Reading Twilight So You Don't Have To: Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Angel
::SNORT:: Okay, right off the bat I'm dying. Angel? As in, the previous Most Annoying Lovesick Emo Vampire before Edward?
And now, moving past the title... I think I'm going to hurl. Bella is in shock, drifting in something like a dreamlike state.
And then I knew I was dead.
Because, through the heavy [metaphorical] water, I heard the sound of an angel calling my name, calling me to the only heaven I wanted.
Any doubt whom she means? Hand me a barf bag, please.
It's sad, too, because she's FINALLY got the concept of First Person Narrative here. She's telling the story from Bella's actual point of view, so it's disjointed and dreamlike. I love this technique. I've used it myself for similar scenarios, where the POV character is under a spell or mind-controlled or otherwise not in touch with reality.
But then she botches it with more of that purple over-done romantic prose. BLECH. She keeps referring to "the angel" (who has a "perfect voice," in case the two-by-four didn't quite drive home who this is).
Then the dreamlike thing she's going for gets annoying because she's also trying to put too much detail into it. Edward and Carlisle and Alice are there. (Oooh, quelle surprise! Alice knew where to find Bella! Who would have guessed THAT was the vision of Bella she had in the last chapter??????) Bella has broken her leg, has a head wound, and feels like her hand is on fire, because Tracker James (who, I'm assuming, is dead-dead now instead of just undead, or Edward and family wouldn't be able to hover over Bella) bit her hand and the pain she's feeling is the vampire venom. Which, we learned in chapter twenty, means either Bella's dead or will turn into a vampire. Which.... why is that a bad thing in this case? In the Whedonverse, it would be a Very Bad Thing to get vamped, and understandably so. But here, with the Cullens happy little vegetarian clan, why would it be so awful? (And--spoiler alert--it does happen eventually, that much I know from the synopses I've read of the later books. Oh, wait, now I know. No babies if she's vamped now.)
But anyway, Edward is freaking out because Bella is dying and might turn into a vampire before caring and giving birth to his vampire baby, so Carlisle tells him he might be able to suck the venom out. Doesn't work with snakes, which you think desert rat Stephanie Meyer would know, but what the heck.
Another reference to Edward's perfect face.... check. He's torn, not because of any issues about saving Bella vs. vamping Bella, but because he doesn't think he'll be able to stop once he starts sucking the blood on her hand. Carlisle can't do it because he's tending to the head wound, and Alice... why can't Alice do it? Because then we wouldn't have the tension of OMG WILL HE BE ABLE TO RESIST HER LUSCIOUS BLOOD IF HE STARTS SUCKING ON IT??? Except, that's an external reason. None internal to the story is given. We're just to accept, apparently, that it must be Edward. (Ooh, maybe she doesn't need to disqualify Alice because Alice is a girl, and everybody knows that God made Adam and Eve, not Madame and Eve!)
So Edward sucks the venom out, and he's able to stop in time, and Bella drifts off into a morphine-induced sleep.
That was our big climax, folks. Where we don't get to see the fight between the Cullens and James and there is absolutely no surprise or tension whatsoever because for all his griping about how irresistible Bella is, we don't even get a struggle of him trying to stop drinking her blood when the venom is out. He just stops, the "fire" in Bella's hand goes away, and off to dreamland she goes.
There's a metaphor in here somewhere about Stephanie Meyer's concept of climax, but I'd rather not.
Chapter Twenty-Four
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
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Angel
::SNORT:: Okay, right off the bat I'm dying. Angel? As in, the previous Most Annoying Lovesick Emo Vampire before Edward?
And now, moving past the title... I think I'm going to hurl. Bella is in shock, drifting in something like a dreamlike state.
And then I knew I was dead.
Because, through the heavy [metaphorical] water, I heard the sound of an angel calling my name, calling me to the only heaven I wanted.
Any doubt whom she means? Hand me a barf bag, please.
It's sad, too, because she's FINALLY got the concept of First Person Narrative here. She's telling the story from Bella's actual point of view, so it's disjointed and dreamlike. I love this technique. I've used it myself for similar scenarios, where the POV character is under a spell or mind-controlled or otherwise not in touch with reality.
But then she botches it with more of that purple over-done romantic prose. BLECH. She keeps referring to "the angel" (who has a "perfect voice," in case the two-by-four didn't quite drive home who this is).
Then the dreamlike thing she's going for gets annoying because she's also trying to put too much detail into it. Edward and Carlisle and Alice are there. (Oooh, quelle surprise! Alice knew where to find Bella! Who would have guessed THAT was the vision of Bella she had in the last chapter??????) Bella has broken her leg, has a head wound, and feels like her hand is on fire, because Tracker James (who, I'm assuming, is dead-dead now instead of just undead, or Edward and family wouldn't be able to hover over Bella) bit her hand and the pain she's feeling is the vampire venom. Which, we learned in chapter twenty, means either Bella's dead or will turn into a vampire. Which.... why is that a bad thing in this case? In the Whedonverse, it would be a Very Bad Thing to get vamped, and understandably so. But here, with the Cullens happy little vegetarian clan, why would it be so awful? (And--spoiler alert--it does happen eventually, that much I know from the synopses I've read of the later books. Oh, wait, now I know. No babies if she's vamped now.)
But anyway, Edward is freaking out because Bella is dying and might turn into a vampire before caring and giving birth to his vampire baby, so Carlisle tells him he might be able to suck the venom out. Doesn't work with snakes, which you think desert rat Stephanie Meyer would know, but what the heck.
Another reference to Edward's perfect face.... check. He's torn, not because of any issues about saving Bella vs. vamping Bella, but because he doesn't think he'll be able to stop once he starts sucking the blood on her hand. Carlisle can't do it because he's tending to the head wound, and Alice... why can't Alice do it? Because then we wouldn't have the tension of OMG WILL HE BE ABLE TO RESIST HER LUSCIOUS BLOOD IF HE STARTS SUCKING ON IT??? Except, that's an external reason. None internal to the story is given. We're just to accept, apparently, that it must be Edward. (Ooh, maybe she doesn't need to disqualify Alice because Alice is a girl, and everybody knows that God made Adam and Eve, not Madame and Eve!)
So Edward sucks the venom out, and he's able to stop in time, and Bella drifts off into a morphine-induced sleep.
That was our big climax, folks. Where we don't get to see the fight between the Cullens and James and there is absolutely no surprise or tension whatsoever because for all his griping about how irresistible Bella is, we don't even get a struggle of him trying to stop drinking her blood when the venom is out. He just stops, the "fire" in Bella's hand goes away, and off to dreamland she goes.
There's a metaphor in here somewhere about Stephanie Meyer's concept of climax, but I'd rather not.
Chapter Twenty-Four
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