Reading Twilight So You Don't Have To: Chapter Fourteen
After almost a week and several scalding hot showers, I think I've finally gotten the stench of Chapter Thirteen off me enough to soldier on. And so, I bring you Chapter Fourteen: Mind Over Matter.
On the drive back from the Spectacular Meadow that Pales in Comparison to Edward's Perfectly Perfect Magnificence, they get to talking. Small talk about music (Edwards like 50s music but can't stand 60s or 70s music... and speaks about them all like he was there...), the conversation gets... interesting.
No, really.
We get some of Edward's backstory. He was born in 1901, was an orphan dying of Spanish Influenza, and was saved by Carlisle by getting turned into a vampire. He doesn't explain the process, but says it's painful and difficult. He then goes on to tell how Carlisle brought Esme (his wife), Rosalie, then Emmet. Jasper and Alice were already vampires with souls who wanted to be good, so they joined on their own. There's a bit of a mystery about Alice--she doesn't remember her human life and has no idea how she became a vampire. But she gets "visions," mostly of meeting up with other vampires, and found first Jasper then the Cullen family through them. They move around when they've stayed too long and people get to askin' questions. {Aha! FINALLY an answer to my earlier musings about that. I don't mind the answer coming this late in the tale, but would have been nice if Bella would have questioned it earlier, but she really has no curiosity at all about anything that doesn't relate to how Edward feels about meeeeeeeee...) He mentions that most vampires are nomads, and that they run into them occasionally (::sniff sniff:: Do I smell the hints of an actual plot????), and that most prefer the north because the comparative lack of sunny days helps them not sparkle.
All of this is covered in about six pages. Compare that to the two CHAPTERS of "And then Edward picked me up from school and asked me what color I like best and if I'm a dog or cat person, and then I was despondent because we had to separate to go to class, and then we got all hot and bothered in science class together blah blah blah." I wish there would have been less of that and more about the family. But, as others have pointed out, that isn't about Edward and Bella and their special twu wuv, so six pages is more than plenty. ::sigh::
They get to Bella's house and she actually ::gasp:: invites him in. Oh, here's another no-this-isn't-at-all-creepy-why-do-you-ask? moments:
He reached the door ahead of me and opened it for me. I paused halfway through the frame.
"The door was unlocked?"
"No, I used the key from under the eave."
Once more, he has to show her "I have complete access to you anytime I want. There is nowhere, not even your own house, that you can get away from me." Somehow, I think this is supposed to be romantic, but it gives me the willies.
At least she questions it... sorta:
I stepped inside, flicked on the porch light, and turned to look at him with my eyebrows raised. I was sure I'd never used that key in front of him.
"I was curious about you."
"You spied on me?" But somehow I couldn't infuse my voice with the proper outrage. I was flattered.
Well, yes. I imagine being stalked is very flattering. I mean, someone has made their whole lives All. About. You. Except for the fact that you don't get a say. At ALL.
He was unrepentant. "What else is there to do at night?"
Nick at Night? Some old movies? Bowling? How about anything other than stalking someone?????
Still flattered, she asks him how often he's come by.
"I come here almost every night."
I whirled, stunned. "Why?"
"You're interesting when you sleep." He spoke matter-of-factly. "You talk."
Then she's all embarrassed because she was talking in her sleep and what if I talked about him????? Because what ELSE could possibly be wrong with this scenario?
Finally, he actually feels bad--not about stalking her, but that she's embarrassed he overheard her talk about him in her sleep--and tells her that if he could dream, he'd dream about her and wouldn't be ashamed (awwwwwwwwwww!), and then Charlie's headlights flash in the window and Edward is gone. Man, this sneaking around for no reason whatsoever is tiresome.
She rushes through dinner, tells Charlie she's tired and wants to go to bed, then goes up to her room, breathless. Sure enough, Edward is there. Lying on her bed. So she goes off to slip into something more comfortable (and this being the oh-so-chaste relationship that it is, we're talking sweats and a ratty t-shirt, not anything slinky). There's more sexless sex, with them sitting cheek-to-cheek but not really doing anything. She asks if it's hard to be with her (she's talking about the addicted-to-her-scent thing) and he says it's "mind over matter." Again, the sex metaphors have all the subtlety of a two-by-four to the face. He's such a manly man because, even though he's sooooooooo hot for her hungry for her blood, he can control his urges.
Then there's more blah blah blah about how strong the whole first love thing is for both of them, and how weird it is for him to feel this after so many years. And how surprising it was to feel jealous over Mike and the other suitors.
"For almost ninety years I've walked among my kind, and yours... all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren't alive yet."
Okay, I'm inclined to be a little forgiving because this is new love talking, but man I hate the whole you're-the-only-one-who-completes-me stuff. It's not romantic, it's codependent.
Another interruption as Charlie checks in on her--Edward hides in time, of course, and Bella fakes sleeping--and then he asks if she wants to go to sleep, and she says she can't with him there, so he asks, "So if you don't want to sleep..."
Despite the innuendo, they don't even have sexless sex, she just asks him more about himself. She asks why he bothers to not hunt humans, and he doesn't really answer, just says basically that it's possible to rise above base instincts. There's some more moderately interesting stuff about why he can read minds and Alice can see the future. Carlisle has a theory that human strengths are amplified upon becoming a vampire, so perhaps Edward was sensitive to others and Alice had some sort of precognition. Jasper, it seems, can cause subtle shifts in people's emotions, calming an angry crowd or stirring up a lethargic one. (Again, I smell the vaguest whiff of a plot...)
Oh, Lord. Then we get a quasi Creation vs. Evolution discussion when she asks him how they came to be at all and he theorizes that they could have evolved that way same as humans.
"Or, if you don't believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?"
This bit of Creation Apology brought to you courtesy the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Oh, and then we get to hear about the Vampire Birds and the Bees:
"You said that Rosalie and Emmett will get married soon... Is that... marriage... the same as it is for humans?"
And suddenly I'm reminded of Kiera Knightly in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. "I thought I'd be married by now. I'm so ready to be married." Only, the humor is much more adept in POTC, with Jack Sparrow offering to "marry" her on the spot, what with him being the captain of a ship and all.
Like Jack, Edward catches her drift and says it's much the same, but is clueless enough to ask why she'd want to know and is shocked--SHOCKED I TELL YOU--when she says that she was wondering about the two of them in the future. He doesn't think it's possible because she's so "fragile" and "breakable" and he could crush her if he weren't very, very careful, and gawd, this sounds like a mother explaining sex to a virgin on her wedding night in the Victorian era. "Of course it will be painful, dear, but it's your wifely duty, so just lie back and think of England." ::headwall:: Then we find out they're both virgins and... you know, I kinda like that in most stories, especially with young protagonists, since I don't think minors should be having sex and I don't really want to read about them having sex even in fiction, but it feels so heavy-handed here, so imperative, like their love would be sullied if they'd ever been with anyone else. It's that whole creepy Purity Ball feel, like abstinence isn't about not doing anything you aren't ready to do for you, but about "saving yourself" for your future spouse. Bleh. Then she falls asleep in his arms.
So, after the slime pit that was Chapter Thirteen, this one started out with some promise, but ends with continued (but much less) ickiness. On the upside, Chapter Fifteen is called "The Cullens," so maybe it'll have more backstory and less sexless sex.
I can dream, can't I?
Chapter Fifteen
Quick Links:
Why I'm doing this | Preface & 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 16.2 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Epilogue |
Discussion Questions
On the drive back from the Spectacular Meadow that Pales in Comparison to Edward's Perfectly Perfect Magnificence, they get to talking. Small talk about music (Edwards like 50s music but can't stand 60s or 70s music... and speaks about them all like he was there...), the conversation gets... interesting.
No, really.
We get some of Edward's backstory. He was born in 1901, was an orphan dying of Spanish Influenza, and was saved by Carlisle by getting turned into a vampire. He doesn't explain the process, but says it's painful and difficult. He then goes on to tell how Carlisle brought Esme (his wife), Rosalie, then Emmet. Jasper and Alice were already vampires with souls who wanted to be good, so they joined on their own. There's a bit of a mystery about Alice--she doesn't remember her human life and has no idea how she became a vampire. But she gets "visions," mostly of meeting up with other vampires, and found first Jasper then the Cullen family through them. They move around when they've stayed too long and people get to askin' questions. {Aha! FINALLY an answer to my earlier musings about that. I don't mind the answer coming this late in the tale, but would have been nice if Bella would have questioned it earlier, but she really has no curiosity at all about anything that doesn't relate to how Edward feels about meeeeeeeee...) He mentions that most vampires are nomads, and that they run into them occasionally (::sniff sniff:: Do I smell the hints of an actual plot????), and that most prefer the north because the comparative lack of sunny days helps them not sparkle.
All of this is covered in about six pages. Compare that to the two CHAPTERS of "And then Edward picked me up from school and asked me what color I like best and if I'm a dog or cat person, and then I was despondent because we had to separate to go to class, and then we got all hot and bothered in science class together blah blah blah." I wish there would have been less of that and more about the family. But, as others have pointed out, that isn't about Edward and Bella and their special twu wuv, so six pages is more than plenty. ::sigh::
They get to Bella's house and she actually ::gasp:: invites him in. Oh, here's another no-this-isn't-at-all-creepy-why-do-you-ask? moments:
He reached the door ahead of me and opened it for me. I paused halfway through the frame.
"The door was unlocked?"
"No, I used the key from under the eave."
Once more, he has to show her "I have complete access to you anytime I want. There is nowhere, not even your own house, that you can get away from me." Somehow, I think this is supposed to be romantic, but it gives me the willies.
At least she questions it... sorta:
I stepped inside, flicked on the porch light, and turned to look at him with my eyebrows raised. I was sure I'd never used that key in front of him.
"I was curious about you."
"You spied on me?" But somehow I couldn't infuse my voice with the proper outrage. I was flattered.
Well, yes. I imagine being stalked is very flattering. I mean, someone has made their whole lives All. About. You. Except for the fact that you don't get a say. At ALL.
He was unrepentant. "What else is there to do at night?"
Nick at Night? Some old movies? Bowling? How about anything other than stalking someone?????
Still flattered, she asks him how often he's come by.
"I come here almost every night."
I whirled, stunned. "Why?"
"You're interesting when you sleep." He spoke matter-of-factly. "You talk."
Then she's all embarrassed because she was talking in her sleep and what if I talked about him????? Because what ELSE could possibly be wrong with this scenario?
Finally, he actually feels bad--not about stalking her, but that she's embarrassed he overheard her talk about him in her sleep--and tells her that if he could dream, he'd dream about her and wouldn't be ashamed (awwwwwwwwwww!), and then Charlie's headlights flash in the window and Edward is gone. Man, this sneaking around for no reason whatsoever is tiresome.
She rushes through dinner, tells Charlie she's tired and wants to go to bed, then goes up to her room, breathless. Sure enough, Edward is there. Lying on her bed. So she goes off to slip into something more comfortable (and this being the oh-so-chaste relationship that it is, we're talking sweats and a ratty t-shirt, not anything slinky). There's more sexless sex, with them sitting cheek-to-cheek but not really doing anything. She asks if it's hard to be with her (she's talking about the addicted-to-her-scent thing) and he says it's "mind over matter." Again, the sex metaphors have all the subtlety of a two-by-four to the face. He's such a manly man because, even though he's sooooooooo hot for her hungry for her blood, he can control his urges.
Then there's more blah blah blah about how strong the whole first love thing is for both of them, and how weird it is for him to feel this after so many years. And how surprising it was to feel jealous over Mike and the other suitors.
"For almost ninety years I've walked among my kind, and yours... all the time thinking I was complete in myself, not realizing what I was seeking. And not finding anything, because you weren't alive yet."
Okay, I'm inclined to be a little forgiving because this is new love talking, but man I hate the whole you're-the-only-one-who-completes-me stuff. It's not romantic, it's codependent.
Another interruption as Charlie checks in on her--Edward hides in time, of course, and Bella fakes sleeping--and then he asks if she wants to go to sleep, and she says she can't with him there, so he asks, "So if you don't want to sleep..."
Despite the innuendo, they don't even have sexless sex, she just asks him more about himself. She asks why he bothers to not hunt humans, and he doesn't really answer, just says basically that it's possible to rise above base instincts. There's some more moderately interesting stuff about why he can read minds and Alice can see the future. Carlisle has a theory that human strengths are amplified upon becoming a vampire, so perhaps Edward was sensitive to others and Alice had some sort of precognition. Jasper, it seems, can cause subtle shifts in people's emotions, calming an angry crowd or stirring up a lethargic one. (Again, I smell the vaguest whiff of a plot...)
Oh, Lord. Then we get a quasi Creation vs. Evolution discussion when she asks him how they came to be at all and he theorizes that they could have evolved that way same as humans.
"Or, if you don't believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?"
This bit of Creation Apology brought to you courtesy the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Oh, and then we get to hear about the Vampire Birds and the Bees:
"You said that Rosalie and Emmett will get married soon... Is that... marriage... the same as it is for humans?"
And suddenly I'm reminded of Kiera Knightly in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. "I thought I'd be married by now. I'm so ready to be married." Only, the humor is much more adept in POTC, with Jack Sparrow offering to "marry" her on the spot, what with him being the captain of a ship and all.
Like Jack, Edward catches her drift and says it's much the same, but is clueless enough to ask why she'd want to know and is shocked--SHOCKED I TELL YOU--when she says that she was wondering about the two of them in the future. He doesn't think it's possible because she's so "fragile" and "breakable" and he could crush her if he weren't very, very careful, and gawd, this sounds like a mother explaining sex to a virgin on her wedding night in the Victorian era. "Of course it will be painful, dear, but it's your wifely duty, so just lie back and think of England." ::headwall:: Then we find out they're both virgins and... you know, I kinda like that in most stories, especially with young protagonists, since I don't think minors should be having sex and I don't really want to read about them having sex even in fiction, but it feels so heavy-handed here, so imperative, like their love would be sullied if they'd ever been with anyone else. It's that whole creepy Purity Ball feel, like abstinence isn't about not doing anything you aren't ready to do for you, but about "saving yourself" for your future spouse. Bleh. Then she falls asleep in his arms.
So, after the slime pit that was Chapter Thirteen, this one started out with some promise, but ends with continued (but much less) ickiness. On the upside, Chapter Fifteen is called "The Cullens," so maybe it'll have more backstory and less sexless sex.
I can dream, can't I?
Chapter Fifteen
Quick Links:
Why I'm doing this | Preface & 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 16.2 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Epilogue |
Discussion Questions