Eclipse, Ch. 7-8

Chapter 7. Unhappy Ending

This chapter opens with Rosalie giving Bella her backstory. Long and short of it, Rosalie was raped by her drunken fiance and his buddies and Carlisle turned her into a vampire to save her life. Rosalie had only wanted a happy family and a pleasant suburban existence, so she finds little to like about the vampire lifestyle. She proudly claims she’s never even tasted human blood, which reminds me of a certain Chris Rock sketch, and now I’m imagining a vampire stand-up comic talking about there being two kinds of vampires, vampires and bloodsuckers, and bloodsuckers are always wanting credit for doing what they’re supposed to do.

In general, though, I thought this conversation worked pretty well, for Rosalie has clearly come to terms with her lot in life and doesn’t resort to melodrama to make her point. It’s one of the few passages in the entire series that comes across as real writing, and this is a welcome change from all the narcissism and shortsightedness of everyone else in the cast. Unfortunately, the moment is spoiled whenever Bella opens her mouth or otherwise reasserts her status as narrator. Stephenie Meyer seems capable of writing about unhappy but decent people, but it appears this doesn’t interest her as much as cliche and melodrama do. If it weren’t such a relief from the ocean of mediocrity I’d almost think it was worse. When an author shows that she can write well but doesn’t chose to, it’s hard to read it as anything other than one big middle finger raised at the audience.

Anyway, Rosalie is telling Bella all this to persuade her not to become a vampire, or at least to consider that even though she’s happy with the choice now she might not be centuries down the road. Unlikeable to the last, Bella merely rolls her eyes at this.

Bella and Alice are apparently now at school. Hey, don’t look at me! I’m as confused by the lack of transitions as you are. Anyway, Bella kisses Mike on the cheek in order to manipulate him into covering for her at work. Jacob rolls up on his bike and Bella climbs on. They ride off into freedom, laughing all the way. It’s a bit like Helen of Troy getting drunk and sailing off with Paris while two fleets get ready to launch.

Chapter 8. Temper

Since neither Jacob nor Bella want to talk about the interspecies war they likely just started, Jacob tells Bella about his friend Quil. Quil just became a werewolf, and he’s already imprinted on someone. Already inured to normal werewolf skeeviness, Bella asks what the problem is. Well, Jacob explains, he imprinted on Emily’s cousin. Her younger cousin. Her two-year-old cousin.

Her two-year-old-cousin.

What.

The.

Hell.

What the hell?

What the hell?!

Okay, I think I’m good–

Waitwhat the hell?!

Has Stephenie Meyer lost her damn mind? What on earth is wrong with her that she thinks this is appropriate? Or romantic? Or…anything? Does she not realize that she just made one of her characters a pedophile and called it okay? And what were the editors doing when this got submitted, giving each other piggyback rides? Just listen to this:

"You're making judgments," [Jacob] accused. "I can see it on your face."

Yeah, Bella, how dare you judge his friend for being a pedophile?

"Sorry," [Bella] muttered. "But it sounds really creepy."

"It's not like that; you've got it all wrong," Jacob defended his friend, suddenly vehement.
"I've seen what it's like, through his eyes. There's nothing romantic about it at all...You
become whatever she needs you to be, whether that's a protector, or a lover, or a friend, or
a brother."Quil will be the best, kindest big brother any kid ever had. There isn't a toddler
on the planet that will be more carefully looked after than that little girl will be. And then,
when she's older and needs a friend, he'll be more understanding, trustworthy, and reliable
than anyone else she knows. And then, when she's grown up, they'll be as happy as Emily and
Sam." A strange, bitter edge sharpened his tone at the very end, when he spoke of Sam.

"Doesn't Claire get a choice here?"

"Of course. But why wouldn't she choose him, in the end? He'll be her perfect match. Like
he was designed for her alone."

I don’t even know where to start. Is it a grown man deciding for a two-year-old that he’ll be her perfect mate? The casual acceptance of his buddies of this situation? The blithe indifference to the girl’s own consent? An author portraying Native Americans as bestial pedophiles? This sounds more like the courtroom transcript of the Fritzl case than a young adult novel. It would be one thing if this were supposed to be read as creepy, but the fact that Meyer has her protagonists defending this is something else entirely. What bizarre moral calculus is Meyer doing to expect readers to find this anything other than ten kinds of messed up?

Once again I must point out that Twilight has sailed under my expectations. I joked about Edward being a pedophile for pursuing Bella, but jeez. I never expected the book to deal with literal pedophilia.

After that bombshell, Bella and Jacob get ready for a bit of motorcycle riding. We are not told if Jacob is going to keep an eye out for any toddlers who need a protector, brother, friend, and/or lover. Bella happens to mention that in a few weeks she’ll likely be turning into a vampire, and Jacob totally flips out, kicks her out of the reservation, and promises to hunt down the Cullens no matter how far they flee. Needless to say, this pretty much ruins the moment, and Bella obediently returns home to her the Cullen house. (1) Edward is there and he apologizes for the kidnapping, and things are apparently okay between him and Bella.

———————————————-

(1) And I’ve got to ask, does Carlisle see anything wrong with his Edward kidnapping his human girlfriend and holding her captive? Does he somehow not know? What, is he taking remedial classes in basic medicine after applying one too many tourniquets or moving an injured patient? Learning needlepoint? Playing quarters with the hospital’s blood packs?

Twilight, Ch. 14

Oh boy. I don’t even know how to describe this chapter. Let’s get started.

—————————

Chapter 14. Mind Over Matter

Man, even the chapter names are clichés now. It’s going to be–wait.

I just had a thought about the last chapter: Does heroin even come in brands? (“Hold on, I don’t want this heroin. I want Dapper Dan!”) Because it’s not like–right, I’ll get on with it.

Edward drives Bella home, and on the way we get a bit of his backstory. It turns out that Edward is a little over a century old, and he was turned into a vampire when his only other option was death by Spanish flu. That’s kind of interesting, and it makes for a nice moment before logic kicks in and you wonder what someone that’s over a century old is doing kicking around in a high school. And dating high school girls. Romance novel notwithstanding, if Edward weren’t a vampire he’d have Chris Hansen knocking at his door, and it seems like being a vampire should make this more creepy, not less. The obvious interpretation–though definitely not the intended one–is that he enjoys playing hard to get around underage girls while he reads their minds. But no, Edward is the heroine’s love interest, so of course he’s just doing it to mack on 17-year-olds to blend in.

Okay, okay, I’m just giving the book crap, but still, are we supposed to believe that in a century of life Edward has found no one else as interesting as Bella? Granted, she’s got tasty blood, but we honestly haven’t seen anything to make her unusually interesting. She honestly seems like a regular high school girl, albeit one with a worse attitude than usual. Again, how on earth does this relationship make sense?

Sigh. Why do I still bother asking that question?

We learn about the rest of the Cullens/Carlisles, and it turns out that Emmett and Rosalie are actually married. Good to know, I guess. Bella and Edward arrive at Bella’s house, and he unlocks the door using a key Bella had hidden. Whoops! Bella knows she’s never shown him the key, and he admits he found it on his own and he’s been using it to let himself in. At night. While she’s asleep. To watch her while she’s asleep.

Wha…this…I just…how…in what bizarro universe is that appropriate? In what way could this possibly be romantic and not just ten kinds of messed up? To make matters even worse, instead of being fantastically creeped out like an actual woman would be, Bella is flattered. Okay, what? Really? Am I supposed to be reading Bella as a human being, or is this all taking place in an alternate dimension where creepiness = affection? She pretends to be upset and asks him why. His response?

He was unrepentant. "What else is there to do at night?"

Dude! DUDE! GET A HOBBY! Take up watercolors or knitting or underwater basket weaving. Read a book. Study vampire history. Learn an instrument or beat Halo 3 or watch everything in the Criterion Collection. You’ve lived a hundred years and you haven’t found anything better to do than watch a seventeen-year-old girl while she sleeps? This isn’t romantic, it’s pathetic.

Note that this doesn’t even make sense within Twilight continuity, for in the last chapter we saw that Edward could barely control himself when he was alone with Bella for seemingly the first time. Now we’re supposed to believe that they’ve been alone all the time and it hasn’t been a problem for him.

They talk for a while, and things get even worse at the end of the chapter as Edward muses on the differences between them:

"It's just that you are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that
we're together so that I don't hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by
accident." His voice had become just a soft murmur. He moved his icy palm to rest it
against my cheek. "If I was too hasty… if for one second I wasn't paying enough attention,
I could reach out, meaning to touch your face, and crush your skull by mistake.
You don't realize how incredibly breakable you are.

I…I’ve got no funny for this. This is genuinely horrifying.

Twilight, Ch. 10-11

Welcome, faithful readers, to another episode of The Adventures of Bella and Edward! One of them is a cold, pale creature who treats people as objects, and the other one is a vampire! Together, they fight crime!

Chapter 10. Interrogations

Another day, another solid gold line from Bella:

Logic wasn't on my side, or common sense.

Bella gets ready to go to school and finds Edward practically waiting for her on her doorstep, and you’ve got to wonder how long he’s been waiting there. They ride together and flirt some more, and once again we’re left waiting for them to actually get to know each other. We’re disappointed, needless to say, for the car ride to school is filled with the kind of conversation most novels wouldn’t bother to record. Once Bella gets to school, her friends pump her for information about Edward. No one says anything interesting, so let’s skip to the next part. Okay, here we go–wait.

I suppose I should have seen this coming, but we’re treated to another flirtatious conversation between Bella and Edward while they have lunch. Really? Really, Twilight? You think we want another high school lunch scene? It surely says something about Twilight that a protagonist who can barely brush her teeth without incident comes across as remarkably boring.

We learn that Edward and his family prey upon the local wildlife for sustenance, and it’s the first evidence we see to suggest he is as threatening as he’s tried to sound. To her credit, Stephanie Meyer has clearly not forgotten that vampires are fundamentally predators: Edward clearly relishes his hunting trips, and it’s a relief that he’s not angsty about having to feed upon other living creatures.

Chapter 11. Complications

Edward picks up Bella and begins to ask her about herself. Seems like most people would do this before falling passionately in love, but whatever. We learn that they like the same band, so awwww, I guess. They get to school and more or less repeat everything that happened yesterday. At his prompting, Bella tells Edward about herself, life in Phoenix, and the like. It’s all presented as exposition, and while I’d normally be grateful that Stephanie Meyer is beginning to summarize conversations, I kind of wish that we’d been allowed to gain some of the insight about Bella Edward does here.

The day ends, the two drive home, and Jacob’s dad shows up, and he can smell Edward’s vampire-ness either because he’s a Magical Native American or because he’s a werewolf. This is presented as a bad thing, so a bad thing it is, I guess.

Christ the Lord Is Risen Today!

Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Lo! the Sun’s eclipse is over, Alleluia!
Lo! He sets in blood no more, Alleluia!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

—Charles Wesley

What I learned today. Also, webcomics!

I learned that there is such a thing as a proper adjective, the descriptive form of a proper noun. I knew that they existed, but I didn’t know there was a special term for them.

This pictures for sad children comic (yes, that is its name) sums up pretty well what I think of the technological singularity movement.

Speaking of webcomics, you know how Garfield sucks? The internet has taken it upon itself to fix that in the form of “Garfield Minus Garfield,” which is exactly what it says on the tin. It turns out that removing all traces of the cat himself transforms the strip into a perpetual dialog between John and his bizarre, lonely life. It’s dark, funny, and occasionally profound–everything, in other words, the unaltered strip isn’t.

Apple vs. Dell

Apple could buy Dell with cash 

According to CNN, Apple has enough scratch to buy Dell. The article helpfully quotes Michael Dell's infamous 1997 comment on Apple's value:

Hard to believe that it’s been only 11 years since Michael Dell, asked what he would do if he were Apple’s CEO, answered:

“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” (link)

Science marches on

University of Leicester: Per megabye, text messaging more expensive than Hubble Telescope telemetry 

I wonder if NASA has a family plan.

(via NYT Blogs)

Oh come on!

From the Consumerist:

Banks using $700 billion to buy other banks, not make more loans 

It's hard to say if a bailout was the best way to fix the economy, but it's starting to look like the bailout as implemented definitely wasn't.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

U.S. Army raises possibility of terrorists using Twitter to coordinate attacks 

This just in: Communication services used to communicate.

Bored

I'm currently at the IC reference desk. I generally avoid blogging while at work, but the IC is as dead as Julius Caesar. I've had maybe three questions in the last two hours, and none of them were reference questions. I am, simply put, bored. My usual bag of tricks has failed me; nobody is on gchat, there's nothing of interest on Facebook, I've read scanned Wikipedia's list of unusual articles for anything I've missed. All nothing. I even tried doing homework, but it turns out we need a book that's on reserve to do it. Not only can I not do the work when I have time, I get to look forward to vying with 20 other people for it. Oh, SLIS. How you mock my time.

 

Oh well. I might be bored, but you don't have to be. Enjoy Wikipedia's article on Burma-shave, a defunct shaving cream brand with an advertising campaign that still leaves ripples in modern culture.