About those last five pages...(New Moon Ch. 21.2)

Two weeks ago (I've been bad at this) I concluded by complaining that as chapter 21 ended, we still had five more pages to go. Then I misplaced my book, I don't know where it went but I assume that it has something to do with my daughter (you think I do this for myself?), she tends to hide things on me. Three year olds are like that. This week I knew that i needed to write something, anything really that was new in order to hang on to the relatively few readers that I have. Every week I re-read the previous post in order to get my bearing and re-establish the horrible memories that my academic brain had blocked out the week before.

Then I read this line from last post, " they walk by Heidi and some other people that are going to stand trial. It's a useless detail, utterly useless because we don't need to know who they are, nor get hinted at as to their fate. I'm willing to bet that we don't even need to know who Heidi is either.

Re-reading that line, and then checking the blog of the other person that also subjects themselves to this horrible horrible adventure i realized something: this is a lot more insidious than it sounds. Bella makes a point about Heidi being dressed revealingly, and that she's leading a crowd of people, a crowd so large that Bella had to press against the wall to let them pass.* They aren't in chains, they aren't in shackles, in fact they are being led by her so as far as we know they are coming of their own volition. By the time Bella and company get down the hall the screaming starts.

Ok, so I understood that my comment last week that they were going to be tried for some crime against vampiredom, but given the time that it took for them to get into the room and the time the screaming started (almost zero) I have to amend that statement. They aren't vampires, they are food. Bella doesn't register any kind of moral objection? Fine. I'll accept that because she was just almost killed and I hear that it can be pretty traumatic itself.

What I want to be concerned with is what those people thought they were going to do? I won't get into my fellow blogger's complaint that those people are going to go missing. That's probably why they were lured in during a tourist event. No one in that small town is going to miss tourists, if in fact anyone noticed that they were gone. They were being lured by a scantily clad extremely beautiful woman (it's not that specific but given the gushing descriptions that Meyer has attributed to all  the vampires in this novel I think it is safe to assume) through a sewer and then a large stone hallway I think they thought they were headed to an orgy.

How else could she do it? If a beautiful woman tells you to she wants to invite you to a party you might go. When she gets another person, you might be done, by the fifth person if you aren't getting skittish it means you are either oblivious or into it. What else could she have promised them? Why else would she need the tantalizing gear? Remember, these are the good guys, the bad guy is still in the woods of North Eastern Washington State.

I just needed to be clear. If I do the next book, I'm counting the accidental porn.


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*I apologize for the lack of quotations but, again, I can't find the book.

Pornography (New Moon Ch. 21)

Brendan Gill, a writer for the New Yorker once defined pornography as being a film in which you notice that the characters spend more time going through doors, getting in and out of cars, in other words--transitioning from one location to another then doing anything else.* While this sort of definition leaves out the more visceral substance of pornography it makes sense. The characters, aren't really characters at all, they are place holders for the action. There is no real plot development, no character growth, nothing that we could say that we learned--perhaps other than the bill for the cable guy is apparently open to interpretation. By Gill's definition we might actually be able to say that Twilight is pornography.

No it's not porn porn, but it's a type of porn. It's certainly fantasy fulfillment for a certain segment of the population. I would be open to debate on this topic because like the characters in actual porn, there is no development. The plot is merely a vehicle for certain situations to develop, and if I read this book to myself while someone plays bass in the background the similarities really work in my favor. We have had one character, pining for another, throw herself into the arms of a third, all the while ignoring any facet of common sense, and who (as Gill points out) constantly changes scenery. In fact the first four pages of this chapter detail a walk through two hallways, a couple of doors; to which even Bella remarks as to the endlessness of it. Which is pretty bad considering that Bella is the stand in for the author. When even the creator is sick of something in their world one has to wonder why it's there in the first place.**

"The stone antechamber was not large. It opened quickly into a brighter, cavernous room..."

I haven't pointed a good thing in a while, but I will say this: Meyer has used the term "ante" in "antechamber" more correct than a lot of bloggers I have read. "Ante" means "before" or "pre" not "against."

Once everyone has been collected, there is going to be a meeting of sorts. The vampire herald, Jane, enters in the room and is greeted by the chief (we assume, at this point we haven't learned who he is), "He drifted forward, and the movement flowed with such surreal grace that I gawked..."

And I was just done complimenting her too, "surreal" is a synonym for bizarre. It doesn't mean unbelievable, or incredible, it means strange to the point of absurdity, irrational--not anything like the way it's being used here.

The chief, Aro (seriously), is happy not only to see Jane ok, but also to see Bella, Edward, and Alice all alive and ok. He's happy, a little too happy but I guess this is an attempt to portray him as being eccentric. He congratulates himself on not killing Edward yesterday, chides Edward for wanting such, and expresses marvel at Alice's talent.

It seems that Aro's mutant power...I mean vampire power, is that he can hear thoughts as well. Only as long as he is touching the person in question. This limitation is buttressed by the fact that while Edward can only receive current thoughts, Aro downloads the entire brain. After a bit Aro's brothers come in, Caius and Marcus and instead of thinking that everything is wonderful they are bored. This is nice.

What often gets missed in tales of the deathless,*** is the immense amount of time they actually have. They don't just view the future as being a long time that they are going to live, they view their life as going through the rest of time...i.e. all of it. The alternate ending to the movie "Death Becomes Her," handled it well as the two women who had gained eternal life began to become bored. There was nothing they could do, furthermore they were already shallow superficial women to begin with, so if these vampires are really older than the Roman civilization I somehow doubt they give one fuck about whether or not a human and childish vampire were alive. This bores me and i only have sixty or seventy more years ahead of me.

Aro's mutant, er vampire power does save us from having to read a recap though, "But he (Marcus) just touched Aro's palm briefly and then dropped his hand to his side. Aro raised one black brow."

Aro has the story, somehow. Shouldn't he have touched Bella, Alice, and Edward to get the rest of the story on this one? What the hell does his brother know? That answer is as ridiculous as the situation itself. Marcus, the one that touched, Aro can telepathically determine relationships. That's it, he's surprised that it's so intense between Edward and Bella but that's all of the information the can possibly give to Aro.

They segue into a discussion about Bella, of course. Bella is immune to Edward's telepathy so Aro wants to know if she's immune to him. Fair enough, it turns out that she is. Then it's Jane's turn. Jane has a power that we don't know about, but apparently it's enough to turn Edward feral. Angry he is, much clouded are his thoughts as he launches himself at Jane--but is cut down on the floor sniveling. Jane's power stopped him but it cannot affect Bella. The conclusion is that Bella is immune to vampire powers.

Except that she's not. Alice can see her future, not just the general future but specific things. She saw Bella jump (or, sigh, fall) further is that Marcus can perceive her emotions as well. This conclusion means that either Aro is an idiot or the plot is literally forgetting what just happened. Either is possible.

It seems that one of Aro's brothers is actually the reasonable one though, Caius reminds Aro that their law still claims them. We don't know if he means all three or just Bella and Edward but the law is the law. What's at stake is that Bella is a human, she's seen too much, and she's not food. It's a security issue. Edward gots to get got as well because he won't leave Bella to die nor will he turn her. Aro asks him if he will eventually turn her and Edward locks up.

Bella pleads but since Edward knows best he won't answer. How to resolve this: cleverly I might add. Alice, who has previously expressed impatience at her brother's decision to not be locked down for eternity settles it. She walks over and places her hand in Aro's sharing with him the future she has seen. Aro is delighted, "To see the things you've seen-especially the ones that haven't happened yet!' he shook his head in wonder.
---But that will,' she (Alice) reminded him, voice calm.
Yes, yes, it's quite determined. Certainly there's no problem."

Very well done. It really works because given Aro's disposition we really can't know what she let him see. I've the feeling that he would be as delighted no matter what.

Too bad we have five more pages of crap before the chapter ends. They don't merely leave, they walk by Heidi and some other people that are going to stand trial. It's a useless detail, utterly useless because we don't need to know who they are, nor get hinted at as to their fate. I'm willing to bet that we don't even need to know who Heidi is either. Yet they finally leave the underworld. Hopefully for less door opening and closing.
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*In the interest of academic honesty, I have no idea where he said it. I know the quote from Roger Ebert's review of the first Underworld movie. 

**Right god?

***Because immortal doesn't mean the same thing. Vampires were still born after all.

Editing (New Moon Ch. 20/21?)

I realize that editing must be tough. I also realize that there is probably more to it than I realize. Some subtleties in bringing out the writing intent of the author that involves more than just deleting typos and adding conjunctions. That being said I know editing mistakes when I see one and for once this can't be solely blamed on the author. In fact, depending on how the author writes this could be an occasion where the author is completely free from blame, but this section has a good number of problems so we'll get to it as we go.

When we last left off, Alice and Bella were in a stolen Porsche heading from the Florence international airport (which doesn't exist) toward the town of Volterra in an effort to prevent Edward from exposing himself to the Italians thus getting himself killed by the chief vampires. He's picked this day because it's the feast of some saint or something who drove the vampires from the town a long time ago. I don't mind the fake holiday, this is fiction, and for once it's not divine intervention by the author to get the plot moving (eh, at least it's not that obvious of a device; would it really matter if there was a holiday or not?). It's here where we see some sloppy editorial oversight, and some lazy writing.

The duo approach the city gates stopped by a police roadblock trying to wave them off. Due to the holiday the have the city closed off to everyone but tour buses. Apparently in Meyerland, cities are like the planets of Star Trek. One holiday, one people, one thing to do. We can assume that they are taking the main road into the city, the via volteranna, and yes, if there was a parade they might close that road off. Yet, there's no indication of a parade, and the city isn't walled as Renaissance towns used to be either. It's pretty much an open city. We can grant the roadblock but not why or how. What about all the rest of the people that need to do business in the town? There's a college there as well, stores, restaurants; in other words it's a real place that people will need to actually go. If the roadblock shut off access to the palazzo that would be pretty reasonable. The St. Patrick's Day parade doesn't shut down all of Buffalo, Boston, Chicago, or New York; it just shuts down the parade route and a block around it. Remember too that those are parades that travel through cities much larger Voltera.

Alice pulls up the policeman. It's sunny outside but luckily the shadow falls on Alice while the light hits Bella. Alice is driving and while we can't nitpick where the sun is we can certainly gather that Alice is going to have a difficult time talking to the cop. The cop does the cop tap on the glass and Alice rolls down the window halfway, "I saw him do a double take when he saw the face behind the dark glass."

Why? Is it because her picture had been circulated as a car thief? Is it because she's as pale and blonde as German but doesn't smell like one? Is it because she's young but driving a Porsche? Nope, it's because she's pretty. I had forgotten that without vampires in the story the adjective use had dropped considerably, "he wished he had better news for the strikingly beautiful woman."

Here's a cop on a shit detail, who is literally falling over himself to please Alice. He should be on his fifth hot girl by now (if you've ever had to heard people from a location they didn't want to go believe me, you start filling in the time by counting either the extremely good or the extremely bad), I somehow doubt that if he did notice he would have have noticed that much in a girl that, remember, used to have no trouble passing for a Junior in high school.

Instead of using her feminine wiles, she bribes the cop. Yes this is an offense in just about every country, but it's a shit detail and she only wants to get through. Alright, I suppose he doesn't have a partner, or if he does he can just say it was a local. How much was the bribe? "His face was dazed as he retrieved his hand and stared at the thick roll of money he now held. The outside bill was a thousand dollar bill."

We know it's not US Currency she used, what could it have been? It's not a Euro, they don't have 1k bills either. This is a long running problem in the book. It should commit to either the real world or a fake one. Make up a country, a language, and a denomination; sure I'll pick on the book for doing that but only a little bit then I will have to accept it. If you are going to use the real world then use it, don't give the cop his salary in fake money, just one thousand ought to be enough to get you through a non-emergency road block.

One in the town they have to reach the tower, of which Google maps isn't too clear on if it exists. I don't care if it does or does not. Still, someone should, it's just not going to be me. There's a good sense of urgency in the next few pages. It actually works well, I would quote it but it's actually quite long. Long story short, she runs into Edward saving him from stepping into the light. It's a good thing that ambient light doesn't set off the sparkles.

They have a brief conversation about whether or not he's dead, and he replies after noticing Bella, "So maybe this is hell. I don't care. I'll take it."

Yep, it's hell and you're stuck with your whiny girlfriend forever. Mwa ha ha ha...if only.

Just previous to that he quotes Romeo and Juliet, again. Which is strange to me because that play, even the stereotype of that play has nothing to do with this story. No one was keeping them apart, aside themselves. There were no gang fights. No one committed suicide, or according to Bella even tried. Sure Romeo was going to step into the light, but that wouldn't be analogous to anything Shakespeare wrote.

"We're not dead, not yet! But we have to get out of here before the Volturi--"

And the chapter should end right here. The issue in chapter 20 is now resolved. See chapters are like little stories and once the little story is over the chapter ought to end as well. We climaxed with Bella saving Edward, we then move to the resolution conversation to give us the cliffhanger that keeps us up for, just, one, more, chapter.

Not here though. This is the sloppy editing I mentioned earlier. We could blame Meyer, but I don't know how she writes. Maybe she doesn't do chapters and types everything as one long manuscript. Possible. Although unlikely. Instead of ending here, we are introduced to Felix, another young vampire and a whole slew of the Volturi. It seems that they are upset with what Edward almost did.

Here's what I don't understand, and what Bella should be thinking about as they lead her, Alice, and Edward underground to their secret chamber. If they were going to kill Edward for almost exposing them, why haven't they done it? If they are going to spare him why haven't they said so? If she's the reason he broke the rules, why is she still alive? Why isn't any of this in the next freeking chapter?

The problem is that Meyer did so well in building the tension for the chase sequence through the palazzo that it's unnecessary to do it again here. We already had the tension, if you save it for the next chapter it builds suspense. It makes you a better writer. I cannot think of a reason that this is done here.