BLOGGING ECLIPSE, pt. 23: A Wolf At The Door (It Girl. Rag Doll.)

I had a dream last night that I was a vampire at a vampire school where Voldemort was the headmaster and Anna Kendrick was one of the other students. My life is fucked up. Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 17 (con't): Alliance

At the party, Bella begrudgingly socializes while Edward clings silently and ragefully to her arm. How must that look? People probably think Edward is either way too protective or an agoraphobe or like, Bella's weird (un)dead fetal twin. Talk to someone, dude! It's a party! He suddenly disappears, as if taking my advice, and Bella scours the crowd for him while ignoring Jessica. I'd assumed we were done with Jessica as a character, and we probably are despite this little coda; she doesn't even have any quoted dialogue in this scene – our narrator just tells us she's talking. Bella finally spots Edward talking to someone and realizes it's Alice when the lights reflect off her sequined shirt. See, that is why you don't wear sequins. Okay, that's not why.

By the time Bella gets to where Edward and Alice were, only Alice is left. Her face is “blank” and she is gripping the door frame for support. When Alice and Edward had their heads bent together, is Bella sure they were talking?

Whatever happened, Bella doesn't get a chance to find out. The doorbell rings and Alice looks up “with a puzzled expression that quickly turned into one of disgust.” Those facial expressions are very much in Ashley Greene's wheelhouse. (“I got this.”-Ashley Greene). Jacob has arrived at the party. Alice tells Bella to deal with it and takes off. Bella's so frustrated, she actually swears(!):

“Damn it!” I grumbled.

She doesn't answer the doorbell but Jacob, with Quil and Embry, very tentatively enters the party anyway. Bella blows off Jacob's greeting (he's still across the room, but the geography of this scene is, as always, vague) and continues to look for Alice, but Jacob finds her and pulls her forcibly from the crowd. Oh boy, we're off to a great start! I'll give Jacob a little credit – when he grabs Bella's chin to better get her attention (shudder) she tells him to keep his hands to himself, and he immediately stops and apologizes for everything. Then Bella still tries to get away from him, and he says “I guess you'd rather be with your real friends,” sulking like a little boy. That's ordinarily low, Jacob, but for you it's progress.

It works on Bella, and he gives her a gift that seals the deal. There's some bland “white girl doesn't understand other cultures” humor (which is pretty advanced for S. Meyer, I suppose) when Jacob hands her a woven bag in which the gift is contained and Bella assumes the bag is the gift. But really it's a hand carved bracelet-charm of a wolf, carved out of “some red-brown wood that matched the color of [Jacob's] skin.” NEVER FORGET: JACOB IS ETHNIC. Anyway, Jacob made the charm himself. The combination of a homemade gift and an exotic origin (tradition passed down from Native American father to son) makes Bella unbelievably horny. There's a sexually charged scene where Bella thinks Jacob's “big fingers” aren't going to be able to get the bracelet fastened, but he gets it in easily (you're welcome).

But Bella can't be distracted for too long, and Jacob realizes that something is up. He demands to know the deal – recall that he doesn't know about the vampire army or anything – and Bella tries to plead ignorance. Jacob and his boys gang up on her, literally backing her into a corner. Very symbolic, and also hot. Bella sees Alice coming down the stairs and calls her over. “She put her arm around my waist,” Bella says. That's easily my favorite sentence from his book so far. Several more awesome things happen at once. Alice tries to pull Bella away, saying “I need to talk to you” which I assume is code for “let's go have sex in my room,” and Jacob extends an arm to block their way.

Alice stared up at him, eyes wide and incredulous. “Excuse me?”

Finally, a reasonable reaction to this shit! (I think it's interesting to read this series as a battle between S. Meyer's better angels and worst impulses. Lately I've been seeing it that way instead of just assuming that our dear author is literally insane. Alice and a few other characters seem to be actively pushing against the reprehensible current of the rest of the book, and if I didn't know better I'd assume Alice was the creation of an editor or something. But this book was clearly not edited by anyone.) Jacob growls at Alice, and Jasper appears “quite literally out of nowhere.” Jasper and slight misuses of “literally” are (literally) like peanut butter and jelly in this book. He literally gets between Jacob and his woman, “his expression terrifying.” But Alice really listens when Jacob says the wolfpack has a “right to know.” So thoughtful, that girl. She informs everyone (everyone in their little circle, that is. There is a lot of hay made out of the fact that this conversation is taking place in the middle of a party, but no one overhears them or anything so Bella's constant reminders to the reader are really sort of frivolous) that a decision has been made, and the vampire army is going to march on Forks; they have Casus Bella, so to speak.

The Cullens aren't going to have time to launch Operation Bite, Shock, and Awe as originally planned. They'll try to cut off the advancing troops, but Alice seems to think some of them will get as far as Forks. Bella looks around the room at her dancing classmates and sees a bunch of doomed bloodbags; she starts ranting about sacrificing herself (hey, has this motif about self-sacrifice been set up enough for you yet? No?) until Jacob finally interrupts and asks what they are even talking about. What took so long for Jacob to ask a question? I know Alice is pretty and all, but focus! Alice clarifies about the newborn army, how they have a disadvantage numbers-wise but not skills-wise. Jasper literally says it will be an even fight.

“No,” Jacob said, and a strange, fierce half-smile spread across his face. “It won't be even.”
“Excellent!” Alice hissed.

The wolfpack is going to join the fight. Duh. Alice is grateful for the influx of new man-meat. Her vision of the conflict disappears as soon as Jacob speaks, but she's cool with it this time (“Que sera sera, man.”-Alice Cullen). Jacob and Alice practically start fucking they are so excited, and even Jasper seems (literally) enthusiastic (“I'll watch!”-Jasper Whitlock). Bella is not so pumped. She keeps shouting “No!” and trying to fight back the tide while everyone strategizes around her. Jasper says this vampire-werewolf coalition will (literally) be “a first.” Well, okay, but they have already been cooperating as a part of Bella's security detail, Jasper! That's why this revelation, despite Alice and Jacob's enthusiasm, feels particularly unsurprising.

Can I just say how dumb and out of place I think this whole army plot is? It's like S. Meyer is trying to slip some J.R.R. Tolkien shit on us. An army is marching on Forks? Isn't this series supposed to be about interpersonal (and intermonsternal) dynamics? Why so much military history and strategy as of late, then? It's probably just to postpone the fucking; S. Meyer is running out of ways to keep these characters out of each other's pants. And war is a fairly predictable side-effect of sexual frustration, is it not? That's why the Swedes never fight. So I guess it works, on that level.

But I'm dreading this whole approaching war not because I'm particularly worried about any of the characters (except Alice), but because I'm sure S. Meyer is going to half-ass it, or find some way to not write about it at all. Bella will fall asleep like Bilbo in The Hobbit or some stupid shit like that. Am I the only person who feels like I'm watching someone write a check they can't cash?

While we're complaining, proponents of the "Bella is a passive cipher" school of thought have a lot of ammo here. Alice, Jacob, and Jasper talk business while Bella impotently pleads with Jacob to stay out of it, to save himself. I like the spirit of the gesture, but Bella looks very weak-willed and ineffective (especially compared to the awesome angry psycho we got in the last few chapters). Alice practically tells her to go play and let the adults talk. Also, shouldn't she be strapping a sword on Jacob and buying Alice and Jasper cruise tickets? They make plans to meet that night after the party is over, and Bella again tries to plead with Jacob to stay out of it. Jacob tells her to shut up, basically.

“No!” I shouted again. The sound of an electric guitar drowned my cry.

What in the? Is that supposed to be a serious moment?

BLOGGING ECLIPSE, pt. 22: A Little Night Music

So I am going on vacation for a week. Check back later today for a post explaining what you will all be doing in my absence. No rest for the wicked. Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 16 (cont'd): Epoch

Bella explains to Edward, in the middle of the post-graduation throng, that the army of vampires is coming for her ass, not his ass and his family's asses. His reaction is worse and more conspicuous than Alice's – he basically stands there in shocked, rage-filled silence while Charlie comes over and gives Bella a big congratulatory hug.

Okay, so telling Edward had been a bad idea. Alice was right to keep her thoughts clouded.

And she would have found some fun ways to do it, I bet.

“What's Alice thinking now?” I asked.
“She's writing one of those 'Sex Position A Day' calendars for Esme and Carlisle,” Edward said, grimacing.

Oh well. Charlie asks Bella where she wants to go for dinner - “The sky's the limit,” he says. In Forks? “I mean Applebee's, Chili's, shit, The Olive Garden, whatever you want.” They end up deciding to go to a place called The Lodge, which Bella describes as “the only thing close to a formal restaurant in town.” Yeah, I know plenty of places like that. I've been fired from plenty of places like that. Charlie invites Edward along, and this happens:

“No, thank you,” Edward said stiffly, his face hard and cold.
“Do you have plans with your parents?” Charlie asked, a frown in his voice. Edward was always more polite than Charlie deserved; the sudden hostility surprised him.

He still said thank you, jeez! What do you want? Edward leaves and Bella assures Charlie it isn't his fault.

“Are you two fighting again?”
“Nobody's fighting. Mind your own business.”
“You are my business.”

I have been feeling Charlie trying to earn my favor back ever since he congratulated Jacob for mouth-raping his daughter. That's when I decided to swear him off forever. But dammit, this shit is working. At the restaurant, Bella is frustrated by the too-slowly ticking clock. Charlie is way too busy socializing to eat at a speed Bella finds acceptable. Wait a minute, did Charlie just turn into my father? My dad has taught English in a small town for almost 30 years. He can't get in and out of a grocery story inside of an hour. The last time I was home and we went out to dinner it took him a half hour to sit at the damn table! So I know what Bella's saying. I mean, I wasn't impatient because I'd just discovered an army of vampires was out to kill specifically me, but still. I get it. She sits at the table and stresses out and picks at her food while Charlie chats. C'mon Dad!

Anyway, Bella goes out to the parking lot for a smoke (probably) and Edward slithers out of the woods like, I don't know, something that slithers. They hug and Bella apologizes for telling him too soon. He says he's got a better hold on his horses now. I'm glad that little shock didn't bring Edward 1.0 back – that guy was a prick. He promises to follow Bella and Charlie back to his place, which Bella tells him is unnecessary. I'm pretty sure the guy is going there anyway. Charlie comes out and drives Bella to Chez Cullen to help set up for the party, and on the way they talk. Bella's obviously dreading this whole affair.

“You were never one for the parties.”
“Wonder where I got that from,” I murmured.
Charlie chuckled. “Well, you look really nice. I wish I'd thought to get something. Sorry.”

Charlie starts knocking his parenting abilities, and Bella gets emotional enough to have to clear her throat and say “I'm really glad I came to live with you, Dad. It was the best idea I ever had.” Awkward rhyming aside: AWWWWW. This scene is like a rising tide, lifting both the Bella and Charlie boats. Bella was up higher than Charlie was already, obviously. So it's like, two boats at different levels on the Panama Canal, at the locks and channels. Is this analogy complicated enough yet? Alice is a spaceship flying overhead. And Jacob is that boat that takes you to Hades. Edward is a low-flying bird. Billy Black is a car because of his wheelchair.

“I'm sure I slipped up in a few places,” Charlie says. “I mean, look at you hand!” Oh, so NOW it dawns on him.

“If someone kisses you without your permission, you should be able to make your feelings clear without hurting yourself. You didn't keep your thumb inside your fist, did you?”

Charlie is on a roll, and he tells Bella that Jacob is “young,” and she should forgive him. Shit, maybe you're right Dad. I mean – Charlie. Bella admits that Jacob is her friend, but she “doesn't know what the right thing to do here is.” Charlie offers up some hard-earned, homespun wisdom:

Charlie nodded slowly. “Yeah. The right thing isn't always real obvious. Sometimes the right thing for one person is the wrong thing for someone else. So... good luck with that.”

Well played, Charlie. Why am I hearing him now as Will Ferrell's impersonation of George W. Bush? As they turn into the Cullen driveway, they are greeted with the sight of “thousands of twinkle lights” wrapped around the trees. “Twinkle” lights? Is that the technical term? “[Alice] doesn't do things halfway, does she?” Charlie asks “in awe.” (“You should see me FUCK.”-Alice Cullen)

Chapter 17: Alliance

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just take this chapter to relax and celebrate? This would be the place to do it – all our our narrative threads have collected into a single band, so why not ignore them and do something different for once? I'm imagining a series of set pieces: Jasper interacts with Mike Newton, Rosalie talks to Jessica. It's a golden opportunity for funny or cute or charming moments, “The Masque of The Red Death” but without all the Red Death. But no, we're not going to do that. Bella is too much of a stress case to have any fun. Here and there Alice or Emmett makes us laugh, but if the title of this chapter is any indication, S. Meyer is too busy laying the groundwork for the rest of the book to do any character building. Both Bella and S. Meyer need to take a chill pill. Chances are Alice has a literal one Bella can take.

Edward greets Bella outside of his house and they have a sweet, if redundant, moment in which Edward says he won't let anything hurt her and she says she's not worried about herself and Edward is all like, “That is so Raven.” He leads her inside and she stares with disbelief. “The interior of the Cullens' home had been transformed into a nightclub – the kind that didn't often exist in real life, only on TV,” Bella says. SHOW DON'T TELL. Also, when has Bella seen a nightclub other than on TV? Also, how can something not exist “often” in real life and “only” exist on TV? But whatever, I guess the place looks great.

Edward shrugged. “Alice will be Alice.”

Let's print that on a t-shirt, you guys. Speak of the saving grace, she shouts to Edward from behind a big speaker. Sadly, she is not strapped to a bass guitar.

“I need your advice. She gestured toward a towering stack of CDs. “Should we give them familiar and comforting? Or -” she gestured to a different pile - “educate their taste in music?”
“Keep it comforting,” Edward recommended. “You can only lead a horse to water.”
Alice nodded seriously and started throwing the educational CDs into a box.

So does that mean this party is going to be a bunch of Nickelback and shit? Is Alice putting away her Grateful Dead bootlegs right now? Edward's advice is solid – our wedding playlist ended up being far too weird for my extended family and we resorted to a Motown compilation or something – but at any other time it is undeniably fun to play some weird shit for your friends who only listen to Katy Perry or whatever and watch them stare at you like your head is on backwards. I'm with Edward in sacrificing art for the art of the party, but I'm with him begrudgingly.

Bella notes that Alice has changed into a “sequined tank top and red leather pants.” A sequined tank top and red leather pants. A sequined tank top and red leather pants. Okay, Alice is dressing a little bit like my grandmother, author of How To Be Hot At 60. But still, I feel like she can pull this off; I'm wondering if this outfit made it into the Eclipse movie or if Ashley Greene vetoed it. Wait, who am I kidding? Someone tells AG she's going to wear paint and a Sobe bottle and she says “I'm game.”

Bella says Alice's “pale skin reacted oddly to the pulsing red and purple lights, and in staring at her she immediately feels (...aroused, in love, sexually confused?) “underdressed.” Isn't she in a sweater? That's more like over-dressed for this, no? Go get four strips of leather and some staples, Bella. See what you can get out of that.

“You're perfect,” Edward disagreed.
“You'll do,” Alice amended.

YA BURNT, Bella. It turns out there is little for our narrator to do, Alice has the party locked down. So she goes with Edward to tell Carlisle and Jasper about the deal with the blouse-thief and the vampire army (our new Broken Social Scene-style indie-rock collective's name). Turns out Jasper struck out with the other vampires he appealed to for help. So I guess the Cullens don't have many friends out there. Then the doorbell rings, a bunch of extraneous characters walk in the door, and the Cullens all immediately strike a pose.

Jessica et al. are in awe of Alice's decorations, but Bella very quickly becomes the party's center of attention. “Maybe because the Cullens looked just slightly wrong under Alice's party lights,” Bella muses. When you get down to it, this chapter very subtly suggests the lonely life of a vampire. Everybody's all freaked out by you because you're too sexy, your “friends” won't even come help you fight off an army. Shit. Bella witnesses Emmett grin across a table at Mike Newton “the red lights gleaming off his teeth,” which makes Mike take an “automatic step back.” Funny, but also a little sad. Maybe Emmett and Mike could have been friends! Bella eventually realizes that Alice might have the rest of her family acting and looking a little creepy on purpose to force the spotlight onto her, and notes that the “edginess” caused by the Cullen's presence adds “a thrill to the atmosphere.”

“Everyone here is incredibly horny,” Jasper whispered.
“All part of the plan,” Alice smiled. “Let me know when it peaks.”

Pretty soon the place is full of high school kids bumping and grinding. Bella follows Alice as she works the crowd and mingles. “Alice was almost purring,” Bella says. “No one here would forget this night.”

Pretty soon Jacob is going to show up and we're all going to have to start thinking about the vampire army again and about whether or not imprinting is something we should bring to the attention of ATF, but for now let's just enjoy these few positive, non-plot-related images. There ought to be more – I want to see Emmett do more than smile and we all want to see Alice do more than mingle. (“I gotta get out of these red leather pants sooner or later,”-Alice Cullen) We've earned it at this point. But whatever, S. Meyer is determined to stay the heavily-plotted course. What's weird is Eclipse is actually just as languidly paced as Twilight – it's taken forever for these plot threads to collect – but Twilight wasn't building to very much. Eclipse is always relentlessly building, but at a maddeningly slow speed. Twilight was a long walk in a park, Eclipse is The Big Dig. You get the sense that all of this construction still isn't necessarily going to amount to much of anything. If we can't hang out and enjoy the party, can we at least get to the vampire army and be done with it soon? No?

BLOGGING ECLIPSE, pt. 21: On And Ever Onward

Now that I've finished calling S. Meyer morally bankrupt and evil, let me say that the next chapter is fucking great. It is by turns funny, tense, and heartwarming in ways that feel relatively organic. Alice still carries half of the weight, but other characters step up too. It's great stuff. Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 16: Epoch

We skip ahead to the morning of graduation. S. Meyer rather perfectly captures (!) the way these sort of landmarks sneak up on you: graduation has been lingering in the background of this story for a while, and now it has not-at-all-gradually arrived. I didn't realize she was doing it until now, but S. Meyer really got it right, and the long and maddening chapter with Jacob ends up being worthwhile at least in terms of being a distraction-device. Because in life, graduation is this far away thing you're always thinking about, and by thinking about it you manage to keep it at a distance. As soon as you let your guard down and forget about it, it's there. It happened to me twice, and it happens to Bella and by extension the reader – on a semi-meta-textual level – here. I promise to never use the term “semi-meta-textual” again (I'll also never start another sentence with “Because in life...”) but did it feel like that to anyone else?

I guess I didn't really expect Bella's graduation to come until the end of this series, or at the very least the end of this book. To wait would be cliché, but it's one of those clichés we expect and permit. How many seasons of Friends end with a wedding? I know it's not all ten seasons, but it feels like it. Ending on a milestone, any milestone, is a cliché, but it isn't one we've gotten over – it's a major American storytelling trope to this day. I just started watching the sixth season of The Office, and Jim & Pam's wedding happens in the fourth episode. It struck me as progressive and daring, but of course the previous season ends with Pam getting pregnant. So maybe it's a wash. The point is, I'm giving S. Meyer even more credit here: Bella is graduating from high school, and we've still got a book and a half to go! Where are we going from here?

So it's the morning of graduation, and Bella has nothing to wear. Above lamentations of cliché aside, isn't it fun to see Bella having normal teenage problems? Nothing to wear! Bella being someone who abhors teenage life, her very presence ends up making a situation like this seem mildly subversive – I hope there is a chapter in Breaking Dawn where she gets stuck in an elevator or something. Am I confusing Bella with Daria now? I guess if Edward had his wits about him he would have told Bella that getting married right out of high school is, in this day and age, a kind of bold and original gesture. I doubt she'd have bought that though. So Bella's got clothes spread all over her room, looking for a perfect top to go with her khaki skirt (Well there's your problem, Bella). She thinks about the red blouse that was stolen and realizes it would be perfect.

“Stupid, thieving, annoying vampire!” I growled.
“What did I do?” Alice demanded.

Alice is chilling in Bella's window, the best as always. This is one of her better entrances.

“Knock, knock,” she added with a grin.

And then Bella throws Alice on the bed and kisses her. No, truth be told the steam is kind of running out of the Team Alice movement. Alice is too good for Bella. And her thing for racist murderers is kind of an intriguing new angle. I bet Alice writes a lot of letters to Federal prisoners. Anyway, Alice says she's just “passing through” and throws a box on Bella's bed. She brought her an outfit! True love.

“Admit it,” Alice said. “I'm a lifesaver.”

I admit it. Also a booksaver. Alice says it feels nice to “see” something correctly. “I've been fucking up left and right lately,” she says. Alice's inability to see key aspects of the future are making her feel “normal,” she says. “She cringed in horror of the word,” Bella tells us. That ugly phrase aside, it's nice to see a (too brief) glimpse of the pro-vampire argument. Edward and Rosalie are so envious of humans, but Alice is horrified by the idea of being one. Why isn't Alice a bigger part of the debate over Bella's mortality? I guess Bella's case is strong enough without her. Anyway, Alice mentions the thief and the army in Seattle, and Bella has a rush of intuition. There's a funny moment (which is maybe supposed to be tense) where Bella is trying to tell Alice that the blouse-thief and the vampire army are related (what a ridiculous collection of words that is) but Alice can't get past talking about the clothes.

“It's the same,” I whispered.
“What is?” she demanded. “You don't have anything like this. For crying out loud, you only have one skirt!”
“No, Alice! Forget the clothes, listen!”
“You don't like it?” Alice's face clouded with disappointment.

Bella says the thief was probably a member of the army, trying to test his or her ability to get around Alice's vision. And the need for Bella's scent suddenly has very ominous implications.

Alice wasn't accustomed to being taken by surprise.

That or she figured she had to get really high to get through graduation – Bella says Alice stands perfectly still for “two minutes straight.” Two whole minutes?

“You're right,” she said in a hollow tone.

Buzzkill, dude. Bella feels a perverse sense of relief when she realizes she's the target of these vague machinations, not the Cullens. Charlie knocks on Bella's door and asks if she's ready to go, and Alice realizes that Edward is on his way and bails; she wants to keep the news from him until after graduation so he doesn't freak out. Probably a good idea. Bella puts on Alice's outfit, which sadly doesn't include leather or chains or lace, and grabs her yellow graduation robes. Yellow? And I thought I had it bad.

Edward shows up and rides with Charlie and Bella – in the police cruiser. There's a funny visual gag as Bella looks back and forth from Charlie to Edward, who both seem to be deriving dark amusement from Edward's seat in the back of the squad car.

At the school, Charlie has a sweet moment with Bella. He tells her she's not his little girl anymore, choking up at the end. Awwww. You are still not forgiven, Charlie. As Bella lines up for graduation, she has a rambling conversation, or rather witnesses a monologue, from Jessica. It's nothing special – it had no other effect on me other than the thought “Oh, good, Anna Kendrick will have a scene in the Eclipse movie.” You can almost feel S. Meyer crossing extraneous characters off a list. Edward goes off to stand in alphabetical order, and Bella feels terrible when she sees that Alice isn't there. “What poor timing on my part,” she says. Like Alice gives a fuck about graduation?

Bella herself writes off her classmates as she witnesses the graduation ceremony – I can't say I disapprove of her wandering, withering eye here; graduation ceremonies are kind of stupid. She notes the “trite nonsense” issuing forth from the mouth of the valedictorian and later describes the daze-inducing process of stumbling across the platform to receive her degree. I paid so little attention at my high school graduation I can't even remember if the person voted “most likely to trip at graduation” actually tripped or not. (I was voted “most unique,” for the record. Not that there are degrees of unique – one either is or isn't. When I brought this issue up to my friend Ryan, who worked on the yearbook, he told me it didn't matter. He also rejected several of my proposed yearbook photos.) All in all, I'm happy S. Meyer doesn't try to make graduation sound particularly momentous or moving. High school sucks – the best part is darkly enjoying how much it sucks. Which is what is happening here. I kind of feel like S. Meyer and I could be friends.

Alice does abruptly show up to get her degree, and you guessed it: Bella says she “danced across the stage” to take hers. What do you think Alice is wearing under her yellow gown? Or is the “going to graduation naked” thing too passe? Alice has a look of “deep concentration” on her face as she crosses the stage, and this is while dancing – I'm getting a kind of “Michael Jackson in 'Billie Jean'” vibe. Edward follows her, looking confused. He should be – how is did this guy pass? Social promotion probably, right? Bella's name is eventually called and she hears “hooting” she realizes is not only Charlie but Jacob. Those guys are working overtime to earn my favor back. Bella says she can “just make out the top of Billy's head beside Jake's elbow.” How many handicapped jokes is Bella going to do before someone stops her? I feel like if there was an armless character in this book Bella would make constant references to “giving him a hand.”

And that was it.

Bella stands amongst her fellow graduates and fails to hear the cue to throw her mortarboard up in the air. She just tosses it on the ground instead. You're kind of awesome sometimes, Bella. She looks around for Alice and can't find her anywhere (“I promised Mike Newton that if he didn't lose his virginity by graduation I'd, well, you know...”-Alice Cullen). Edward comes over and gives her a hug, says she seems nervous. She blurts out a question about Alice – I knew there was no way she'd manage to keep it in for very long (you're welcome). She asks him if he's worrying about her, and then asks what she was doing to keep him out of her thoughts.

His eyes flashed down to my face, and narrowed in suspicion. “She was translating the Battle Hymn of the Republic into Arabic, actually.”

Well, الحمد الله! Alice speaks Arabic? Also: The Battle Hymn of the Republic? As in, the Abolitionist song? YA BURNT Jasper.

BLOGGING ECLIPSE pt. 20: Shape-Shifting Toward Bethlehem

When we last left our villains, Jacob had confessed to Bella that he loved her and wanted to be with her. Tell us something we don't know, Jacob. Actually, don't bother, and just kill yourself instead. Okay? Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 15: Wager

Bella stands there dumbfounded. Jacob grins like an idiot. Fuck this guy. Seriously. Bella turns to leave, but Jacob grabs her shoulders and spins her around. Strike one. Jacob asks if she wants him “to go away and never see [her] again.” Obviously she says no, she doesn't want that.

Jacob grinned again. “See.”

No, I don't see. (“You don't want me to go away forever or die, therefore you must want to be with me romantically.”-Jacob Black) Bella tries to explain that she wants him around for different reasons than he wants her around. Seems like a pretty easy concept to explain, right? Jacob doesn't get it. (“There are two kinds of people in this world: people who have no interest in me, and people who want to fuck me.”-Jacob Black) Not that Bella really helps him out with her clarification.

“You're family. I love you, but I'm not in love with you.”

Nothing says unambiguous rejection like a bland and meaningless phrase from romantic comedies! Jacob runs his fingers across Bella's check. Strike two. Bella tells him to back off. He says no.

“You decide, Bella. You can have me the way I am – bad behavior included – or not at all.”

NOT AT ALL. NOT AT ALL! I'll be your friend, as long as I can molest you whenever I want! Sure, good deal! Jacob says he recently decided that he's “not giving up.” He recently decided that? What was he doing before? If that was giving up, what does trying look like? Do I want to know?

“There really is something irresistible about a lost cause.”

You know who feels the same way? Rapists! Serial killers! Fucking Klan members! Bella says Edward is her “whole life” and Jacob draws an analogy that makes him sound like an unplanned pregnancy.

“Not anymore. Maybe he was [your whole life] once, but he left. And now he's just going to have to deal with the consequence of that choice – me.”

In some ways I guess Jacob has a point – Bella should have metaphorically aborted him when she had the chance. But it's bothersome that Jacob says Edward is the one who has to deal with him, like Bella's feelings don't register. Jacob's behavior throughout this chapter exhibits that attitude – I've argued before that Bella Swan is not a passive cipher like some critics contest, but Jacob sees her that way. That said, you know, there's bigger shit going on; all of this like a getting a mosquito bite while someone is stabbing you.

Jacob takes Bella's chin in his hands (I was going to call strike three but this is like a foul tip, prolonging the inevitable) and swears a weird oath:

“Until your heart stops beating, Bella,” he said. “I'll be here – fighting.”

Bella says her “heartbeats are numbered” - like the irony was lost on Jacob before. Was the irony lost on Jacob before? I guess it probably was. Anyway, suddenly “resolution” forms in Jacob's eyes. Fuck.

“N –” I started to object, but it was too late.
His lips crushed into mine, stopping my protest. He kissed me angrily, roughly, his other hand gripping tight around the back of my neck, making escape impossible.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! STRIKE FUCKING THREE MOTHERFUCKER! This is an unquestionably horrifying moment, but S. Meyer inexplicably seems to be trying to make it sexy:

His mouth was soft, despite the anger, his lips molding to mine in a warm, unfamiliar way.

Talk about your silver-linings on mushroom-clouds. Speaking of which, will someone drop a nuclear bomb on La Push?

I grabbed at his face, trying to push it away, failing again...His lips forced mine open, and I could feel his hot breath in my mouth.

You are a fucking dead man, Jacob. Remember that scene in Pulp Fiction when Bruce Willis and Ving Rhames escape from Zed's basement and Ving Rhames says he's going to have one of his guys go to work on Zed with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch? I'm not a generally violent person, but Quentin Tarantino really knows how to access the revenge fantasy section of my lizard brain. And I really want him to do something about Jacob right now.

Bella's on it, though; she breaks away and punches Jacob in the face. YES. Unfortunately, she ends up breaking her hand against his jaw. Why can't you give us even a moment of catharsis, S. Meyer? Bella refuses his offer of help and starts walking away, moaning in pain. “As soon as I got away from him, Alice would see me. She'd send somebody to pick me up,” she says. And then Alice will double back and tear Jacob's head from his neck like she does James in the Twilight movie! Bella herself tells Jacob she hopes Edward “snaps his neck” as he follows her.

“I hate you, Jacob Black.”
“That's good. Hate is a passionate emotion.”
“I'll give you passionate,” I muttered under my breath. “Murder, the ultimate crime of passion.”

I love that rapier wit! (Insert joke about Jacob being a rape-ier twit.) Jacob says it must have been better than “kissing a rock.” “Not even remotely close,” she says.

“You're just mad. I don't have any experience with this kind of thing, but I thought it was pretty incredible myself.”

A rapist is born. Could this get any more gross? Yes, it can get more gross. Jacob makes another plea to be her man. “I never left,” he says.

“Just think about it, Bella.”
“No,” I said stubbornly.
“You will. Tonight. And I'll be thinking about you while you're thinking about me.”

There is not a violent death violent enough for Jacob to die. There's a great episode of Sports Night where Natalie, a female TV producer, gets flashed in a locker room by a football star. Jeremy Goodwin (played by the great Joshua Malina) confronts the guy after, and the prick says something about the look on her face “when she got a load of me.” This happens:

Patrick: I'm six-four, 230 pounds. Bench press three bills, run a four-forty. What, you want to dance with me, junior?
Jeremy: You touch her again, I'm gonna have you killed. You understand what I'm saying? I'm going to pay someone fifty dollars to have you killed.

Jeremy Goodwin is my hero. Sports Night is great show by the way, has everyone seen it? You really need to see it.

ANYWAY, there is really no limit to Jacob's self-delusion. What's amazing is not how easily he deludes himself but the lightning speed with which he erects new justifications every time Bella tells him to fuck off and die. He now says he thinks Bella is being “overly defensive.” He would say something about the lady protesting too much if he wasn't a functionally illiterate brute.

At some point Bella gets in Jacob's car and accepts a ride home – I don't understand why she would do such a thing unless she was planning to grab the steering wheel and jerk them both into traffic like Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky. It's maddening to realize this won't actually be the final nail in the coffin of Bella and Jacob's twisted relationship. S. Meyer still has a book and a half of nails to hammer into our eyes.

Jacob follows Bella into her house – Charlie is there as Bella storms past. He asks what happened, and Jacob says she broke her hand hitting him.

“Why did she hit you?”
“Because I kissed her,” Jacob said, unashamed.
“Good for you, kid,” Charlie congratulated him.

Well. I suppose my goodwill for Charlie had to run out some time. Nothing gold can stay. Kill your idols.

I've never been happier to read about Edward, by the way. Bella calls him – he's already in the car by the time he picks up the phone. He's in a cheery mood, Edward 2.0 and all. But he doesn't know what happened.

“I punched Jacob,” I admitted.
“Good,” Edward said bleakly.

I've never been happier to see Edward say something bleakly! This is like when the cavalry comes in Birth Of A Nation and you try to ignore the Klan robes they're wearing. Edward makes an oblique threat of violence toward Jacob and Bella is like yeah, kill that motherfucker (I'm paraphrasing) and that finally clues Edward into the fact that shit has gotten real. She tells him Jacob kissed her and hears him audibly accelerate. Charlie suggests Jacob bail.

“I think I'll hang out here, if you don't mind.”
“Your funeral,” Charlie mumbled.

I wish! Also: nice try Charlie, but you still suck. It's going to take a lot of endearing shit to make up for that enthusiastic reaction to the news that your daughter got molested. I guess we should be glad he didn't react like Titus Andronicus, but still!

Edward says he's around the corner “darkly,” just paragraphs after saying something “bleakly” but whatever, there is no time to nitpick that stuff. There's killing that needs to be done! Edward racks up thousands of points in this chapter: as soon as he gets to the door he examines Bella's hand. Very smooth, no?

“I think you're right about the break,” he said. “I'm proud of you. You must have put some force behind this.”

Edward kisses her hand and then turns and reduces Jacob to a pile of liquified organs and bone fragments in seconds. Kidding, he's going to be classy about this too. Dammit. Jacob and Edward have a brief standoff in the hallway – Charlie tries to discourage violence while Bella openly calls for it. I like this, Bella! She and Edward leave, but Jacob follows them out of the house. “I'm not going to kill you now, because it would upset Bella,” Edward says. Bella protests that assumption. YES. He threatens Jacob some more and it is awesome; if Jacob kisses Bella again Edward will break his jaw. Jacob suggests that Bella might want him to kiss her because of course he would think that. Edward says in that case he wouldn't mind.

“You might want to wait for her to say it, rather than trust you interpretation of body language – but it's your face.”

YESSSS. Then it degenerates into “I'm going to fight hard for her,” and “I'm going to fight HARDER” and “I'm going to be so hard” and “I'm going to be so much HARDER” one-upmanship. Whatever, Edward is still a badass. He and Bella drive back to the Cullen garage, where they have a truly funny exchange with Rosalie and Emmett (!?). Rosalie is under Emmett's Jeep, apparently fixing it, but lest you think that emasculates Emmett at all he's holding up the car for her with one hand. Bella gets a line for the ages when Emmett notices her hand and asks if she fell again.

I glared at him fiercely. “No Emmett. I punched a werewolf in the face.”
Emmett blinked, the burst into a roar of laughter.

It's frustrating that scenes like this come grouped with the maddening and misguided and morally malformed shit like Jacob's Rape Kiss. Does it make sense to say that the Rape Kiss itself is not the real problem? The Rape Kiss itself is not the real problem. Were it that Jacob was turning into the villain of this book, the whole thing would be fine. I mean, it wouldn't be fine, it would be horrible, but it would horrible solely within the fictional universe of this book, and not, you know, the world. I could focus my rage entirely on the fictional character of Jacob, as such would have been S. Meyer's intention. But that is not what is happening, and that is not S. Meyer's intention. We are still supposed to empathize with Jacob, for reasons passing understanding. He is a deluded molester, but Bella will continue to agonize over her feelings for him. He will probably do something heroic in the end, and we will be meant to forgive him for his trespasses, and maybe we really will. He is not the villain. Stephenie Meyer is.

BLOGGING ECLIPSE, pt.19: Hey, We All Gotta Keep Warm

Previous entries can be found in the directory.

Chapter 14 (cont'd): Declaration

At home, Edward tells Bella that he's leaving tomorrow afternoon on another hunting trip with Rosalie, Carlisle, and Esme. That leaves Bella with Alice, Jasper, and Emmett. Why do I feel like Alice could come up with something better to do with those guys than just hang out with Bella?

“Bella, we're going to go into the other room for a while – you can watch a movie or something, okay?” Alice smiled weakly, then gave me a stern look. “Just don't open that door, no matter what it sounds like is happening to me.”
As she walked away I heard her whisper to Jasper: “The safe word is 'Bella.'”

(I've been working on a theory that Alice and Jasper are cooler because they were not created by Carlisle, that somehow his moral preacher-blood is the source of all our problems. If that is the case, getting vamped by Edward would be even worse, like how toxins get more effective as they travel up the food chain.)

Bella decides she'd rather spend that time on the Reservation with Jacob though, because she is a fucking moron.

“Spend a few hours with the three coolest characters in this book

or the

temperamental rapist? Hmm, tough call.”

Edward agrees rather easily, but Bella still feels guilty about it. Get with the times, Bella! Edward 2.0 understands how you feel. Edward 2.0 calls your mom on her birthday. Edward 2.0 is your new bicycle. Bella wants to know why Edward is hunting again so soon – his eyes are “still a deep gold.” Turns out they're hunting big game, because it makes them stronger. Well, that's just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If you drink a bear's blood, you'll be strong like a bear! Is this a video game all of the sudden? Human blood makes you the strongest, obviously (not obviously – it should be WHALE BLOOD or something ridiculous. DINOSAUR BLOOD!), and Jasper is apparently thinking about “cheating” so he'll be at 100%. He's afraid to bring it up to Carlisle, though. No word on what Alice thinks (“Oh, it would be so hot. Please do it, baby. Can I watch?”-Alice Cullen). Newborns themselves are strong because they are feeding off of their own human blood. Oh, okay, that makes so much sense.

Bella thinks about the advantage posed by eating a human and briefly considers coming out in favor of it. Then her conscience finally catches up with her, having been left somewhere in the dust a few hundred pages ago (maybe she lost it at the airport when she ditched Alice in Book One?) and she feels terrible for being “willing to have a stranger die to protect him.” On the list of things Bella SHOULD feel guilty about, this one is actually way below a bunch of other stuff – we all care about our loved ones more than strangers, however moral or immoral that may be. But whatever, I'll take guilt wherever I can get it. Me and the dozens of victims you abandoned in Volterra are going to be revelling in your sleepless night tonight, Bella! Sweet non-dreams!

Bella's been putting off studying for finals, so she and Edward have a cram session. Why does it matter if Bella does well in school, at this point? Also, if she gets vamped just after graduation, does that mean she never has to go back to school? Can she permanently play like, Edward's aunt? I mean, I know that's weird, but if it got her out of repeating high school for infinity it would be worth it, no?

Bella takes a break and calls Jacob; Edward sits there and patiently plays with her hair. What he should be doing is going down on her right now! I don't want to tell him how to do his job, but that seems pretty obvious. Can we have a frank discussion about the fact that Edward hasn't even fingerbanged Bella yet? What is up with that? She's a goddamn senior in high school! Girl needs to get fingerbanged. Whatever happened to Mike Newton?

Next day, Edward drives Bella to the DMZ after she's finished finals. Jacob is sitting in his car and honking like an asshole, and Edward is bothered by whatever he's thinking. Oh great. Bella heads to Jacob's car and looks back at Edward, trying to shake the idea that he is really upset. It must be something really bad if it's got Edward 2.0 down. Bella wishes Edward would come over and shake Jacob's hand, that everyone would just get along. In case you didn't understand the metaphorical significance of that maddeningly transparent moment when Bella tried to force the magnets together, she brings it up again.

It was as if I had those two stubborn magnets in my hands again, and I was holding them together, trying to force nature to reverse herself.

You're right that is exactly what it is like! S. Meyer is really getting her money's worth out of that metaphor. Bella's relationship with Jacob and Edward is like her relationship with the magnets is like her relationship with Edward and Jacob – it goes both ways! (“Did someone ask for me?”-Alice Cullen) Also: don't anthropomorphize nature, Bella. Also: I wish I had a magnet that could suck all of the extra commas out of this book.

Jacob is exhausted and miserable looking, his hair is all overgrown and sticking out all over the place. He looks like me, basically. Not a good look, Jacob. He's tired because Sam Uley has them running double shifts (wolves have shifts?) because he's all suspicious about whoever broke into Bella's house (that is my best guess as to what he is suspicious about – it is very vaguely worded, and I mean more than normal). They go to Jacob's house and sit down on the couch – Bella thinks it's weird that Billy isn't around. “I thought of Billy as a nearly permanent fixture there,” she says. Because he's handicapped, Bella!? Jesus you can be insensitive. Turns out Billy's been spending a lot of time with Harry Clearwater's widow. Good for Billy, at least someone other than Alice is getting laid around here.

Jacob is still bitchy about Bella's coming transformation, but suddenly Bella doesn't seem to think it's going to happen very soon. She's about to indicate as much to Jacob, but he falls asleep and starts snoring. Instead Bella goes spelunking in her subconscious mind again. Oh, great. Vampire transformation has become a metaphor for Bella's virginity, by the way:

Edward was right – I wasn't ready yet.
And I didn't want to be practical. I wanted Edward to be the one.

Uh-huh. And then:

It was hard to define, even to myself, why it mattered.

She wants Edward to pop her mortal cherry, so to speak. When you put it another way, it's a kind of nifty and gothic conceit: she wants her love to be the one to kill her. But S. Meyer is not interested in taking it that way, really.

Even more embarrassing, something I would never say aloud, I wanted his venom to poison my system.

Bella, I've got a much easier way to get some of Edward's “venom” into your system. It doesn't involve any biting, just swallowing. (“Some people like biting!”-Alice Cullen) Also: talk about a healthy attitude toward (metaphorical) sex! POISONING HER SYSTEM! She knows Edward is going to insist on marriage if he's going to be “the one” to “poison” her, of course. We've got to bring this metaphor full circle. S. Meyer's metaphors are nothing if not aggressively circular. (What's so weird about this virginity metaphor is that Bella also wants to lose her LITERAL virginity to Edward. “I want you to have both my literal and figurative virginity.” That's love right there.) Bella thinks about how awful it would be to have to tell her mother and friends she was getting married. (Why even tell them? Vegas, dumbass!) Bella drifts into her Anne of Green Gables fantasy again, she and Edward on a porch swing. Wait a minute, how many dream levels are we at so far? If porch swing Bella kills herself she'll get stuck in limbo, right? Where's the kick?

Oh, here it is: Jacob rolls over and almost crushes Bella on the couch. HOT, and also symbolic! Bella wakes Jacob up in her struggle to break free, and Jacob's all pissed that he fell asleep. Bella tells him to get some rest – she'll just head home. He insists instead that they take a walk. On the way out, Bella notes that it's cold and a storm seems to be approaching. ALSO SYMBOLIC. Shit, what's going to happen? This is serious.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Jacob says. Bella can't tell if he's blushing or not “with his dark skin” and all. Oy gevalt.

“I'm in love with you Bella,” Jacob said in a strong, sure voice. “Bella, I love you. And I want you to pick me instead of him.”

Right. Wait, that was the big announcement?