The concept of foreshadowing is a really simple one. You subtly hint at something to come and then later when you actually arrive at it the reader (or viewer) is supposed to think to themselves, "oh wait I remember this from before." The thing about foreshadowing is the subtlety. Subtlety is not a word I would use to describe anything in this book, especially with regard to future events. Certain things are so obvious that it's really hard to buy into the tension. Instead our only thought is, when and not if. Good foreshadowing should always play on some level of doubt.
All of that is, of course, stepping toward our second big reveal in the series. That Jacob is not as he seems. Which is too bad because in this book, he's probably the best written of the characters. A shy, unsure of himself, 16 year old who happens to be really good at fixing mechanical things, in this case, motorcycles. In fact he's so good that he's already fixed the two that Bella brought to him. This is odd for the reason of the quickness that he fixed them.
It was four weeks ago, in blog postings that Bella brought Jacob the bikes. In story time it's been a week or two. We haven't had any transitions of time but instead have plodded along with Bella as she details the minutiae of her life. Being generous we could say that it's been two weeks: now on its own that amount of time isn't anything special. I assume that a decent mechanic can fix two motorcycles in two weeks. The problem is that one of these bikes isn't average and Jake was talking about how they would have to order special parts to fix them, expensive parts.* I wouldn't mention it normally, but it was stressed by our author that the parts were going to be a difficulty. Remember Bella wanted to use her college money, Jake didn't want to charge her, it was a bulwark of this burgeoning relationship. Now, though? It's all forgotten, Jake used his magic native powers to fix the bike.
Some bullshit with Charlie and Bella is riding in the truck with Jacob talking about how great he is, and how great she feels around him. Not to him of course, but to us. What this means to me is that he has been relegated to "friend" territory only he doesn't know it yet. He's not Mike, and Bella has yet to make up anything about him to dislike him. The way she treats him, more like a puppy, is all we need to know. On the way Bella sees someone dive off a cliff and it understandably panics her.
Jacob on the other hand laughs. Which leads Bella to think he was callous. Which leads me to think she doesn't know what callous means. A callous person would either ignore her comment or ask her why she should care. Laughing is more Arthur Schopenhauer territory, to laugh at the mention of death is often our first reaction he once said. Jacob explains that they are "cliff diving," and suddenly Bella wants to go. My question is, isn't it still January? Did we skip forward a couple of months without anyone knowing? It would make sense if we did but we have no indication that it happened.
Bella relents after feeling a glacier breeze or something like that on her, which again leads me to believe that, yes, we are still in January. Continuity is becoming the biggest chore in reading this book.
Who are they? "The La Push Gang."
The reservation has a gang. I'm not going to quibble on that point, if it's not a reflection of reality it's not absurd for a bunch of people united in common heritage to form some sort of group within the reservation. They're a good gang though, "they're all about our land, and tribe, and pride...it's getting ridiculous." Jacob describes one incident where the gang ran off a meth dealer. The leader's name is Sam Uley and he's kind of a dick.
The mention of his name triggers a memory in Bella, "a trio of tall, dark men standing very still and close together in my father's living room...had that been Sam's gang?"
This must have been from when she went to sleep in the woods after Edward dumped her and Charlie called anyone he could to help find her. Why she's making this connection now is a question I can't answer. I also deplore the detail of, "standing very still." I guess we are supposed to read this as being threatening or ominious but isn't this the exact same way that Edward used to watch her sleep? Furthermore the three, whoever they were, were also trying to make sure that she was ok as they were literally tasked with looking for her.
There's more going on here with the gang. One of Jacob's absurdly named friends, "Embry" is now a member of the gang. The way it played out was that one day Embry didn't show up at school and this continued for two weeks. When he returned he looked shocked, but then quickly joined up with the Sam's group. Again we have a time issue, but this may clear it up. Embry had to be gone for two weeks, so it must have been two weeks since we last saw him. However, now we have to make enough time for Jacob to notice that Embry has completely divorced himself from Jacob and Quil. That should take a week or so, given that the first few couple of days could be chalked up to Embry getting over whatever it is happened to him. Three weeks is enough time of the bikes, the parts, and perhaps the weather to warm up to pass the freezing point, but I shouldn't have to do this much work to figure out that we are in mid February. Non-essential plot details like time can be told to the reader since we only need them for reference.
Jake doesn't like the gang, because they are apparently shown deference in council meetings, just like Jake's father. We run into a tragically consistent pattern here with Jacob. In this book and the last, I commented that the more Meyer writes about a character the less I tend to like them. Every detail added to Edward's personality made me dislike him less and less until I just downright hated him, same with Bella. Jake suffers the same fate which is too bad because he seemed like such a nice kid.
Jake hates the La Push Gang because they are shown some favoritism and no one shows him any. Ok, jealousy, not a good trait but a realistic one. Then you consider that he's 16 and it makes it more forgivable. Then literally the next paragraph he comments that what annoys him the most is that Sam and the gang are now showing Jake a level of respect that they don't show anyone else. Which is it Jake? You either want the respect Sam and your father get, or you don't. Because you can't hate it both ways.
We then find out that Embry was on the cliffs a second ago, but no one thought to mention it earlier. That's just bad writing, either make it a point or don't, but don't throw it into the story and then leave it.
Bella, for once does a good job comforting him and in a rare well done scene Jake twists a momentary expression of anger into some casual flirting. Telling her that he'll freak out more often if it means she's going to hug him more. Bella as usual ignores it but moves on to describing her relationship with Jacob, "I didn't relate to people, so easily, on such a basic level.--Not human beings."
We know that she means Edward. In reality though, she didn't relate to him either. Unless you count master (him)/slave (her) as a basic level. On the other hand this is the sort of messy foreshadowing that I mentioned earlier. Of course she relates to Jacob but not anyone else, Jacob isn't human. If there is such a thing as an "obvious hammer" it must be worn down to a nub with this book.
_________________
*Not in reality though, most of the parts were about fifty bucks on ebay.
All of that is, of course, stepping toward our second big reveal in the series. That Jacob is not as he seems. Which is too bad because in this book, he's probably the best written of the characters. A shy, unsure of himself, 16 year old who happens to be really good at fixing mechanical things, in this case, motorcycles. In fact he's so good that he's already fixed the two that Bella brought to him. This is odd for the reason of the quickness that he fixed them.
It was four weeks ago, in blog postings that Bella brought Jacob the bikes. In story time it's been a week or two. We haven't had any transitions of time but instead have plodded along with Bella as she details the minutiae of her life. Being generous we could say that it's been two weeks: now on its own that amount of time isn't anything special. I assume that a decent mechanic can fix two motorcycles in two weeks. The problem is that one of these bikes isn't average and Jake was talking about how they would have to order special parts to fix them, expensive parts.* I wouldn't mention it normally, but it was stressed by our author that the parts were going to be a difficulty. Remember Bella wanted to use her college money, Jake didn't want to charge her, it was a bulwark of this burgeoning relationship. Now, though? It's all forgotten, Jake used his magic native powers to fix the bike.
Some bullshit with Charlie and Bella is riding in the truck with Jacob talking about how great he is, and how great she feels around him. Not to him of course, but to us. What this means to me is that he has been relegated to "friend" territory only he doesn't know it yet. He's not Mike, and Bella has yet to make up anything about him to dislike him. The way she treats him, more like a puppy, is all we need to know. On the way Bella sees someone dive off a cliff and it understandably panics her.
Jacob on the other hand laughs. Which leads Bella to think he was callous. Which leads me to think she doesn't know what callous means. A callous person would either ignore her comment or ask her why she should care. Laughing is more Arthur Schopenhauer territory, to laugh at the mention of death is often our first reaction he once said. Jacob explains that they are "cliff diving," and suddenly Bella wants to go. My question is, isn't it still January? Did we skip forward a couple of months without anyone knowing? It would make sense if we did but we have no indication that it happened.
Bella relents after feeling a glacier breeze or something like that on her, which again leads me to believe that, yes, we are still in January. Continuity is becoming the biggest chore in reading this book.
Who are they? "The La Push Gang."
The reservation has a gang. I'm not going to quibble on that point, if it's not a reflection of reality it's not absurd for a bunch of people united in common heritage to form some sort of group within the reservation. They're a good gang though, "they're all about our land, and tribe, and pride...it's getting ridiculous." Jacob describes one incident where the gang ran off a meth dealer. The leader's name is Sam Uley and he's kind of a dick.
The mention of his name triggers a memory in Bella, "a trio of tall, dark men standing very still and close together in my father's living room...had that been Sam's gang?"
This must have been from when she went to sleep in the woods after Edward dumped her and Charlie called anyone he could to help find her. Why she's making this connection now is a question I can't answer. I also deplore the detail of, "standing very still." I guess we are supposed to read this as being threatening or ominious but isn't this the exact same way that Edward used to watch her sleep? Furthermore the three, whoever they were, were also trying to make sure that she was ok as they were literally tasked with looking for her.
There's more going on here with the gang. One of Jacob's absurdly named friends, "Embry" is now a member of the gang. The way it played out was that one day Embry didn't show up at school and this continued for two weeks. When he returned he looked shocked, but then quickly joined up with the Sam's group. Again we have a time issue, but this may clear it up. Embry had to be gone for two weeks, so it must have been two weeks since we last saw him. However, now we have to make enough time for Jacob to notice that Embry has completely divorced himself from Jacob and Quil. That should take a week or so, given that the first few couple of days could be chalked up to Embry getting over whatever it is happened to him. Three weeks is enough time of the bikes, the parts, and perhaps the weather to warm up to pass the freezing point, but I shouldn't have to do this much work to figure out that we are in mid February. Non-essential plot details like time can be told to the reader since we only need them for reference.
Jake doesn't like the gang, because they are apparently shown deference in council meetings, just like Jake's father. We run into a tragically consistent pattern here with Jacob. In this book and the last, I commented that the more Meyer writes about a character the less I tend to like them. Every detail added to Edward's personality made me dislike him less and less until I just downright hated him, same with Bella. Jake suffers the same fate which is too bad because he seemed like such a nice kid.
Jake hates the La Push Gang because they are shown some favoritism and no one shows him any. Ok, jealousy, not a good trait but a realistic one. Then you consider that he's 16 and it makes it more forgivable. Then literally the next paragraph he comments that what annoys him the most is that Sam and the gang are now showing Jake a level of respect that they don't show anyone else. Which is it Jake? You either want the respect Sam and your father get, or you don't. Because you can't hate it both ways.
We then find out that Embry was on the cliffs a second ago, but no one thought to mention it earlier. That's just bad writing, either make it a point or don't, but don't throw it into the story and then leave it.
Bella, for once does a good job comforting him and in a rare well done scene Jake twists a momentary expression of anger into some casual flirting. Telling her that he'll freak out more often if it means she's going to hug him more. Bella as usual ignores it but moves on to describing her relationship with Jacob, "I didn't relate to people, so easily, on such a basic level.--Not human beings."
We know that she means Edward. In reality though, she didn't relate to him either. Unless you count master (him)/slave (her) as a basic level. On the other hand this is the sort of messy foreshadowing that I mentioned earlier. Of course she relates to Jacob but not anyone else, Jacob isn't human. If there is such a thing as an "obvious hammer" it must be worn down to a nub with this book.
_________________
*Not in reality though, most of the parts were about fifty bucks on ebay.
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