The Twilight Recaps

Twilight

Preface-Chapter 1
Chapter 2-4
Chapter 5-6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8-9
Chapter 10-11
Chapter 12-13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16-18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20-22
Chapter 23-Epilogue

New Moon

Epigraph-Chapter 1
Chapter 2-3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6-8
Chapter 9-12
Chapter 13-16
Chapter 17-18
Chapter 19-21
Chapter 22-Epilogue

 

Eclipse

Preface-Chapter 1
Chapter 2-3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5-6
Chapter 7-8
Chapter 9-13
Chapter 14-17
Chapter 18-22
Chapter 23-Epilogue

 

Breaking Dawn

Preface-Chapter 1
Chapter 2-4
Chapter 5-6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9-10
Chapter 11-12
Chapter 13-15
Chapter 16-18
Chapter 19-21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23-24
Chapter 25-26
Chapter 27-29
Chapter 30-33
Chapter 34-35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37-39

 

Other

Thoughts on Midnight Sun
The Twilight Movie
Final thoughts on the Twilight Series

Final thoughts on the Twilight series

“But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.”

The Tempest, Act V, Scene i

————————————-

When I started recapping Twilight six months ago, I did it because it was both popular and because it’s something I would never read under normal circumstances. A vampire romance novel? I spent my brief career in a bookstore laughing with my coworkers at the trash bags full of thin paperbacks with pale, brooding, toothy, and shirtless men on the covers. I regard ordinary, plain vanilla romances with mild bemusement, and when I think of the more exotic variants at all, I feel hardly anything besides derision. When I started Twilight, I thought my read-through would make a good spectacle because of this; I did it, as they say nowadays, for the lulz.

As I look back on the books, I realize I came to the series with the unconscious expectation that I would dislike the books because of who I am, not because of what they were. To my surprise and dismay, Twilight gave me plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike it. The writing is amateurish, and Stephenie Meyer makes just about every mistake a new writer can make. I wouldn’t complain if this were a new author’s first draft, not least because it would be hypocritical to do so; when I wrote fiction, my first drafts looked just as bad. But it’s impossible to write well without hard work, and a lot of the hardest work happens in revision. Revision might have trimmed the cliches, fleshed out the characters with interests and believable motivations, added a real plot. We can dream.

To my mind, though, the series’ biggest failure is that it doesn’t even work as a romance. Nowhere in these pages can anything resembling realistic affection be found; the closest thing is a sort of perpetual burning–a view of romance better suited to middle school than rational adults. There is nothing unique to the love between Bella and Edward, no affinity of interests or affections that brings them together. It’s hard to imagine, for example, Bella looking back on a few decades of immortal life and saying, yes, the money and immortality was nice, but what really struck her about Edward was how nice he is, or the way he makes her laugh, or how he brought her out of herself and showed her that there was something nice about Forks after all. The same goes for Edward; for all the story gives us, he could just as well have fallen in love with the next girl with an appetizing smell and a mind that can’t be read. We’re told time and again that they are wise beyond their years and genuinely in love, not just infatuated, but the romance we actually see is more suited to middle school student’s fantasy of what grown-up love is like than the actual thing. Isn’t this strange? Granted, the idealization of romance is inherent to the romance genre, but who idealizes this kind of romance? This would be odd even if Edward weren’t a weird loser who stalks high school girls, but that’s just the icing on a very creepy cake.

Of course, this doesn’t even touch on the other baffling romantic element in the series. Do I even need to say it? Is there anyone who isn’t squicked out by imprinting? Is there an explanation for the series’ sunny indifference to the power disparity between child and adult that even remotely reflects well on Meyer? In the real world, this kind of behavior earns you a visit from the FBI party van and a very awkward visit to the neighbors, and Stephenie Meyer’s vague insistence otherwise only makes it harder to like her characters, not less. It made my dislike of the books easier, but in any welcome way. I had expected to give a silly series a hard time, not experience genuine loathing for creepy books. It was the literary equivalent of biting into cotton candy only to find at the center a dead rat.

This was an interesting project, and yes, it did provide the lulz, both for me and, I’m glad to say, seemingly for others as well. I don’t think I’ll do something like this again, though; six months is a long time to spend reading and analyzing books I don’t like. So this post ends the Twilight recaps, and I thank all who have read along with me for their patience and for their many kind words.

Breaking Dawn, Ch. 37-39

Chapter 37. Contrivances

Wow, not even hiding it or anything. Maybe Chapter 38 will be called Anticlimax or Unconvincing Characterization?

Anyway, the last chapter ended with Aro reading Renesmee’s mind and verifying her unusual birth. Meyer doesn’t notice it, but this nicely blows Bella’s plan to have Renesmee run off with Jacob if things go poorly. Considering how much trouble Bella went to to conceal this from Edward, you’d think she’d have thought of that. Oh well. One last plot hole for old times’ sake.

As noted before, Aro says the story checks out. Caius, another Volturo, rants that it has to be a lie, but Aro basically says, dude, I read her mind, she’s got a heartbeat and everything. Caius fumes silently for a minute, then he announces that the Cullens are in trouble because they’re friends with werewolves. Aro looks embarrassed, but Caius continues:

“The Children of the Moon have been our bitter enemies from the dawn of time. We have hunted
them to near extinction in Europe and Asia. Yet Carlisle encourages a familiar relationship
with this enormous infestation—no doubt in an attempt to overthrow us. The better to protect
his warped lifestyle.”

Uh, what? This is the first we’ve heard about this. The Cullens didn’t seem to mind being close to the werewolves, and the Volturi had to have known about this since last year, when Jane came to finish off the newborns. (1) And hey, shouldn’t the book be wrapping up by now? Why are we introducing huge new conflicts right at the end?

Edward cleared his throat loudly and Caius glared at him. Aro placed one thin, delicate
hand over his own face as if he was embarrassed for the other ancient.

Sweet! An actual facepalm at all this idiocy! Aro rocks!

Edward points out that a) there’s no full moon, and b) it’s the middle of the day, so Jacob and his crew can’t be werewolves. I’m not sure why this argument holds water, since the vampires aren’t strictly traditional, either, but Aro agrees and says they’re just shapeshifters who turn into wolves. Uh, what? I’m pretty sure if it transforms into a werewolf, kills vampires like a werewolf, and abducts kids like a werewolf, it’s a werewolf. As you can see, I’m pretty lost by now.

Unhappy at being shot down twice in a row, Caius calls Irina forward and has a couple of his men execute her. Awesome! The Cullens aren’t happy about this–Irina was technically family to them–but they don’t do anything about it. Bella says the Volturi are trying to provoke the Cullens into making the first move, but long story short, it doesn’t happen. If you’re thinking this sounds more like a middle school dance than vampire showdown, well, you’re overqualified to work as an editor for Meyer’s publisher.

Aro talks to a few of the neutral vampires, and all of a sudden he’s trying to find someone to say that Renesmee is new and unknown and therefore dangerous. Okay, what the hell? How does that even make sense? It’s one or the other, Stephenie Meyer: either Aro is determined to start something, or he’s determined to make peace. Yes, this is fiction, but motivations still have to make sense.

Things aren’t looking good, so Bella prepares to send Renesmee off with Jacob. The chapter finally ends.

Chapter 38. Power

Edward informs Bella that one of the Volturi are trying to mess with their minds, but Bella’s abilities are preventing it. Boy, this is exciting: instead of showing a battle, we have a character telling another character that a battle is sort of happening. This is not drama; it’s not even plot. Hell, it barely qualifies as narration. All of this could have been cut and nothing would have been lost.

Anyway, a few more psychic attacks hit, but Bella’s mind shield is (you guessed it) way more powerful than them. Hey, Stephenie Meyer? I hope you’re having fun with this power fantasy, because none of us are.

Everyone starts picking targets, but Edward interrupts to say he hears the siren song of the deus ex machina. Sure enough, Alice appears with some Amazonian vampires–it’s not as interesting as it sounds, believe me–and Nahuel, a half-vampire like Renesmee. One of the new vampires starts explaining his backstory out of nowhere, and like everybody who isn’t American in the Twilight-verse she speaks in stilted “ethnic” English. Caius, still nonplussed, basically says whatever, let’s kill him and Renesmee, but Aro says there’s no problem and they might as well go home. Uh, what? I thought they came there to kill most of the Cullens and recruit the survivors? I. Don’t. Understand.

At this point, the Volturi leave and everyone starts celebrating. I wish I were kidding.

Chapter 39. The Happily Ever After

“So it was a combination of things there at the end, but what it really
boiled down to was… Bella,” Edward was explaining.

Of course it was.

If you’re wondering who Edward is talking to, you’re in good company, or at least my company. After he says this Bella begins to describe who all of the vampires said their goodbyes and went away, albeit probably not without a few more victims who don’t get their Happily Ever After.

Out of nowhere, Edward continues:

“Alice gave Aro the excuse he needed to get out of the fight. If he hadn’t been so
terrified of Bella, he probably would have gone ahead with their original plan.”

Of course he was.

Alice chimes in to explain why she had to leave so suddenly. It makes zero sense to me, so I’ll just quote her and wish you better luck than I had:

"I had to make sure you’d all believe that I was ditching out on you, because Aro
had to be positive that you had nothing left up your sleeves or he never would have
committed to an out the way he did." [Alice said]

Bella immediately accepts this. Aspiring authors, this is a great lesson in why it’s a bad idea to pattern characters directly off yourself: they aren’t you, they can never be you, they can’t know what you know, and it’s hard to keep straight what they aren’t supposed to know. I’m sure this makes sense to Stephenie Meyer, but her readers could use some elaboration.

Edward keeps talking about how awesome Bella is:

Edward went back to analyzing every shift of intention and control that had happened in
the meadow today, declaring that it was my shield that had made the Volturi run away
with their tails between their legs. The way everyone looked at me made me
uncomfortable. Even Edward. It was like I had grown a hundred feet during the course
of the morning. I tried to ignore the impressed looks...

What’s that thumping noise? Oh, it’s Edward beating a dead horse!

Bella pauses from basking in her own ego to worry that the other half-vampire will be interested in Renesmee some day. You know, Bella, I agree that that’s worrisome, but what, no concerns about the bloodthirsty man-beast who wrecked your wedding and already claimed your daughter? No worries there? Not even little ones?

Edward pipes up, eager to be useless again:

“I have to say, I’m thoroughly impressed with Jacob right now,” Edward told me. 

“The wolves make quite an impact, don’t they?” [Bella said]

“That’s not what I mean. Not once today did he think about the fact that, according to
Nahuel, Nessie will be fully matured in just six and a half years.”

Jeez, the standard for being a decent guy in the Twilight universe have never been lower. “You know, I’m really proud of Jacob; not once did he have naughty thoughts about my three-year-old daughter today.”

Bella sees Edward’s cluelessness and raises with some denial:

I considered that for a minute. “He doesn’t see her that way. He’s not in a hurry for her
to grow up. He just wants her to be happy.”

Well, that and legal.

“I know. Like I said, impressive. It goes against the grain to say so, but she could do worse.”

Yeah, she might have ended up with Sam.

The novel–and the series–ends with Bella learning to turn off her shield and let Edward read her mind. Not mentioned: Edward immediately losing all interest in her.

————-

Ugh.

I normally end each book with a mini-review, but I think I’ll save it this time for a post with my thoughts on the series as whole. This entry is long enough.

————-

(1) Back in Chapter 25 of Eclipse, attentive readers! –ed

Breaking Dawn, Ch. 36

Chapter 36. Bloodlust

Bella gives the passports to Renesmee and instructs her to flee with Jacob if things go poorly. (Technically this happened last chapter, but it’s going to become important in a minute, so I didn’t want to leave it out.)

They came in a rigid, formal formation. They moved together, but it was not a march;
they flowed in perfect synchronicity from the trees—a dark, unbroken shape that
seemed to hover a few inches above the white snow, so smooth was the advance...At
some sign I did not see—or perhaps there was no sign, only millennia of practice— the
configuration folded outward.The motion was too stiff, too square to resemble the
opening of a flower, though the color suggested that; it was the opening of a fan,
graceful but very angular. The gray-cloaked figures spread to the flanks while the darker
forms surged precisely forward in the center, each movement closely controlled.

Working for the Volturi must be a blast. Evidently Aro really wanted to be a marching band director but had to settle for being a vampire instead. “Okay, guys, I know we’ve been at this for millenia already, but we’re not stopping until your timing is right. You’re supposed to open like a fan–a fan, people, not a barn door swinging open. Hey, you in the back! If that was a groan, I don’t want to hear it. We’ll do this for a couple more millennia if that’s what it takes.”

You know, Meyer doesn’t mention it, but I want to know how the Volturi got here. Did they swim? Borrow Wonder Woman’s invisible blimp? It’s hard to imagine them taking a flight. The TSA’s record is pretty pathetic, but even they would probably twig to forty people dressed like they’re going to a goth Renaissance fair.

Bella starts to worry that this isn’t going to work, and Edward confirms that the Volturi aren’t planning to be reasonable:

“They—Caius and Aro—come to destroy and acquire,” Edward breathed almost silently
back; only our side could hear. “They have many layers of strategy already in place. If
Irina’s accusation had somehow proven to be false, they were committed to find another
reason to take offense."

Looks like this isn’t going to end without a fight, then. Each book in the series has been better than the last about having a real climax; maybe we’ll finally get a satisfying ending to the series here. I think that would go a long way to showing how much progress Meyer has made as an author. C’mon, Stephenie Meyer, you can do it! Show us all you’re down with that newfangled “dramatic structure”.

Anyway, the werewolf pack makes its appearance, and there are many more members than we’ve ever seen. Bella realizes that playing host to two dozen vampires had the unintended consequence of triggering werewolfization in a larger percentage of the Quileute tribe. Yeah, and I imagine it had unintended consequences for the local daycares, too.

The Volturi are still standing there, and nobody has spoken yet. It would make my day if someone called out “Seven minute lull!” or something equally incongruous, but nobody in the Twilight universe has ever displayed a real sense of humor, so of course this doesn’t happen. Carlisle greets the Volturi and tries to explain about Renesmee, but Aro quite reasonably asks why he has so many people prepared for a fight if they haven’t broken any rules. He doesn’t ask, but no doubt he’s also wondering why he’s palling around with the Romanians, vampires with which the Volturi have–forgive me–quite a bit of bad blood.

I’ve been wondering this for a few chapters, and Carlisle still doesn’t have a good answer. This is a lot of work for not much payoff so far; where is Meyer going with this? Is she really going for a fight scene at the end? I’d almost be willing to give the Cullens their happy ending if they had to overthrow the Volturi to do it.

The Volturi bring out Irina, the vampire who originally spotted Renesmee in the clearing. They ask her if Renesmee is the same child she thought was a vampire. Her response? She’s not sure. To my delight, the Volturi recognize this answer for the weaksauce it is, and one of them almost executes her on the spot for wasting their time. Aro restrains him, though, and asks to read Edward’s mind to get to the bottom of all this. Edward lets him, and after a few minutes Aro confirms that his story checks out. The rest of the Volturi are now confused, some of them are no doubt wondering if the Marching Band Routine of Menace has gone to waste. That’s a few millennia they’ll never get back.

Aro wants to meet Renesmee, and he takes a couple of bodyguards with him. Bella describes them briefly:

Both were tall and dark-haired, Demetri hard and lean as the blade of a sword, Felix hulking
 and menacing as an iron-spiked cudgel.

Hey, are we playing the analogy game? I’ve got one! How about “subtle as a two-by-four to the groin”?

Hilariously, Bella goes on to demonstrate that her grasp on first grade math is a little shaky by saying there are five people in the space between the two groups. Uh, Bella? Unless you’re counting somebody’s imaginary friend, there are only four: Edward, Aro, and the two bodyguards.

Aro read’s Renesmee’s mind, and he verifies her half-human status. He’s pretty cheerful about it all, and I have to say it’s weird to find someone both reasonable and likeable in the Twilight universe. Figures he’d be the villain.

Breaking Dawn, Ch. 34-35

It’s the beginning of the end, for there are only a few chapters left after today. Let’s a-go!

Chapter 34. Declared

Bella returns from her trip. She does not tell Edward what she was doing. I’m sure she has her…oh, who am I kidding? I’m sure Bella keeping everyone in the dark will come back to bite everyone later.

A few days pass. I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but Renesmee grows fast: although just a few weeks old, she’s now as old and mature as a three-year old. Apparently she behaves perfectly all the time, and aging at a tremendous rate hasn’t caused any psychological problems. I guess in the Twilight universe, children are just little adults.

Soon it’s Christmas. This is what Renesmee gets:

Renesmee wore the locket I’d given her at dawn, and in her jacket pocket was the MP3
player Edward had given her—a tiny thing that held five thousand songs, already filled
with Edward’s favorites.

Even if we don’t take this to mean Edward made a 5,000 song mixtape for Renesmee, I still wonder why he didn’t pick songs he thought she’d like and not just his favorites. Still, it’s nowhere near as bad as Jacob’s gift:

On her wrist was an intricately braided Quileute version of a promise ring. Edward had gritted
 his teeth over that one, but it didn’t bother me.

Sweet jeepers is Jacob a creep. Hey, Jacob, what’s her birthday present, a bottle of vodka and a copy of Lolita? The book is playing fast and loose with Renesmee’s age, but she’s been stated to be around three or four at this point. This is the more generous interpretation, and it requires us to accept that Bella’s estimation of her rate of aging is accurate and not just the wishful thinking of a parent trying to make her daughter extra special. No matter what, though, Jacob’s–and Stephenie Meyer’s–insistence that imprinting isn’t inherently romantic sounds phonier by the minute. Even if it were true, though, Jacob would still be on the hook for making a relationship that isn’t inherently romantic a romantic one.

Oh, and if Edward Cullen–kidnapper and stalker extraordinaire–thinks you’re being shady, then you fail at life.

But wait, it gets worse! To my utter horror, Bella sees nothing wrong with this:

Soon, so soon, I would be giving her to Jacob for safekeeping. How could I be bothered
by any symbol of the commitment I was so relying on?

Well, you could be bothered that he’s conflating “guardian” with “lover,” for one thing. Oh, and you could be  bothered that he’s unconcerned about anything resembling consent on Renesmee’s part.

Okay, okay, I kid, but seriously, I’m dying to know why Stephenie Meyer apparently finds nothing weird about an adult giving a three-year-old equivalent a symbol of romantic commitment. Is all affection interchangeable in her mind? I don’t often say this, but “careless writing” is the most generous explanation for all this. The less generous explanation is that Meyer wrote this, reread it, and she had no sense that a character staking a claim on a three-year-old would make him any less sympathetic.

Oh, and one more thing: I’d love to know what the rest of the Quileutes think of Jacob giddily parading around the reservation with a three-year-old wearing his promise bracelet. Nothing suspicious about that, no sir.

Moving on, we see that Emmett is still watching TV. He’s been like that for the last several chapters; does he ever get up? Being a vampire, though, I guess he wouldn’t need a seventh inning stretch.

Bella and Edward drive home. When they arrive, they find that one of the vampires left for good while they were gone, probably off to audition for a role in a Sookie Stackhouse novel. One of the other vampires suggests that the Volturi are just using the incident as an excuse to wipe out the Cullens. The Romanian vampires agree with this conspiracy. Volturi lied, vampires died! The rest of the vampires spend a couple pages reaffirming their commitment to…stand around or whatever when the Volturi arrive. I’m still not 100% clear on why lots of vampires standing with the Cullens will prevent a fight, but that’s what the Cullens are counting on, so let’s go with that. Maybe we’ll get out of here faster.

Chapter 35. Deadline

Bella collects the fake passports from the lawyer in Seattle. She returns home to find most of the vampires have gone hunting. With a brief flash of discomfort for their victims, Bella moves on to thinking about more important matters, like ripping off Alice and Jasper’s supply of cash to finance her worst-case-scenario plans:

I rooted silently through their huge closet until I found the right sort of bag. It must
have been Alice’s; it was a small black leather backpack, the kind that was usually used
as a purse, little enough that even Renesmee could carry it without looking out of place.
Then I raided their petty cash, taking about twice the yearly income for the average American
household. I guessed my theft would be less noticeable here than anywhere else in the house,
since this room made everyone sad.

Theft isn’t as bad as mass murder, so it doesn’t even cause a flicker of guilt in Bella’s mind. Say, did you know that the DSM-IV definition of the antisocial/socipathic personality disorder is  “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others”? The more you know!

Anyway, we’re told that everyone waits around for a few more days. We’re spared a really detailed description, fortunately. The chapter ends just as the Volturi arrive.

Guest blogging, sort of

I work as a reference assistant for IC/UGLS, the branch of the Wells Library that is geared towards supporting undergrads. Each of us gets to write an entry for the IC/UGLS blog, and this week is my turn. I wrote about free image repositories because hey, who doesn’t need images at some point?  You can read my post here:

A few free image resources online

Breaking Dawn, Ch. 30-33

Chapter 30. Irresistable

Bella convinces Edward to teach her how to fight the Volturi. I predict she’ll be awesome at it!

A few of the Alaskan vampires arrive to support the Cullens. The rest of the chapter is spent getting them up to speed on what we already know.

Chapter 31. Talented

In this chapter we learn that Bella has yet another power: the ability to insulate herself and people around her from mental attacks, i.e., the kind the Volturi specialize in. This is also why Edward is unable to read Bella’s thoughts. Great. The author’s pet gets another amazing ability out of nowhere.

Chapter 32. Company

More vampires arrive. Bella narrates the challenges of hosting vampires:

The Cullens’ enormous house was more crowded with guests than anyone would
assume could possibly be comfortable. It only worked out because none of the visitors
slept. Mealtimes were dicey, though. Our company cooperated as best they could. They
gave Forks and La Push a wide berth, only hunting out of state; Edward was a gracious
host, lending out his cars as needed without so much as a wince. The compromise made
me very uncomfortable, though I tried to tell myself that they’d all be hunting
somewhere in the world, regardless.

Awfully nice of Edward to loan out his car for murdering purposes, isn’t it? I wish some of the Cullens would realize that inviting a dozen or so vampires in from out of state thoroughly undoes a lot of what they’ve worked towards for so many years. It would also be nice for Bella to acknowledge she’s basically trading the lives of potentially dozens of neighbors for an outside chance at saving her own loved ones; I’d say that calls for a little more than just discomfort. I daresay some of the unlucky victims have daughters of their own they love.

Oh well. Those mothers don’t sparkle, so they don’t count.

Jacob was even more upset. The werewolves existed to prevent the loss of human life,
and here was rampant murder being condoned barely outside the packs’ borders. But
under these circumstances, with Renesmee in acute danger, he kept his mouth shut and
glared at the floor rather than the vampires.

Boy, it’s a good thing the Quileutes have werewolves to protect them.

Incidentally, it appears that Bella has casually gotten over her discomfort towards her friends committing “rampant murder.” Your heroine, ladies and gentlemen.

More vampires arrive:

The Irish clan arrived first, and they were surprisingly easy to convince. Siobhan—a
woman of immense presence whose huge body was both beautiful and mesmerizing as
it moved in smooth undulations—was the leader

How does a person undulate? Does she walk, or does she just crawl on her belly everywhere? Inquiring minds want to know.

but she and her hard-faced mate, Liam, were long used to trusting the judgment of
their newest coven member. Little Maggie, with her bouncy red curls, was not physically
imposing like the other two, but she had a gift for knowing when she was being lied to,
and her verdicts were never contested. Maggie declared that Edward spoke the truth, and
so Siobhan and Liamaccepted our story absolutely before even touching Renesmee.

Translation: Stephenie Meyer is bored with this chapter.

A few more vampires show up, and they all have nifty powers. I thought these were supposed to be rare? I guess Meyer decided super strength, nigh invulnerability, enhanced beauty, and immortality didn’t make being a vampire awesome enough.

Bella trains at fighting some more. It’s not terribly exciting, so I’ll skip the play-by-play.

Suddenly two more vampires arrive, and they’re a little different from the others. They’re from Romania, which means real Transylvanian vampires! Unfortunately, they turn out to be indistinguishable from ordinary Meyer vampires. Oh well. I can still pretend that Carlisle got turned down when he asked Dracula for help. And you just know Count von Count cold hung up when he heard Carlisle’s voice on the line.

Chapter 33. Forgery

Bella suggests bringing Renesmee to visit Charlie. Unfortunately, Charlie seems to have been turned into a caveman:

But then he muttered, “Need to know, ugh,” and I realized it was just his wariness of the
supernatural that made him slow to respond.

Sure, Bella. Go ahead and tell yourself that.

They talk a bit more–more jokes about Charlie’s bad cooking, HA HA HA–and Charlie asks if Jacob is coming over, too. At first I thought he realized something was fishy:

Though Charlie didn’t know anything about werewolf imprinting,
no one could be oblivious to the attachment between Jacob and Renesmee.

But no, he just wants to know if he should invite Billy over. While I appreciate Stephenie Meyer raising the issue of how outsiders view imprinting, I just wish she had followed it up in some meaningful way. As it is we’re left wondering how Charlie thinks about Bella’s old almost-boyfriend spending all his time with her and her husband while obsessing over her kid. For that matter, Charlie spends a lot of time on the reservation; does he see anything suspicious about the group of teenage males who never go on dates but spend all their time with toddlers? Some cop he is.

After she hangs up, Bella informs us that Edward bought her a Ferrari after they got married. For a group of people that try not to draw attention to themselves, they sure buy a lot of flashy cars.

Bella drops Renesmee and Jacob off with Charlie while she goes to Seattle to follow up on the address Alice left her. After a few false starts she meets Jason Jenks/Jason Scott, a lawyer who prepares fake IDs for people and who, fittingly, goes by two names himself. Bella gets passports for Jacob and Renesmee just in case the situation with the Volturi doesn’t end well, and when she pays for them we get an inkling of just how rich the Cullens really are:

Not even taking into consideration the bloated accounts that existed all over the world
with the Cullens’ various names on them, there was enough cash stashed all over the house
to keep a small country afloat for a decade; it reminded me of the way there were always a
hundred fishhooks in the back of any drawer at Charlie’s house. I doubted anyone would
even notice the small stack I’d removed in preparation for today.

Bulleted list time! Just in case you’re keeping score, Stephenie Meyer is trying to create dramatic tension with characters that are:

• immortal
• invulnerable
• adored by all
• super-strong and fast
• have incredible senses
• can predict the future
• have suerpowers by the dozen
• and have enough money to buy their way out of anything.

Rumor has it she’s working on the world’s first lead hot air balloon, too.

Various Humbugs Regarding Banned Books Week

I dislike Banned Books Week.

I dislike Banned Books Week because of its imprecise language. When I think of censorship, I think of 1984-style memory holes and governmental restriction of information. Inherent in this view is the use of power to restrict access. To my view, a parent complaining about a book in a school library is not censorship, for it lacks the power dynamic. A parent has no state-granted power to restrict; a parent can only complain, and the real state authorities–typically public libraries or school libraries–can choose to comply with the challenge or deny it. According to the ALA, most challenges are denied.(1) Is this really censorship in any meaningful sense of the word? If we lose our heads and cry censorship over every school library challenge in East Nowhere, Nebraska, we’ll never be taken seriously when we complain about the real thing.

I dislike Banned Books Week because it does not deal with books that are actually banned. In America, I’m aware of no books that are banned; even books that are successfully challenged in one library can be requested from other libraries; can be bought from bookstores common in cities everywhere; can be ordered from a hundred websites at frequently trivial cost. As far as I can tell, neither the Banned Books Week nor the ALA websites acknowledge this. It’s hard not to see an element of intellectual irresponsibility in their failure to recognize this.

I dislike Banned Books Week because of the atmosphere of self-congratulation it promotes among librarians in general and the ALA in particular. We in America are blessed with intellectual freedoms that are rarely met and even more rarely surpassed by any nation-state in history; even other states in the West are inferior in some respects.(2) I don’t mean to say intellectual freedoms are in no danger here in America; heavens no. But consider the alternative: if supporting intellectual freedom were such a brave and dangerous position–if fighting censorship were a guaranteed tickedt to Room 101 and the Memory Hole–would a large professional organization be able to hold a weeklong celebration of said fight?

There is also a certain paternalism inherent in the efforts of those who are ostensibly fighting against this attitude. Consider the opening paragraph of the Banned Books Week Manifesto:

To you zealots and bigots and false
patriots who live in fear of discourse.
You screamers and banners and burners
who would force books
off shelves in your brand name
of greater good...

—Ellen Hopkins, from the Banned Books Week Manifesto (pdf)

And the ALA’s characterization of “censors,” AKA the citizens who express concerns about books:

Regardless of specific motives, all would-be censors share one belief-that they can recognize "evil" and that other people must be protected from it.
Censors do not necessarily believe their own morals should be protected, but they do feel compelled to save their fellows.

This quote is from an article titled–I am not making this up– “The Censor: Motives and Tactics.”

Heaven forbid a citizen ever question a librarian, I guess. I’ve lost count of the number of articles I’ve read in library school about how we aren’t here to tell the public what to read, but actual practice flatly contradicts this. Read the ALA’s website and see if you can find any conception that a challenge could be legitimate. There’s a lot on there about listening to patrons and answering objections, but what it really means is telling patrons to STFU and accept our selections. It’s like the library equivalent of Team America:World Police: intellectual freedom is the only way.

As I finish, I’d like to correct one misconception that I’m sure will crop up: I don’t like library challenges, either. I don’t even dislike them. I think most of them are well-intentioned(3), but I agree with most librarians that most should not be upheld. I think it’s reasonable for parents and community members to feel uncomfortable with some of the items we select, and I think that we librarians should acknowledge that not all items are suited to all collections. (Anyone who disagrees is requested to post in the comments, in 500 words or fewer, why the contents of the Kinsey Institute Library or any other medical library should be duplicated at all public libraries.)

In short: let’s all support intellectual freedom, but let’s support it without declaring a week to celebrate how awesome we are for doing it.

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(1) ALA.org, “About Banned and Challenged Books.” Available at http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/aboutbannedbooks/index.cfm.

(2) I have in mind Germany’s and France’s criminal penalties for  holocaust denial and the latter’s criminalization of positive depictions of drug use.

(3) Even the Banned Books Week website seems to tacitly acknowledge this; seven of the top ten most frequently challenged books are challenged for age-appropriateness–hardly “Do it to Julia!” territory.

“Adventures in New Testament Greek: Metanoia” — Scott Cairns

Repentance, to be sure,
but of a species far
less likely to oblige
sheepish repetition.

Repentance, you’ll observe,
glibly bears the bent
of thought revisited,
and mind’s familiar stamp

–a quaint, half-hearted
doubleness that couples
all compunction with a pledge
of recurrent screw-up.

The heart’s metanoia,
on the other hand, turns
without regret, turns not
so much away, as toward,

as if the slow pilgrim
has been surprised to find
that sin is not so bad
as it is a waste of time.

–Scott Cairns

Breaking Dawn, Ch. 27-29

Chapter 27. Travel Plans

I took mythology a lot more seriously since I’d become a vampire.

Uh…more seriously than believing in it? Since she was doing that way back in Book 1.

Often, when I looked back over my first three months as an immortal, I imagined how
the thread of my life might look in the Fates’ loom—who knew but that it actually
existed? I was sure my thread must have changed color; I thought it had probably
started out as a nice beige, something supportive and non-confrontational, something
that would look good in the background. Now it felt like it must be bright crimson, or
maybe glistening gold.

Having nothing better to do, Bella submits her autobiography to a middle school essay contest.

The tapestry of family and friends that wove together around me was a beautiful,
glowing thing, full of their bright, complementary colors.

Uh…Stephenie Meyer does know that complimentary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel, right? A tapestry done entirely in complementary colors would probably look sort of weird.

This goes on for a while longer, so I’ll skip ahead to the next part where something happens. To give credit where it is due, I’d like to point out that in this case Meyer transitions pretty smoothly from exposition into a conversation between characters. That’s not easy to do.

Renesmee spoke her first word when she was exactly one week old. The word was
Momma, which would have made my day, except that I was so frightened by her
progress I could barely force my frozen face to smile back at her. It didn’t help that she
continued from her first word to her first sentence in the same breath.

Renesmee, I knew Charles Wallace. A Wrinkle in Time was the first novel I ever read. Charles Wallace was a believable child genius. And Renesmee, you’re no Charles Wallace.

“Momma, where is Grandpa?” she’d asked in a clear, high soprano...

As opposed to a low soprano, I guess.

Edward and Carlisle threw themselves into research, looking for any answers, anything to expect.

I thought Emmett and Jasper were doing that; did they get bored or something?

There was very little to be found, and none of it verifiable.

But that didn’t stop them from adding it to Wikipedia, the jerks.

Alice and Rosalie usually began our day with a fashion show.

Oh for–

Renesmee never wore the same clothes twice, partly because she outgrew her clothes almost
immediately and partly because Alice and Rosalie were trying to create a baby album that
appeared to span years rather than weeks.

That…actually makes a lot of sense. Fair enough, Stephenie Meyer.

Bella begins making plans to see the Volturi, because sending a picture of her sparkly, beautiful, and with bright red or gold eyes isn’t good enough. Jeez, it’s like going to the vampire BMV.

While hunting with Renesmee, Bella runs into Irina, one of the vampires from the Alaska coffin. Irina gets angry and runs off for reasons that aren’t completely clear to me.

Chapter 28. The Future

Time passes. One day Alice gets a premonition of all the Volturi coming to Forks. Everyone freaks out at the news, since it sounds like they’re bringing their guard, family members, everyone. <Gary Oldman>EVERYONE!</Gary Oldman>

As usual, the Twilight series reminds me of better…wait a minute, I didn’t really like León the Professional. Never mind.

Anyway, it turns out that Irina saw Renesmee and thought she was a vampire child, so she immediately ran off to tattle to the Volturi. This explains why the ban against child vampires was mentioned earlier in the book. It doesn’t explain why Irina is such an idiot, though. What exactly was she thinking? “Oh, hey, it looks like there’s a child hanging out with Bella a few miles that way. It must be a vampire child! I must immediately run off to Italy to tell the Volturi!” Seriously, is that even remotely a rational response? She wouldn’t even meet the girl to make sure she’s a vampire? In a sane series the Volturi would just laugh and tell her pics or it didn’t happen, but no, the Cullens treat this like its a real threat.

Incidentally, this is virtually identical to the plot of New Moon: character draws wrong conclusion, cuts off contact, and flies to Italy on a moment’s notice to cause trouble with the Volturi. Jeez, when is the last time in this series a plot point didn’t come about by someone acting like a pervert or an idiot?

Anyway, the Cullens decide to call up all their vampire friends from around the world to be character witnesses for them. The idea is not for them to fight, but to make the Volturi hesitant enough not to attack immediately and thus give the Cullens time to prove that Renesmee isn’t a true child vampire.

While all this is happening, Alice has a mild freak out and runs off with Jasper while saying something about being in a hurry.

Chapter 29. Defection

Alice and Jasper are gone. I like to think she got sick of her rubbish characterization and left to find another book Thursday Next-style, but that’s probably too much to hope for.

Bella receives a note from Alice that leads her to another note with the address of a lawyer. She does not tell Edward.

Nothing else important happens in this chapter.