Well, of course it makes sense to end the novel by having Edward take Bella to a place she has repeatedly said she does not want to go–that’s just about par for the course as far as Edward’s sensitivity to Bella’s desires goes.

Prom of course a place to be seen, and given the Cullens’ general propensity to try to out-class everyone in Washington in terms of clothing and style, this chapter read uncomfortably to me as Edward showing Bella off to the world, proclaiming her as his. He even talks to Charlie on the phone, proclaiming that “‘To be perfectly honest, she’ll be unavailable every night as far as anyone besides myself is concerned”‘ (483). Those are some pretty tough words, Edward. Maybe you should give consideration to what Bella wants rather than stuffing her into dangerous shoes and putting her uncomfortably onto the dance floor with women who are more beautiful than she’ll ever be, despite your constant reassurances. That might be nice.

It’s an uncomfortable notion of transformation. Rather than Edward turning Bella into what she wants (a vampire), it seems as though he’s turning her into what he wants (a girly-girl who wears makeup, precarious shoes, and likes to dance).

Jacob Black shows up and gives some of the most uncomfortable dialogue ever, and what’s funny is that he even acknowledges how ridiculous his grandfather’s warning of “‘We’ll be watching’” is (492). It seems to be another instance in which Meyer sidesteps the absurdity of her novel by having characters within the novel point out that absurdity. Jacob’s not yet part of that superstitious group of Native Americans, but if the posters for the film version of New Moon are any indication, he doesn’t stay that way for long. Still, as much as I don’t like Jacob, I like Edward even less. So, I guess, Team Jacob by default.

The book ends again with Bella wanting to be turned, which here has some not-so-subtle sexual overtones to it. They decide that, for now, it’s enough just to be together.

For now.

Ben’s End of Chapter Award

Best Subtle References to the Title of the Novel: “‘Twilight again,’ he murmured. ‘Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end” (495).—-”‘So you’re ready for this to end,’ he murmured, almost to himself, ‘for this to be the twilight of your life, though your life has barely started” (497).

Well, that wraps up this series of posts. Five in one day is too many, so I’ll save my Final Thoughts post for tomorrow, after I’ve had some time for this to digest. Thanks to everyone who read any or all of these. You’re all troopers.  –B.

Well, here we are. The last chapter before the epilogue. Bella is safe in the hospital, Edward standing sentry in the room, the tracker is so much char on the bottoms of Emmett’s and Jasper’s boots, and all seems right with the world. It also introduces what I’m assuming with be a primary tension in the books to come: Bella’s desire to become a vampire vs. Edward’s reluctance to turn her.

Bella says, “But it just seems logical…a man and woman have to be somewhat equal…as in, one of them can’t always be swooping in and saving the other one. They have to save each other equally [...] I can’t always be Lois Lane [...] I want to be Superman, too’” (473-4). It may be giving Meyer a little too much credit to posit that the whole vampire dynamic has been an allegory for the current state of gender inequality, but it’s interesting that the only way Bella feels that she can become equal to Edward is through a renunciation of her humanity–not only her humanness, but also her life with her friends and family. But so infatuated is she with Edward that she’s not only willing, but anxious to do it, going so far as to suggest that Alice might do it for her if she asked. Bella wants to be a vampire because she loves Edward, and Edward won’t “damn [her] to an eternity of night”‘ because he loves her. An impasse.

Edward feels that Bella would be giving up her life. When she asks “‘Do you wish that Carlisle hadn’t saved you?”‘ Edward responds, “‘No, I don’t wish that [...] But my life was over. I wasn’t giving anything up”‘ (474). Well, actually dude, yea you were. You gave up death, an end to your life. Sure, you were going to die anyway, but you also got saddled with a ton of access baggage that does along with being undead and inhuman. In this paradigm, prolonging life, even this inhuman life, is preferable to death, which sheds considerable light on the logic that governed Carlisle’s actions when changing Edward. It was painful, he didn’t have permission, but at least it was better than death.

It would have been interesting to see what Edward would have done in the last chapter had Carlisle not been there. If the choice was lose Bella or turn her into a vampire, what would he choose? My money’s on the vampire. So, if Bella ever does turn into a vampire in these books, it would have to be a situation in which the alternative is her death.

Here we see the parameters and potential themes for sequels being set up. Bella wants to be a vampire, but it will take an extreme circumstance for Edward to allow that to happen.

Also, unrelated, Stephenie Meyer really needs to find a way of closing chapters other than having her narrator fall asleep/unconscious. This is the third chapter in a row that does so.

I was also very annoyed that the climactic fight with the tracker took place so far offstage. Not only did Bella need a group of vampires to save her, we didn’t even get to see Emmett “I’m a Bear!” Cullen and Jasper kick that tracker apart. That would have at least made the chapter marginally interesting. But no, we just learn that the place was burned down and that there was a lot of blood involved. Yay. I guess when you’re a non-compelling villain, a mediocre death is the best you can hope for.

Alright, Twi-fans. One chapter left. Epilogue City here I come.

Ben’s End of Chapter Awards

Yet Another Time When Edward Does Something After Bella Asks Him Repeatedly Not To: 477-479

Best Example of Ham-Fisted Feminism: “‘But it just seems logical…a man and woman have to be somewhat equal..as in, one of them can’t always be swooping in and saving the other one. They have to save each other equally“‘ (473-4).

Best Evidence That All of These Characters Are Stupid: “‘He tricked us all”‘ (459, referring to the tracker).

This chapter tries really hard to be poetic. Bella is struggling up out of her unconsciousness, and we find Edward, Alice, and Edward in the ballet studio. Carlisle is tending to her broken bones, and they notice that she’s been bitten. We can only assume the tracker has been dealt with painfully.

Now, I think there are a few ways to read this next part. Bella cries out from the pain of the venom, and Carlisle tells Edward, “‘See if you can suck the venom back out. The wound is fairly clean…Edward, you must do it now, or it will be goo late’” (455). Edward is of course a little apprehensive of this–after all, he’s spent the whole book trying not to drink her blood. Now he’s being told to.

I’ve talked with some people about this scene, and they’ve noted Carlisle’s seemingly arbitrary declaration that Edward must be the one to suck out the poison. I expected it to be a club-footed narrative technique to put the responsibility of Bella’s humanity solely on Edward, rather than on Carlisle. But I don’t think it’s so strange that Carlisle–who has better control of himself than any of the Cullens–would not volunteer to do this. I think I’ve gathered enough textual evidence to posit that Carlisle may actually think that Bella is better off as a vampire. He has made these life and death decisions before, and has consistently chosen to turn people into vampires, perhaps even against their wills. Carlisle’s goal is to stop her bleeding–to save her life. Whether she’s a vampire or a human is completely up to Edward.

But I was surprised at how little drama there is around Edward’s eventual decision to suck the venom out. In the movie version, he actually does have trouble controlling himself, drinking almost too much, nearly killing Bella. In the book, it’s no big thing. He sucks it out, it’s over, and they leave. We never get the sense that that situation was difficult for Edward on anything deeper than conceptual level. Extremely important plot moment with no resonance or gravity.

Ben’s End of Chapter Awards

Best Miraculous, Illogical, But Totally Expected Appearance of the Edward Cullen: p. 453

Best Way to Gloss Over the Gratuitous Violence of a Vampire Murder: Chapter Twenty Three

(Sorry for the general lack of any good awards recently. I’ve been too irritated by the book to find much humor it it’s exponentially-increasing badness).

Continuing the general trend of poor decisions, Bella ditches Alice and Jasper at the airport and takes a cab ride out to Scottsdale where she finally comes face to face with the tracker (dun dun dun). Through a dull and tedious monologue, the tracker (who, unlike the Cullens, is an only average-looking vampire, an Eddie Bauer model instead of an Abercrombie one) found out where Bella was going and managed to give the Cullens the slip. And, oh ho ho, the big twist, Bella’s mom was not in any danger–the tracker was using her voice recorded from old family movies that he apparently cuddled up with an afghan and watched while he was waiting for the story to catch up to mine.

It all culminates in a very cliche’ scene from every serial killer movie that’s trying to be edgy ever, in which the tracker is going to film himself nomming Bella because that will get Edward pissed off and generally upset the the reader, which will prolong his fun. What’s funny though is that Meyer basically uses the tracker as a device to express the narrative’s shortcomings. The tracker says, “You see, this was all just a little too easy, too quick. To be quite honest, I’m disappointed. I expected a much greater challenge” (445). Yea? Well I expected a much better book, so neither of us get what we want. Now shut up and die so the good can have it’s painfully obvious happy ending.

Also, through a very contrived feat of narrative pin-the-tale-on-the-origin, we find out that Alice was actually being tracked by this same tracker, who got all mad when the vampire who was obsessed with her, turned her into a vampire. Get it? Narrative parallels and foreshadowing all in one quick paragraph.

I grow so tired of these sorts of narratives that require that the villain or antagonist methodically lay out the circumstances. We are so past that, but apparently Meyer didn’t get the memo. This tracker would have been much more menacing had he simply gone after Bella and not spent an entire page elucidating a narrative that’s been going on offstage. It’s just not a compelling way to construct a narrative. Neither is introducing a villain 2/3 of the way into the novel who has no real connection to any of the preceding plot points, but I have to pick my battles here.

At the end of the monologue, Bella tries to run away, but of course she can’t. She cuts her head on a mirror and the blood makes the tracker act like a twelve year old on the day they brought Surge back.

And what chapter narrated by an increasingly powerless female narrator would be complete without an obligatory fainting spell? Not this one, that’s for sure.

Cue the magical reappearance of the Cullens, who will probably take care of everything for Bella while she’s asleep or something.

Ben’s End of Chapter Award

Best Giant Step Backward for Empathetic, Interesting, Empowered Female Narrators: This chapter (and mostly the second half of this book)

Well, this is an annoying little chapter. In ten pages, Meyer effectively confirms for us that Bella is, in fact, an idiot (a claim that was already more or less substantiated by her apparent taste in men). While waiting in the hotel room, Alice draws a psychic picture of Bella’s mother’s house, and they know that the tracker is in Phoenix. Edward, Emmett, and Carlisle on are the way, and Alice, Jasper, and Bella are on the move.

Then Bella gets a phone call from the tracker, who is apparently so monumentally skilled at hunting (with his lethality and acute senses) that, to find Bella, he resorts to kidnapping her mother and holding her ransom for Bella’s life.

Damn. That dude is good.

Bella goes on and on about how she “had no choices now but one: to go to the mirrored room and die” (430). Really? That’s your choice? Your only choice? The tracker isn’t anywhere close to you (relatively), why not tell him what he wants to hear, then tell Jasper and Alice that, hey, that dude is here and he wants me to do this. Let’s trick him, cut his freaking head off and burn every part of him that will. But does she do that? No! She plays along, keeping the secret from Jasper and Alice, and writing a terrible, sappy letter to Edward at the end of the chapter. Also, am I supposed to believe that a super-sensed up vampire couldn’t hear both sides of a telephone call? Please.

I mean, really, Bella. You know where the guy is now. Thanks to Alice’s powers, you know where he’s going to be. You totally have the jump on him, but, no, you are just ready to lay down and die.

Why is Meyer so reluctant to give Bella any heroic qualities? I read this chapter with a side internal monologue just ranting at her for being stupid. I even wrote “idiot!” in the margins of my book. Seriously.

Lemme guess, Bella will go meet this tracker clown, and then Edward and the gang will swoop in and save the day. Because, of course, Bella is too weak and too stupid to save the day for herself, or even help save the day.

Ben’s End of Chapter Awards

Best Deployment of a Neurotic Cliche’: “For three and a half hours I stared at the wall, curled in a ball, rocking” (425).

Best Description of a Maniacal Killer Voice: “the kind of voice that you heard in the background of luxury car commercials” (427).

Best Complete Renunciation of Anything Resembling Agency: “For I had no choices now but one: to go to the mirrored room and die” (430).

The title of this chapter is pretty apt, actually. After her ineffectual attempt to establish narrative momentum in the last chapter, it’s a bit puzzling that Meyer would bring the narrative to complete standstill. But, given the general shape of this novel, I shouldn’t be surprised. Bella, Alice, and Jasper are literally waiting in a hotel room, waiting for a phone call to tell them how the hunt for the tracker is going. In other words, our principal character and two minor characters are sitting alone in a hotel room, waiting to hear news of how the story is progressing. A story that, right now, they are not participant in.

Awesome.

To further complicate this instance of narrative alienation, we can’t even completely trust Bella’s narration in this section because of the weird happy-making power that Jasper has over people. Bella herself remarks that “I knew I couldn’t trust my feelings with Jasper there” (411).

So, let’s mark this off on our ‘Things Wrong With This Story” ticky-chart. The story is happening somewhere else, apart from our main character, but because of the main character’s lack of narrative agency (because all of the other minor characters are super-powered vampires who can see things/know things/do things that Bella never can) all she can do is sit and wait while the story unfolds away from her.

Empowering female protagonist fail.

Unrelated, Alice tells Bella that during the transformation process, “every minute of it, a victim would be wishing for death” (414). Which, I think, drives the last stake into the heart (yuk yuk) of this vampires ethics issue. On top of not getting permission, Carlisle would have known that the processes causes the victim excruciating pain. Perhaps this gets addressed in later novels, but I’m having trouble for finding any reason to sympathize with Carlisle’s life decisions.

On top of all that, the stupid tracker got onto a plane and is now playing with AV equipment in a ballet studio.

Wait.

If vampires can run so damn fast, why do they need to fly in planes?

(UPDATE: A friend on Facebook informed me that vampires in fact cannot run faster than planes can fly, so they have to take planes to travel long distances quickly. Well, obviously.)

Ben’s End of Chapter Award

Least Interesting Chapter (Whether Narratively or Thematically) in The Hitherto Tremendously Dull Third Act of This Novel: Chapter 20.

In order to keep Charlie safe, Bella has to lie to him and make him think she is leaving Forks. Otherwise the tracker will hunt in the house and make a bodysuit out of poor, uncharacterized Charlie. Considering he’s basically been a narrative punching bag all through the novel, I can’t say I was surprised at the apparent ease with which Bella tears him down. She knows exactly how to hurt him the most–by invoking the language her mother used when she left him all those years ago.

The biggest problem with this scene in terms of the narrative is that it’s obviously a momental scene for Bella, hurting someone she loves in such a way. But rather than let both Bella and the reader wallow in the potential consequence of that action, Edward the mind-reader immediately proclaims that “‘Don’t worry. He’ll forgive you” (396). So all of Bella’s anxiety about “hitting below the belt” (396) and our readerly disgust with Bella’s actions are completely obviated because of Edward’s exclusive knowledge. Not the way to build tension.

It’s really frustrating me how Stephenie Meyer is consistently sidestepping potentially interesting narrative problems for the sake of advancing a story that I really don’t care about. First the ethics of Carlisle’s actions, and now the fallout of Bella’s actions with Charlie–all of these are sidestepped and uninterrogated. Frustrating.

Also, fucking Edward tells Bella that “‘It is partially your fault,”‘ for having the tracker on her tail. He says, ‘”If you didn’t smell so appallingly luscious, he might not have bothered”‘ (397). And not even addressing that terrible adverb/adjective combination, the trouble is, jerk, that you told Bella to take her hair down at the baseball game, which let the wind waft through it, which set this whole nonsensical, contrived plot into motion! You’re the one, Edward! You’re the one who’s at fault!

Ugh!

Ben’s End of Chapter Awards

Best Suggestion that the Cullen’s Live in a Spy House: “her hand touched an inconspicuous keypad on the wall, and with a groan, huge metal shutters began sealing up the glass wall” (401).

Best Unsexy Kiss: “For the shortest second, his lips were icy and hard against mine. Then it was over. He set me down, still holding my face, his glorious eyes burning into mine” (403).

Latest in the Incalculable Number of Times Edward Does Something After Bella Says No: “His long hands unexpectedly gripped my waist, and his foot pushed mine off the gas pedal. He pulled me across his lap, wrenching my hands free of the wheel, and suddenly he was in the driver’s seat” (395).

Best Repeated Use of the Abverb ‘fiercely’ in a Dialogue Exchange: page 391

I imagine Stephenie Meyer in 2004, sitting at her writing desk in Arizona, clacking away at the Twilight manuscript. Then, around page 375, she turns slightly to her left and sees a giant lever on the wall, and written under it in blinking red lights is the word “PLOT”. Bemused, she thinks, I’ve never heard of that, and pulls that mysterious lever and we get Chapter 18, in which the book actually gets a story after pages and pages of repression, unhealthy relationships, and drudgery. Which is not to say that the plot is good, only that at least something is happening now.

The three nomadic vampires emerge from the forest around the Cullen’s makeshift baseball diamond, and I couldn’t help but remember this scene from the movie. In the book, these vampires are “dressed in the ordinary gear of backpackers,” and the men both “had cropped hair” (376). In the movie, one of the vampires is black with huge tubular dreadlocks, and all three of them are wearing decidedly non-outdoor clothing. They more look like they’d just stepped out of a trendy music spot in Brooklyn. I guess backpacking vampires just don’t exude menace well on the big screen.

And then Edward makes a really dumb move. Inexplicably, he tells Bella to put her hair down as the vampires come near, ostensibly to hide her, but it’s that luxurious wafting hair that gives her away and apparently lights a fire under the kettle of the tracker’s lust (seriously, Stephenie Meyer, this vampire is designated as a ‘tracker’? Really?). And that emblematic of the whole chapter–it’s a mess of logic and motivation, with the reader left behind. Following the nomad vampires departure, after their promise not to eat anyone in the Cullen’s territory, Edward freaks out, talking about how he saw the tracker’s plan in his head, and that Bella is his target. This is followed by a difficult to follow section with Alice, Emmett, Bella and Edward in the Jeep talking about what needs to happen, how to defeat the tracker, and how they know what they know.

What’s supposed to be the start of the narrative arc falls flat; the chapter is just a mess. Alice knows things that no one else knows, Edward can know things that no one else knows, which necessitates both of them spelling things out in painful exposition, with our protagonist sitting, literally constrained by the seat belts and Emmett’s hands while these characters decide her fate without her input–and the scenes just don’t really go anywhere. At the end, they come to some agreement on how best to protect Bella, but only after Edward’s protracted bout of petulant stupidity, in which he listens to nobody, not even Bella’s demands–”‘There–is–no-other–option!’” (383). Seriously guy, you piss me the hell off.

So Bella is going to Phoenix with Alice and Jasper, and Edward and Emmett are going to stay in Forks and beat the crap out of the tracker.

I know I’m supposed to be excited. But I’m not.

Ben’s End of Chapter Awards

Best Half-Assed Threat: “‘You have to take me back–Charlie will call the FBI!”‘ (381).

Best Inaffectual Attempt to Establish Narrative Momentum: Chapter Eighteen.

Creepy Native American guy drops by with a bag of frying spices and warns Bella to stay away from the Cullens, only to be shocked when he realizes that Bella knows that the guy she’s dating is a blood-craving psychopath and wants to jump his bones anyway. Creepy Native American leaves with a general distrust of Bella’s rational faculties. Charlie the sort-of Dad comes home and Bella finally tells him that she and Edward are a sad little item, and despite his previous attempts to keep Bella at home by unhooking her car battery, Charlie lets Bella get into a souped-up offroading Jeep in the middle of a thunderstorm, despite that fact that only a complete idiot would believe that those kids were actually going to play baseball in that weather.

Oh. Wait. They’re actually playing baseball? The vampires play baseball in the thunder because they make a lot of noise, big boom noises like thunder, hitting the ball and smashing into each other. They play on a field roughly the size of Rhode Island because Emmett and Carlisle can hit the ball halfway to the moon, all the while never breaking the aluminum bat or needing performance enhancing drugs.

There’s a creepy scene in in which Edward convinces Bella to ride on his back through the woods, even though she’s scared of it, by kissing her up her neck, only to then get super pissed at himself when she actually reciprocates the affection. Dude, seriously, you can’t not control yourself, and then get mad because Bella can’t control herself. How did you think this relationship was going to work? Air kisses only work for celebrities and people think they’re European.

While playing the game, Alice the psychic vampire has a vision of other vampires in the area. Edward gets super protective, and the game isn’t fun anymore, and all of them just sit around waiting for these new vampires to show up, like a party when you know that that one jerk is coming over eventually.

Ben’s End of Chapter Awards

Best Subtle Suggestion that Edward May Have a Tiny Penis: “‘This is a…um…big Jeep you have”’ (360).

Best Marketing Strategy To Kick-start the Ailing Raincoat Industry: “Edward stood in the halo of the porch light, looking like a male model in an advertisement for raincoats” (358).

Best ‘Wait, Is George Lucas Actually Writing This?’ Moment: “‘Damn it, Bella!’ he broke off, gasping. ‘You’ll be the death of me, I swear you will” (363).

The Cullen house is interesting to me because each character has their own defined space that in some measure is meant to supplement Meyer’s more overt characterizations. When Edward and Bella enter Carlisle’s office, Bella notes that the “room was how I’d always imagined a college dean’s would look” (335). By contrast, one wall of Edward’s room is “completely covered with shelf after shelf of CDs” (343). Since all of the vampires are immortal, it seems that Meyer is trying to clarify each characters role in the family unit by way of her descriptions of the character’s personal spaces. Carlisle is older, very intelligent, and the head of the household. Therefore, he gets a space that is likened to the office of an intellectual authority figure–his room is filled with art and books, “more books than [Bella'd] ever seen outside a library” (334). Without even talking to him, Bella knows that Carlisle is a towering intellect, well-read, intelligent. In other words, Carlisle is a grown-up.

Edward’s room on the other hand, with it’s lack of books and copious amounts of CDs, brings to mind what a typical teenage room might be like (a room that, I’d imagine, would be more attractive to the novel’s younger target audience). Even though Edward is almost a hundred years old, his room in relation to Carlisle’s paints him very much as a teenager in relation to Carlisle’s adult-ness.

It’s interesting that these eternal, immortal beings would fall so easily into age stereotypes even though they’re all way, way past senior citizen ages. I bet Emmett’s room is full of football equipment, Jasper has a Marilyn Manson bedspread, Alice covers her walls with drawings and sketches, and Rosalie’s room is pink with posters of the Jonas Brothers.

We do learn more about Carlisle, as well. He was so disgusted by what he had become that he actually tried to commit suicide several times. It’s important to remember that Carlisle was turned into a vampire entirely against his will, and, unlike the ones he himself turned, he was not about to die the time of his transformation. And after three hundred years of living off deer, dude gets lonely. And “since he could find a companion, he would create one” (341). But he’s very clear that he doesn’t want to “steal anyone’s life the way his had been stolen” (341). So his rationale is to only turn someone who was going to die anyway.

This question of vampire ethics had been running through the last few posts. Was Carlisle justified in perserving a life of someone who was going to die just because he was lonely? Did he have the right to do that? What if we take into account how unhappy Rosalie is with the transformation? I was hoping for something a little more revealing in Carlisle’s origin story than He Got Lonely.

Ben’s End of Chapter Awards

Best Line to Read in the Voice of the Late Don LaFontaine: “Over the next months his new philosophy was born. He could exist without being a demon. He found himself again” (337).

Best Glossing Over of a Plot That I Would Actually Like to Read: “Because I knew the thoughts of my prey, I could pass over the innocent and pursue only the evil. If I followed a murderer down a dark alley where he stalked a young girl–if I saved her, then surely I wasn’t so terrible” (343).

Best Awkward Suggestion that Edward Needs To Be Feared To Feel Like a Man: page 345.