We're back after a week off due to a sudden illness of sorts. We're not exactly moving forward in the plot because there is a device that our author is using that bothered me at first and in the latest encounter with the wolves really drives me nuts. It's the disembodied voice of Edward that Bella is hearing in her mind which is warning her to stay out of danger and giving her advice when she's actually in danger.
We can turn to that perennial source of wisdom for people of my generation and younger, "The Simpsons." In the eighth season there was an episode titled "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer" or "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer," in which after eating some Gautemalan Insanity Peppers Homer hallucinates and is directed by a talking coyote voiced by Johnny Cash to find his soul mate. After waking up Homer hears the voice again and he tries to ask it a question. The voice replies, "I'm just your memory I can't give you any new information."
The parallel here is that the voice that Bella hears in her head of Edward can only be her memory. With that being stated, it is utterly impossible that this phenomenon can be giving her new advice. To be generous to the author, which is getting increasingly difficult lately, we can forgive his advice regarding two events of importance to the "plot." I'm hesitant to even make that claim because as we learned from the previous book the plot will take four hundred pages before we become aware of it and then it will dispense with itself in fifty.
These two instances are the motorcycle and the encounter with Laurent. If we accept that the voice she hears is merely her subconscious mind, or something similar, then it's easy to explain these two scenarios. She's putting herself in obvious danger and her brain is trying to tell her that she ought not to do that by summoning the only voice that she actually listens to. Which is pretty messed up, but at least consistent because she never hears the voice when she has been around Edward who is a much greater source of danger given everything we know of him...and that doesn't count the fact that he's some sort of vampire. In each case it's also new danger that she hears the voice, something she's never encountered while alone. This theory makes sense when we also note that in the other time that she rode the motorcycle it didn't appear. No voice because part of her is recognizing that the danger is no longer being perceived. It also explains why she heard it with Laurent, as she was around Laurent when he first appeared and when Laurent was feral. When Laurent reappears he presents the same danger as before.
What can't be explained is how the voice told her what to do around the large wolves. Danger, yes, that is perhaps why it appeared. What it said though cannot be explained without going outside of the story or violating yet another rule that the series has thus far established. Bella couldn't know how to act around the wolves (or, who are we kidding werewolves), so her subconscious couldn't know either. The only other explanation is that the voice is Edward's telepathically.
This explanation, if true, will make me give up reading these books. It's been established that Bella's brain doesn't work on the same frequency as other brains so Edward's special power of reading minds doesn't work. Maybe generous readers, fangirls, will give an explanation that communication and reading are two different things: if that's the case then how does he know she's in danger? Is he standing right there? Again, if that's the case the werewolves would have scented him or more importantly, what was he waiting for Laurent to strangle her?
My ability to suspend disbelief is being quite strained in this book already and this will be the last straw if it turns out to be actually Edward. So far we've had a number of established and then broken rules in this book. The vampires shine in sunlight but have no problem walking through crowded airports in the middle of the day in Arizona, vampirism gives special powers but Alice was psychic prior to being a vampire, saliva turns people into vampires but Bella and Edward have no trouble kissing, etc. It's not making sense and is really relegating certain elements of the story to being utterly arbitrary.
Which really leads us to threading the eye between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand we have a memory that can give new advice while on the other we have telepathic communication which violates a pretty important rule of the books so far: Bella's oh so specialness. Either case it's not looking good for the future.
Back to the plot next week.
We can turn to that perennial source of wisdom for people of my generation and younger, "The Simpsons." In the eighth season there was an episode titled "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer" or "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer," in which after eating some Gautemalan Insanity Peppers Homer hallucinates and is directed by a talking coyote voiced by Johnny Cash to find his soul mate. After waking up Homer hears the voice again and he tries to ask it a question. The voice replies, "I'm just your memory I can't give you any new information."
The parallel here is that the voice that Bella hears in her head of Edward can only be her memory. With that being stated, it is utterly impossible that this phenomenon can be giving her new advice. To be generous to the author, which is getting increasingly difficult lately, we can forgive his advice regarding two events of importance to the "plot." I'm hesitant to even make that claim because as we learned from the previous book the plot will take four hundred pages before we become aware of it and then it will dispense with itself in fifty.
These two instances are the motorcycle and the encounter with Laurent. If we accept that the voice she hears is merely her subconscious mind, or something similar, then it's easy to explain these two scenarios. She's putting herself in obvious danger and her brain is trying to tell her that she ought not to do that by summoning the only voice that she actually listens to. Which is pretty messed up, but at least consistent because she never hears the voice when she has been around Edward who is a much greater source of danger given everything we know of him...and that doesn't count the fact that he's some sort of vampire. In each case it's also new danger that she hears the voice, something she's never encountered while alone. This theory makes sense when we also note that in the other time that she rode the motorcycle it didn't appear. No voice because part of her is recognizing that the danger is no longer being perceived. It also explains why she heard it with Laurent, as she was around Laurent when he first appeared and when Laurent was feral. When Laurent reappears he presents the same danger as before.
What can't be explained is how the voice told her what to do around the large wolves. Danger, yes, that is perhaps why it appeared. What it said though cannot be explained without going outside of the story or violating yet another rule that the series has thus far established. Bella couldn't know how to act around the wolves (or, who are we kidding werewolves), so her subconscious couldn't know either. The only other explanation is that the voice is Edward's telepathically.
This explanation, if true, will make me give up reading these books. It's been established that Bella's brain doesn't work on the same frequency as other brains so Edward's special power of reading minds doesn't work. Maybe generous readers, fangirls, will give an explanation that communication and reading are two different things: if that's the case then how does he know she's in danger? Is he standing right there? Again, if that's the case the werewolves would have scented him or more importantly, what was he waiting for Laurent to strangle her?
My ability to suspend disbelief is being quite strained in this book already and this will be the last straw if it turns out to be actually Edward. So far we've had a number of established and then broken rules in this book. The vampires shine in sunlight but have no problem walking through crowded airports in the middle of the day in Arizona, vampirism gives special powers but Alice was psychic prior to being a vampire, saliva turns people into vampires but Bella and Edward have no trouble kissing, etc. It's not making sense and is really relegating certain elements of the story to being utterly arbitrary.
Which really leads us to threading the eye between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand we have a memory that can give new advice while on the other we have telepathic communication which violates a pretty important rule of the books so far: Bella's oh so specialness. Either case it's not looking good for the future.
Back to the plot next week.
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