January, well here we are back from the three months of nothingness that the book skipped over. As I said last week my complaint isn't that we skipped but how we did so. Just jumping from one period of time to another is usually the way it goes. The useless page turning just infuriated me.
How is our girl now that we are back. Well, she's doing superficially well, she has explained that she is getting all As, rarely serving leftovers, and never getting in trouble. The perfect daughter...which is what she thinks of herself. The chapter opens, after some meaningless monologue about how time tramples forever on no matter who you are, with Charlie telling Bella he is going to send her "home." By "home" he means to her mother's house in Florida. I find that kind of odd because one would think that Charlie would think of Bella's home to be with him, and not to be with the woman who left him with his daughter for some minor league baseball player.
Bella reacts shocked, she wants to stay in Forks but she never explains why. I can guess, though since its obvious, she's hoping that Edward or one of the Cullens will come back and if she's in town they might bump into each other. Charlie, to his credit for once, gets it. First off it's not that Bella is depressed that angers him, it's that she isn't. If she moped as she put it, she would be doing something. Instead, "you're just...lifeless Bella."
Bella insists that she's fine, that she's being good, and that she can handle things. Like all smart ass teenagers, she thinks she knows better than anyone else. Again, Charlie makes sense when he tells her that she's not the only person that's ever gone through this. It's a good point, but useless. I'm sure we've all been dumped before, and it always feels like no one else has ever been through what you've been through. But in truth, it's all the same. Your life won't be complete without them, you'll never find another person, love is a lie, etc. Charlie comments that he is thinking of getting a Bella a shrink.
Bella takes this as an insult. She's too smart to need psychiatry, she'll just keep plodding along like a golem until Edward comes back for her. If there were a Denny's in Forks, she's be the type to be hanging out at it until well past midnight bragging about how stupid her shrink is, and how she's fine. The depression will make her creative or something. She'll be no danger to anyone else, or even herself, but she'll be miserable for her entire life.
Bella doesn't see this problem, "I didn't know much about psychoanalysis, but was pretty sure that it didn't work unless the subject was relatively honest. Sure, I could tell the truth--If I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a padded cell."
This is something that tells a lot about the character, probably more so than we are meant to. At first it may seem confusing why Bella was so upset. It's just a highschool guy, and they are pretty much all douchebags. Then we understand that it's her first boyfriend and he's so far up the ladder from her that she just felt privileged that he even talked to her. When he left, despite the fact that is exactly what she's been telling us he ought to do and that she deserved, she became upset. So was all of her early self-deprecations just that? Possibly, but there's more to the story.
Let's say that she goes to the psychiatrist and talks about what is bothering her, why would she be committed to a padded room (do they still have those?)? But wait blogger person, you reply, it's because she would have to tell the shrink that he was a vampire and that his family was all vampires as well. Ah, I would reply to you, would she?
I've talked to friends about being dumped before, mostly, as a guy, you get told to drink a beer and shut up the game is on. So I don't know what it's like for women, but if why should she have to mention that he's a vampire? It's because it was him, the gorgeous, sociopathic, control freak, stalker, that she was in love with. Couldn't she just be honest about that? Or is there some other reason that she is so upset? The question we should be asking is what she loves more Edward or the Vampire? It seems silly but there is no reason for her to mention is undead nature to the shrink, unless that shrink is going to be asking a lot of oddly specific questions:
Shrink: So did you two eat a lot?
Bella: Not really, he didn't eat much.
Shrink: Watching his weight? You've mentioned repeatedly, at nauseum, how hot you thought he was.
Bella: No more of a drinker really.
The other problem for her is that if she did go to a psychiatrist and talk about the relationship, the shrink might begin to besmirch his good name. Surely a doctor would recognize that he's not the most healthy of boyfriends that she could have. Definitely the psychotherapist is out.
In an effort to explain to Charlie that she's fine, she decides that her and her friends are going to go to a movie tonight and that she won't be back for dinner. Right now she is facing a steep difficulty, she has no fiends. Bella put all her chips in the Cullens' basket and lost. Remember she explained at the beginning of this book that while they all sat together she never spoke to Mike or Jessica unless she had to, that is when Alice and Edward were not in school that day.
Mike is basically our lost cause guy at this point. His torch bearing for Bella has existed even through his relationship with Jessica at the end of the last book. We also know that Bella works at Mike's family's sporting goods store, I'm sure she shook her money maker to get that position. What the most frustrating thing about the skip in time is how he took the break up. Was he happy, did she notice a repressed smile, or has he grown passed the crush and onto actual concern. Or, as I would like to have done, has he washed his hands of her. "He didn't bother walking me to class anymore."
Good for him.
Jessica is a different case. We got the impression that she was the alpha female in the school before Bella came to town. It's hard to tell because there are about five people, aside the Cullens, that actually attend this high school. Bart Simpson's class room has more recognizable names in it than this place has students. Jessica, to her credit actually gives her some shit. "Are you talking to me Bella Swan?"
The interesting part of the Jessica situation is that she resists at first, but then sighs and relents. Maybe that's normal for teenage girls, I don't really know, but it's an actual nice touch. Jessica may actually think that Bella wants to be her friend again, it's too bad that this horrible person is only using Jessica to get her father off her back.
How is our girl now that we are back. Well, she's doing superficially well, she has explained that she is getting all As, rarely serving leftovers, and never getting in trouble. The perfect daughter...which is what she thinks of herself. The chapter opens, after some meaningless monologue about how time tramples forever on no matter who you are, with Charlie telling Bella he is going to send her "home." By "home" he means to her mother's house in Florida. I find that kind of odd because one would think that Charlie would think of Bella's home to be with him, and not to be with the woman who left him with his daughter for some minor league baseball player.
Bella reacts shocked, she wants to stay in Forks but she never explains why. I can guess, though since its obvious, she's hoping that Edward or one of the Cullens will come back and if she's in town they might bump into each other. Charlie, to his credit for once, gets it. First off it's not that Bella is depressed that angers him, it's that she isn't. If she moped as she put it, she would be doing something. Instead, "you're just...lifeless Bella."
Bella insists that she's fine, that she's being good, and that she can handle things. Like all smart ass teenagers, she thinks she knows better than anyone else. Again, Charlie makes sense when he tells her that she's not the only person that's ever gone through this. It's a good point, but useless. I'm sure we've all been dumped before, and it always feels like no one else has ever been through what you've been through. But in truth, it's all the same. Your life won't be complete without them, you'll never find another person, love is a lie, etc. Charlie comments that he is thinking of getting a Bella a shrink.
Bella takes this as an insult. She's too smart to need psychiatry, she'll just keep plodding along like a golem until Edward comes back for her. If there were a Denny's in Forks, she's be the type to be hanging out at it until well past midnight bragging about how stupid her shrink is, and how she's fine. The depression will make her creative or something. She'll be no danger to anyone else, or even herself, but she'll be miserable for her entire life.
Bella doesn't see this problem, "I didn't know much about psychoanalysis, but was pretty sure that it didn't work unless the subject was relatively honest. Sure, I could tell the truth--If I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a padded cell."
This is something that tells a lot about the character, probably more so than we are meant to. At first it may seem confusing why Bella was so upset. It's just a highschool guy, and they are pretty much all douchebags. Then we understand that it's her first boyfriend and he's so far up the ladder from her that she just felt privileged that he even talked to her. When he left, despite the fact that is exactly what she's been telling us he ought to do and that she deserved, she became upset. So was all of her early self-deprecations just that? Possibly, but there's more to the story.
Let's say that she goes to the psychiatrist and talks about what is bothering her, why would she be committed to a padded room (do they still have those?)? But wait blogger person, you reply, it's because she would have to tell the shrink that he was a vampire and that his family was all vampires as well. Ah, I would reply to you, would she?
I've talked to friends about being dumped before, mostly, as a guy, you get told to drink a beer and shut up the game is on. So I don't know what it's like for women, but if why should she have to mention that he's a vampire? It's because it was him, the gorgeous, sociopathic, control freak, stalker, that she was in love with. Couldn't she just be honest about that? Or is there some other reason that she is so upset? The question we should be asking is what she loves more Edward or the Vampire? It seems silly but there is no reason for her to mention is undead nature to the shrink, unless that shrink is going to be asking a lot of oddly specific questions:
Shrink: So did you two eat a lot?
Bella: Not really, he didn't eat much.
Shrink: Watching his weight? You've mentioned repeatedly, at nauseum, how hot you thought he was.
Bella: No more of a drinker really.
The other problem for her is that if she did go to a psychiatrist and talk about the relationship, the shrink might begin to besmirch his good name. Surely a doctor would recognize that he's not the most healthy of boyfriends that she could have. Definitely the psychotherapist is out.
In an effort to explain to Charlie that she's fine, she decides that her and her friends are going to go to a movie tonight and that she won't be back for dinner. Right now she is facing a steep difficulty, she has no fiends. Bella put all her chips in the Cullens' basket and lost. Remember she explained at the beginning of this book that while they all sat together she never spoke to Mike or Jessica unless she had to, that is when Alice and Edward were not in school that day.
Mike is basically our lost cause guy at this point. His torch bearing for Bella has existed even through his relationship with Jessica at the end of the last book. We also know that Bella works at Mike's family's sporting goods store, I'm sure she shook her money maker to get that position. What the most frustrating thing about the skip in time is how he took the break up. Was he happy, did she notice a repressed smile, or has he grown passed the crush and onto actual concern. Or, as I would like to have done, has he washed his hands of her. "He didn't bother walking me to class anymore."
Good for him.
Jessica is a different case. We got the impression that she was the alpha female in the school before Bella came to town. It's hard to tell because there are about five people, aside the Cullens, that actually attend this high school. Bart Simpson's class room has more recognizable names in it than this place has students. Jessica, to her credit actually gives her some shit. "Are you talking to me Bella Swan?"
The interesting part of the Jessica situation is that she resists at first, but then sighs and relents. Maybe that's normal for teenage girls, I don't really know, but it's an actual nice touch. Jessica may actually think that Bella wants to be her friend again, it's too bad that this horrible person is only using Jessica to get her father off her back.
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