And, we're back...
Before we begin I want to explain the style of this series. The last series was about the first book so we had no prior reference to any of the characters or setting. This book, being a sequel is going to assume that readers already know who is who and have a basic understanding of the type of universe that the story inhabits. I am going along with this, if you are new to this blog then I would suggest clicking on the archive and starting from the beginning to get the feel of what this is about. Also because this is a sequel the temptation is to point out inconsistencies from one book to the next: I'm not going to do that unless they are major. I actually hope that some exist since the main characters were so unlikable to me, that if they act differently or have different point of views this will be an improvement. So unless the vampires can't go out in the daylight all of the sudden or become allergic to garlic, I'm going to skip over it. I'm not that pedantic. Newcomers should also know that I get a bit heavy handed with philosophical/literary references given my academic background. And once more, I do make every attempt to be open minded with these books, I only bring what I know from the last one to this one. I don't have the books out of spite nor do I love them, although I do love writing this despite the toil that it may sometimes present.
Starting from the very beginning of the book, I'm working from the paper back edition copyright 2008. It's got a flower or something on the front that is either dripping with blood or the color is running off of it. I suppose either would work given the subject matter at hand. The first book began with a quote from the Judeo-Christian Bible book Genesis regarding the tree of knowledge, and how eating from it will cause a person to die. In retrospect I should have wrapped the last book with reference to that quote because it doesn't make sense. If I want to be ultra generous I could say that the speaker in the Bible, God I suppose, although that book is usually attributed to Moses* for some odd reason, was speaking metaphorically. It's not that you die, die, but rather that you can't go back to not knowing what you now know. For instance, I really wish I didn't know about the Japanese super hornet but I do, and now I can't go back (seriously these thinks are fucked up). Although I doubt whoever wrote it was in to that kind of subtlety.
The beginning of this book gives us Act II, Scene IV of Romeo and Juliet, "These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume."
It's a nice quote, but I venture to guess that it is out of context. The scene takes place in the cell of the friar who is about to marry Romeo to Juliet in secret. Right there we don't have any context for the quote because the relationship between the two isn't secret at all. Everyone knows that they are going out. I suppose again, we could be generous, as not everyone knows what Edward is. Then again, even that courtesy doesn't work because everyone that matters to Bella knows this. Which means that Edward and his family know.**
We get a further complication because the play "Romeo and Juliet" have about as much to do with people's perception of Romeo and Juliet as "epicurean delight" has to do with "Epicurus." Ask anyone on the street what the play is about, and they'll more than likely say something akin to "two people who fall in love but are from families that don't like each other." Which is about as succinct as it can get and for most people the stress is on the love part. Also most people understand that the play ends tragically but they say it in a most curious manner, that the two committed suicide rather than live apart from each other, which greatly appeals to my humanist side but my intellectual side wants to chide them for this. This isn't the "Love Suicides of Sonezaki," we must remember that the tragic ending comes about because someone couldn't get a messenger out in time because of the plague. Juliet fakes her death, Romeo doesn't get it and kills himself, then Juliet kills herself out of grief. It was no suicide pact. Furthermore the play is really about gang warfare, and Romeo is still a straight thug. Even after being married to Juliet he murders Tybalt for killing Mercutio. It's a vendetta thing forget about it. The point is that even though Romeo was in love with Juliet, despite the fact that he was just as in love with someone else at the beginning of the play, he can't give up the life of a gangster (or Partisan as he would have been called in Renaissance Florence).
I mentioned Epicurus earlier for a reason. The friar isn't talking of love as all consuming, the way we think of it. He's borrowing from an Ancient Greek Philosopher's idea. The friar is talking about how all consuming the fire of desire is, until the achievement of that desire which then completely quenches that fire. So Romeo should wait a bit lest he become tired of the thing that he wanted so the friar continues, "the sweetest honey is loathesome in his own delicoiousness, and in the taste confounds the appetite: therefore love moderately; love long doth so; too swift arrives as tardy as too slow." Romeo should slow down his plans. Epicurus believed that artificial pleasures, love, sex etc. were so intense in their desire that a person would strive for them at any cost, but their resolution was often so hollow and fleeting and the consequences so dire that these sorts of desires were to be cast off.
I like the sentiment, but I don't like it here. Bella is already past that point by the end of Twilight. She's too in love with Edward, as we have seen, she can't make rational decisions about him. I'm not sure what this quote is doing here, maybe Meyer will justify it.
There's a prologue, shit.
We're actually want to skip an in depth analysis of the prologue. For two reasons, one: this seems to be Meyer's technique. She's going to start the book in the middle of the action and then tell the story from well before that point. The only trouble with it, is that it didn't work in the previous book, she was not of the caliber of "The Usual Suspects" or "Fallen," maybe she's improved but we can't know right now. Second, by doing this now, I effectively ruin the entire book until we hit that point. My reviewing will wonder what she's talking about and why. Furthermore I risk making generalizations here that will be proven false later and it won't be anyone's fault. Although the reasoning for wanting to skip there is why people put prefaces in their books in the first place, so I really can't skip it can I?
"With relentless, uncaring force, they turned inexorably, toward the end--the end of all things" Someone got better Mrs. Meyer. Bella is talking about her perception of time, and how no matter what her perception is the hands of a giant clock still click ahead at the same rate. It's really well done here, in fact so much so that I have hope of this book. Danger is established, but we kind of knew that was going to be the case going in, but there's also a sense of panic. This preface actually works better than the last one because at least here we don't have the false sense of death for the protagonist (we really can't say "hero").
We expect Edward to be with her but "Alice had said there was a good chance that we would both die here."
I'm glad Alice has returned, easily my favorite character in the first book because writing a character with the ability of foresight is a tricky thing, and giving her a happy personality is unique. The death thing isn't contradictory to what I said before since Alice herself has made mistakes previously, but those mistakes were on her interpretation not on some lame tricking fate kind of thing. She's trapped by the sun because she can't go out in it lest she reveal herself as the undead. So Bella has to do whatever it is she's running toward. I've said it before, Meyer can establish both mood and setting and the preface does my opinion justice. Hopefully she's cleaned up her characters too.
We can only hope...
_______________________
*Which is odd because he wouldn't have any knowledge of the events of creation first hand, the Egyptians are already the dominating force in the world at the time which means that they've existed for centuries prior to the events of Exodus. Why don't the bible-literalists ever teach that controversy?
**You would have to read the entire series from the beginning to understand why I am saying this. The short of it is that no one matters to Bella but Edward, that includes her father Charlie.
Before we begin I want to explain the style of this series. The last series was about the first book so we had no prior reference to any of the characters or setting. This book, being a sequel is going to assume that readers already know who is who and have a basic understanding of the type of universe that the story inhabits. I am going along with this, if you are new to this blog then I would suggest clicking on the archive and starting from the beginning to get the feel of what this is about. Also because this is a sequel the temptation is to point out inconsistencies from one book to the next: I'm not going to do that unless they are major. I actually hope that some exist since the main characters were so unlikable to me, that if they act differently or have different point of views this will be an improvement. So unless the vampires can't go out in the daylight all of the sudden or become allergic to garlic, I'm going to skip over it. I'm not that pedantic. Newcomers should also know that I get a bit heavy handed with philosophical/literary references given my academic background. And once more, I do make every attempt to be open minded with these books, I only bring what I know from the last one to this one. I don't have the books out of spite nor do I love them, although I do love writing this despite the toil that it may sometimes present.
Starting from the very beginning of the book, I'm working from the paper back edition copyright 2008. It's got a flower or something on the front that is either dripping with blood or the color is running off of it. I suppose either would work given the subject matter at hand. The first book began with a quote from the Judeo-Christian Bible book Genesis regarding the tree of knowledge, and how eating from it will cause a person to die. In retrospect I should have wrapped the last book with reference to that quote because it doesn't make sense. If I want to be ultra generous I could say that the speaker in the Bible, God I suppose, although that book is usually attributed to Moses* for some odd reason, was speaking metaphorically. It's not that you die, die, but rather that you can't go back to not knowing what you now know. For instance, I really wish I didn't know about the Japanese super hornet but I do, and now I can't go back (seriously these thinks are fucked up). Although I doubt whoever wrote it was in to that kind of subtlety.
The beginning of this book gives us Act II, Scene IV of Romeo and Juliet, "These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which, as they kiss, consume."
It's a nice quote, but I venture to guess that it is out of context. The scene takes place in the cell of the friar who is about to marry Romeo to Juliet in secret. Right there we don't have any context for the quote because the relationship between the two isn't secret at all. Everyone knows that they are going out. I suppose again, we could be generous, as not everyone knows what Edward is. Then again, even that courtesy doesn't work because everyone that matters to Bella knows this. Which means that Edward and his family know.**
We get a further complication because the play "Romeo and Juliet" have about as much to do with people's perception of Romeo and Juliet as "epicurean delight" has to do with "Epicurus." Ask anyone on the street what the play is about, and they'll more than likely say something akin to "two people who fall in love but are from families that don't like each other." Which is about as succinct as it can get and for most people the stress is on the love part. Also most people understand that the play ends tragically but they say it in a most curious manner, that the two committed suicide rather than live apart from each other, which greatly appeals to my humanist side but my intellectual side wants to chide them for this. This isn't the "Love Suicides of Sonezaki," we must remember that the tragic ending comes about because someone couldn't get a messenger out in time because of the plague. Juliet fakes her death, Romeo doesn't get it and kills himself, then Juliet kills herself out of grief. It was no suicide pact. Furthermore the play is really about gang warfare, and Romeo is still a straight thug. Even after being married to Juliet he murders Tybalt for killing Mercutio. It's a vendetta thing forget about it. The point is that even though Romeo was in love with Juliet, despite the fact that he was just as in love with someone else at the beginning of the play, he can't give up the life of a gangster (or Partisan as he would have been called in Renaissance Florence).
I mentioned Epicurus earlier for a reason. The friar isn't talking of love as all consuming, the way we think of it. He's borrowing from an Ancient Greek Philosopher's idea. The friar is talking about how all consuming the fire of desire is, until the achievement of that desire which then completely quenches that fire. So Romeo should wait a bit lest he become tired of the thing that he wanted so the friar continues, "the sweetest honey is loathesome in his own delicoiousness, and in the taste confounds the appetite: therefore love moderately; love long doth so; too swift arrives as tardy as too slow." Romeo should slow down his plans. Epicurus believed that artificial pleasures, love, sex etc. were so intense in their desire that a person would strive for them at any cost, but their resolution was often so hollow and fleeting and the consequences so dire that these sorts of desires were to be cast off.
I like the sentiment, but I don't like it here. Bella is already past that point by the end of Twilight. She's too in love with Edward, as we have seen, she can't make rational decisions about him. I'm not sure what this quote is doing here, maybe Meyer will justify it.
There's a prologue, shit.
We're actually want to skip an in depth analysis of the prologue. For two reasons, one: this seems to be Meyer's technique. She's going to start the book in the middle of the action and then tell the story from well before that point. The only trouble with it, is that it didn't work in the previous book, she was not of the caliber of "The Usual Suspects" or "Fallen," maybe she's improved but we can't know right now. Second, by doing this now, I effectively ruin the entire book until we hit that point. My reviewing will wonder what she's talking about and why. Furthermore I risk making generalizations here that will be proven false later and it won't be anyone's fault. Although the reasoning for wanting to skip there is why people put prefaces in their books in the first place, so I really can't skip it can I?
"With relentless, uncaring force, they turned inexorably, toward the end--the end of all things" Someone got better Mrs. Meyer. Bella is talking about her perception of time, and how no matter what her perception is the hands of a giant clock still click ahead at the same rate. It's really well done here, in fact so much so that I have hope of this book. Danger is established, but we kind of knew that was going to be the case going in, but there's also a sense of panic. This preface actually works better than the last one because at least here we don't have the false sense of death for the protagonist (we really can't say "hero").
We expect Edward to be with her but "Alice had said there was a good chance that we would both die here."
I'm glad Alice has returned, easily my favorite character in the first book because writing a character with the ability of foresight is a tricky thing, and giving her a happy personality is unique. The death thing isn't contradictory to what I said before since Alice herself has made mistakes previously, but those mistakes were on her interpretation not on some lame tricking fate kind of thing. She's trapped by the sun because she can't go out in it lest she reveal herself as the undead. So Bella has to do whatever it is she's running toward. I've said it before, Meyer can establish both mood and setting and the preface does my opinion justice. Hopefully she's cleaned up her characters too.
We can only hope...
_______________________
*Which is odd because he wouldn't have any knowledge of the events of creation first hand, the Egyptians are already the dominating force in the world at the time which means that they've existed for centuries prior to the events of Exodus. Why don't the bible-literalists ever teach that controversy?
**You would have to read the entire series from the beginning to understand why I am saying this. The short of it is that no one matters to Bella but Edward, that includes her father Charlie.
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