tells Edward he's going to “miss all the fun.” She sees the future, folks! She's already told the rest of her family, so it's kind of unclear why Edward leaves to tell them again, but he does. Which leaves Alice alone with Bella. She gives our narrator a “glare” which I assume is supposed to mean “Bitch, what the fuck?” Bella is like, does this put you guys at risk? Alice is like “Bitch please.” So Bella is like, what is the problem? And Alice is like “Edward is going to feel so bad he's going to a mega-dick for the next nine months.” I feel like in real life Alice would do the “jerk off” hand motion a lot.
“Would you let Jasper go without you?” I demanded.
Alice grimaced. “That's different.”
“Sure it is.”
Alice and Jasper's relationship is based on equality, Bella. So yeah, it kind of is different. Also: they are cooler. Alice orders Bella to clean herself up (she doesn't offer to help, which is weird, since they used to be shower buddies) and Charlie gets home shortly thereafter. He's pumped to see Alice – Charlie is a channeling the rest of us right now. He tells Alice everyone is talking about how great her party was last night. “I'll bet you've got one heck of a clean-up job ahead of you.” In response, Alice does the “jerk off” hand motion. Just kidding.
“No worse than Woodstock 99,” she shrugged.
Still kidding. What follows is a kind of bizarre scene where Alice tells Charlie about how the rest of her family is leaving her all alone for the weekend – they all wanted to go camping and she didn't, oh no! – and Charlie is so struck by her sexy misery face that he invites her to stay with them. Alice stomps on Bella's foot, and Bella objects, saying they don't have the room and Alice would be uncomfortable.
“Well, she could sleep in my bed,” Charlie offered. “Or your bed. There are so many possibilities for erotic fan fiction!”
Charlie actually just offers for Bella to stay with Alice in her house for a few days instead. Bella is amazed.
With one complicated-ass Rube Goldberg of a scene, Alice had cleared my schedule for the battle.
Hey Alice, you know what would have been easier? Saying, “Hey Bella, do you want to go shopping with me this weekend?” in front of Charlie and leaving it at that! But whatever. Alice leaves later that night, and Bella goes to bed where Edward is waiting. She tells him that Alice is kidnapping her for the day tomorrow (tomorrow being the day before the battle, I think. The timeline is kind of fucked up here. I guess Alice's party was on a Wednesday?) and Edward informs her that actually that is not the case. The rest of the Cullens, including Alice (shit), are going hunting to prep for the battle, meaning that Edward and Bella will be alone in the Cullen house for the night.
“You're welcome, bitch.”-Alice Cullen
Bella is excited, as in aroused, obviously. They go back out to the clearing for fight club – this time only Jacob, Embry and Quil (all in wolf form) have come out. The rest of the wolves don't need to be there because of the hive mind and all. That must be nice! The wolves must save so much money on movie tickets and shit - as long as one of them is there, all of them are there. It's an intriguing notion which is basically left hanging, right there, like that. Edward still has to help Jasper with his demonstrations, so Bella sits on the ground and Wolf-Jacob comes over and they have another ridiculous, over-anthropomorphized bonding scene. She shivers, he lies down next to her, she basically uses him as a pillow. She worries out loud about his safety, Wolf-Jacob literally rolls his eyes. Okay, sure.
Chapter 20: Compromise
Oddly, Bella takes this time to sort of recap the plot for us. It's the night before the battle, and various tasks have been completed to ensure the safety of Charlie and others. He'll be with Billy at La Push, guarded by a few of the extra members of the wolfpack. Ben, Angela, and Mike have received Bella's concert tickets (if anyone cared) and Mike is buying a fourth to bring Jessica along. It must have been a lame show, if tickets are still available. See you guys in the epilogue! Anyway, Bella starts talking about how she's ready to be a vampire - she looks forward to being Edward's "equal" like Alice and Jasper. This is the first time Bella has been smart enough to realize she should be looking up to those two. Why did it take so long?
There was only one missing piece.
To paraphrase Jasper, Bella means that more literally than you can imagine. She starts thinking about how she could change - she will be a newborn after all. "I knew which human experience I was going to insist on before I became inhuman," she says. "So we had some things to work out tonight."And of course, though S. Meyer is going to go to GREAT LENGTHS to avoid actually saying it, by "some things" Bella means "Edward's cock." Oh my god, you guys, this is happening.
Okay, it probably isn't going to happen even still.
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