With the sun setting, the date is over because apparently Edward has to get inside before the sun goes down. I guess that's unfair since repeatedly he warns Bella to be careful, that there are other dangers aside from him in the woods. It begs the question of why he never mentions it straight, instead hinting cryptically about it. We know, because we've read the prologue, but Bella doesn't. It seems queer that he never spits it out, unless he's referring to his own family. While that makes some sense it still doesn't make enough for his odd muteness on the subject.
After a brief fight over who is going to drive, Bella dazzled from her kiss with Edward can't drive according to him. He takes her home in the truck, he turns the radio to an oldies station and sings along. This amazes Bella because Edward knows all of the words. Which means only one thing: that she's never listened to an oldies station in her life!
This is indicative of nothing. Oldies stations are like Top 40s stations in that they have a predetermined set list, the only difference is that eventually a Top 40 station will phase out some of their music after a time. The other radio station won't, they're run by and for people who think that music attained perfection in the 50s and 60s utterly refusing to update their lists because every album compiled after they were in high school is a mere mockery. Every city has at least one station and their set list is made up of these bands: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Cream, Clapton, Pre-Phil Collins Genesis, Elvis, a slew of One Hit Wonders, and any band who lost a member to a drug overdose but the drug was legal at the time, repeat. The newest song they play is one that Aerosmith did for a movie soundtrack. It's also important to note that they aren't going to be playing obscure songs from those bands either, no B-sides and no early stuff. The Beatles set list is limited solely to the White Album and while you will hear Dazed and Confused by Zeppelin, you only hear "Stairway to Heaven" once a year when they do their obligatory 100 greatest songs of all time. I could sing along to all of this, so it's not a great mystery that Edward can. What's more important to note is that Bella can't. Which means her parents either let her keep control of the radio in the car or they were one of those "staying hip" parents that just come across as desperate.
"Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!" I didn't think that shots at disco were still relevant, but the comment is important because it leads Bella to asking a question I've been dying for her to ask, exactly how old is Edward?
"I was born in Chicago in 1901...Carlisle found me in a hospital in the Summer of 1918. I was seventeen and dying of the Spanish Influenza."
If Edward was born in the earliest of the 20th century then why not have him listen to music from that era? There could be a whole conversation about how he was sitting at the Chicago Opera House listening to the first recordings of Wagner's Ring Cycle or something. I also question the phrase "a hospital" instead of "the hospital." Not for grammatical reasons, but it gives me the impression that Carlisle was just stalking places looking for victims. He wasn't treating Edward, so he just changed him because Edward was dying.
The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 is akin to the Black Plague of the middle ages in that it was one of the factors that led to the end of WWI as so many people were infected with the disease they couldn't fight anymore. Even Woodrow Wilson was infected when he was negotiating the treaty of Versailles. Some estimates put it at 20% of the world's population was infected with the bug. It's a nice touch because it makes Carlisle compassionate, he didn't murder Edward and raise him up like some Necromancer, he saved him from the new plague. Edward is lucky that he was 17 in that a couple months later he would have had to register for the draft and ship out to fight the Kaiser. I wonder if this was a conscious decision by our author, to have Edward skip out on the Great War. It begs another question as well, what did they all do during the drafts for WWII* and Vietnam? Damn draft dodgers.
"I do remember how it felt, when Carlisle saved me. It's not an easy thing, not something you could forget." I'm not going to bitch about the sentiment here, but rather that a few more adjectives and verbs like "shuttered frightfully at the memory" or something would make us not wish there was a description of the method.
Edward was the first of Carlisle's creations. This goes against all impressions I have had of the family pecking order since the beginning of the book. I always thought that Edward was the youngest followed by Alice since she was in his side. The other two Emmet and Rosalie I figured to to be the oldest of the children. The order apparently is this: Edward->Esme->Rosalie->Emmet->Alice & Jasper.
I get that Esme is given more authority since she is Carlisle's wife, but why does Edward act subordinate to the others? In the glade and previously he was always acting as though he was defiant of his superior siblings' authority, but now it appears as though he's second only to the patriarch. This is what should piss off vampire fans, because there is no variance at all in the fact that Vampire hierarchy is determined by age. Edward should go back to being the Hypothetical Cool Vampire I postulated long ago in dealing with his brothers and sisters telling them to piss off when they question his decisions. His mother gets respect, but like the relationship between the Medici's and the non-Medici Popes of the renaissance it should be because of fictional position not actual authority.
We don't know where Carlisle picked up the others specifically. It seems as though they bounce around quite a bit, but why high school? "But the younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in any given place. Forks seemed perfect, so we all enrolled in high school."
Of the two sentences above I believe absolutely none of it save the idea that they are trying to convey information. I think nothing said above makes any sense in the light of a group of people that are trying to hide their true natures from everyone else. Sure youth has to be assumed because of their appearance, but wouldn't they be better off out of a setting where they are forced to interact with people on a close proximity? Edward's blood lust attraction to Bella is a good case for why high school isn't the place for them. Make them college age, where there aren't things like gym where they might have to go outside, no mandatory lunch time so they have to hide the fact that they don't eat, and so they won't be perpetually bored taking the same shit over and over again.
Secondly, how does being young enable them to stay in the same place longer? The only thing that would enable longer durations would be lack of exposure. The fact that they won't visibly age would be apparent in ten years but no one would notice if they weren't in school interacting with the population. If they claimed to be in their 20s, no one would really blink an eye for a long period of time since the aging process is kind of subtle then.
Forks seemed perfect? Even with the werewolves living next door who know exactly what they are. Yeah sounds perfect.
As for enrolling in high school: well I just covered why that's a stupid idea.
The good doctor isn't too bright. The Alaska life is the best idea that he's come up with yet. Too bad he made that along time ago and since then it's just been one downhill slide ever since.
___________________________
*Despite what the "Greatest Generation" would prefer us to forget, a lot of them didn't volunteer for service in WWII.
After a brief fight over who is going to drive, Bella dazzled from her kiss with Edward can't drive according to him. He takes her home in the truck, he turns the radio to an oldies station and sings along. This amazes Bella because Edward knows all of the words. Which means only one thing: that she's never listened to an oldies station in her life!
This is indicative of nothing. Oldies stations are like Top 40s stations in that they have a predetermined set list, the only difference is that eventually a Top 40 station will phase out some of their music after a time. The other radio station won't, they're run by and for people who think that music attained perfection in the 50s and 60s utterly refusing to update their lists because every album compiled after they were in high school is a mere mockery. Every city has at least one station and their set list is made up of these bands: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Cream, Clapton, Pre-Phil Collins Genesis, Elvis, a slew of One Hit Wonders, and any band who lost a member to a drug overdose but the drug was legal at the time, repeat. The newest song they play is one that Aerosmith did for a movie soundtrack. It's also important to note that they aren't going to be playing obscure songs from those bands either, no B-sides and no early stuff. The Beatles set list is limited solely to the White Album and while you will hear Dazed and Confused by Zeppelin, you only hear "Stairway to Heaven" once a year when they do their obligatory 100 greatest songs of all time. I could sing along to all of this, so it's not a great mystery that Edward can. What's more important to note is that Bella can't. Which means her parents either let her keep control of the radio in the car or they were one of those "staying hip" parents that just come across as desperate.
"Music in the fifties was good. Much better than the sixties, or the seventies, ugh!" I didn't think that shots at disco were still relevant, but the comment is important because it leads Bella to asking a question I've been dying for her to ask, exactly how old is Edward?
"I was born in Chicago in 1901...Carlisle found me in a hospital in the Summer of 1918. I was seventeen and dying of the Spanish Influenza."
If Edward was born in the earliest of the 20th century then why not have him listen to music from that era? There could be a whole conversation about how he was sitting at the Chicago Opera House listening to the first recordings of Wagner's Ring Cycle or something. I also question the phrase "a hospital" instead of "the hospital." Not for grammatical reasons, but it gives me the impression that Carlisle was just stalking places looking for victims. He wasn't treating Edward, so he just changed him because Edward was dying.
The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 is akin to the Black Plague of the middle ages in that it was one of the factors that led to the end of WWI as so many people were infected with the disease they couldn't fight anymore. Even Woodrow Wilson was infected when he was negotiating the treaty of Versailles. Some estimates put it at 20% of the world's population was infected with the bug. It's a nice touch because it makes Carlisle compassionate, he didn't murder Edward and raise him up like some Necromancer, he saved him from the new plague. Edward is lucky that he was 17 in that a couple months later he would have had to register for the draft and ship out to fight the Kaiser. I wonder if this was a conscious decision by our author, to have Edward skip out on the Great War. It begs another question as well, what did they all do during the drafts for WWII* and Vietnam? Damn draft dodgers.
"I do remember how it felt, when Carlisle saved me. It's not an easy thing, not something you could forget." I'm not going to bitch about the sentiment here, but rather that a few more adjectives and verbs like "shuttered frightfully at the memory" or something would make us not wish there was a description of the method.
Edward was the first of Carlisle's creations. This goes against all impressions I have had of the family pecking order since the beginning of the book. I always thought that Edward was the youngest followed by Alice since she was in his side. The other two Emmet and Rosalie I figured to to be the oldest of the children. The order apparently is this: Edward->Esme->Rosalie->Emmet->Alice & Jasper.
I get that Esme is given more authority since she is Carlisle's wife, but why does Edward act subordinate to the others? In the glade and previously he was always acting as though he was defiant of his superior siblings' authority, but now it appears as though he's second only to the patriarch. This is what should piss off vampire fans, because there is no variance at all in the fact that Vampire hierarchy is determined by age. Edward should go back to being the Hypothetical Cool Vampire I postulated long ago in dealing with his brothers and sisters telling them to piss off when they question his decisions. His mother gets respect, but like the relationship between the Medici's and the non-Medici Popes of the renaissance it should be because of fictional position not actual authority.
We don't know where Carlisle picked up the others specifically. It seems as though they bounce around quite a bit, but why high school? "But the younger we pretend to be, the longer we can stay in any given place. Forks seemed perfect, so we all enrolled in high school."
Of the two sentences above I believe absolutely none of it save the idea that they are trying to convey information. I think nothing said above makes any sense in the light of a group of people that are trying to hide their true natures from everyone else. Sure youth has to be assumed because of their appearance, but wouldn't they be better off out of a setting where they are forced to interact with people on a close proximity? Edward's blood lust attraction to Bella is a good case for why high school isn't the place for them. Make them college age, where there aren't things like gym where they might have to go outside, no mandatory lunch time so they have to hide the fact that they don't eat, and so they won't be perpetually bored taking the same shit over and over again.
Secondly, how does being young enable them to stay in the same place longer? The only thing that would enable longer durations would be lack of exposure. The fact that they won't visibly age would be apparent in ten years but no one would notice if they weren't in school interacting with the population. If they claimed to be in their 20s, no one would really blink an eye for a long period of time since the aging process is kind of subtle then.
Forks seemed perfect? Even with the werewolves living next door who know exactly what they are. Yeah sounds perfect.
As for enrolling in high school: well I just covered why that's a stupid idea.
The good doctor isn't too bright. The Alaska life is the best idea that he's come up with yet. Too bad he made that along time ago and since then it's just been one downhill slide ever since.
___________________________
*Despite what the "Greatest Generation" would prefer us to forget, a lot of them didn't volunteer for service in WWII.
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