What Has Passed is Prologue (Pg. 451-457)

In order to accurately go through this section we have to go waaaay back to my second post in the series. I mentioned then, that beginning any story with a phrase about dying is difficult to do. Because while it sets the tone of the story it also ruins the fact that the character is going to survive until we come back to that point. Well here we are, the point in the story that syncs up with where we began almost a year ago. Bella is laying semi-conscious on the floor of the dance studio, where she begins her tale saying, "I'd never given much thought as to how I would die--"

James has left, Bella is drifting out remarking, "And then I knew I was dead."

Well the thing is she isn't. We know she isn't and she knows she isn't because she's still having thoughts about her mortal life. As an atheist I don't pretend to understand what happens to a person when they die. People who know me don't usually ask me either so I haven't really given it much more thought than I had when I was a teenager. The best explanation I ever heard or read comes from Plato who, through the mouth of Socrates, explains that you either go to the afterlife where you get to meet all of the dead people that you have known or wanted to know or it's like a deep dreamless sleep. Bella's worldview is probably more of the former given the writer's religious leanings, but in either case she isn't dead. She's drifting in and out. Then the angel appears.

The identity of the angel is obvious. It's so obvious because we have been beaten over the head with it throughout the entire book. At some point I would imagine that even the most star struck readers of this book must be rolling their eyes thinking, "we get it Edward is perfect."

"Carlisle!' the angel called, agony in his perfect voice." So it sounds like the entire Cullen family has finally arrived. Carlisle, who is a doctor, obviously is going to tend to Bella's injuries. It's noted by him that she has a broken leg, the cut on her face is nothing serious, and probably some broken ribs. These are all from the beating that James gave her in the dance hall. What I wonder is how much blood is in the room, and how the vampires can stand it. I know that these are special vampires that can resist the blood lust, but a funny scene (that we are not going to get) might be one of the them licking their fingers or their hands. A more realistic scene might be the trepidation or the anxiety over actually having to touch the blood on her face as they are bandaging the wound. The doctor is probably used to it, but the others probably don't have the experience.

"Alice?'
'She's here, she knew where to find you."

Really? Alice knew where to find her. How did she do that? By looking into the present. Like the prologue Alice is a tricky part to write and only a very clever person is going to figure out a way to have Bella outwit the future, other than merely walking out of the airport. Then again we don't know enough about Alice, maybe she saw the whole thing and wove her threads so that went exactly as it did. She let Bella escape and let her confront James. Bella couldn't have been unconscious to the world for very long so Alice's timing seems to revolve around when Edward and Carlisle landed. Hopefully they didn't have to wait too long before their luggage was unloaded. In the end of it all, Alice knew Bella would be ok...right? The thing is that for the whole expanse of this book I have only liked one character, and that was Mike. He was just a pitiable guy shafted by a girl who wanted better. Alice is the next one, but I only want to like her, so I'm probably cutting her more slack than I would if it was just Jasper in the airport.

Back to Bella though, she's on the ground and Carlisle notices that she has been bitten, by James we assume or perhaps some large rat wandered into the Studio. As Bella thrashes about she begins screaming that her hand is on fire. We know from Alice that the way a person becomes a vampire is through being bitten by one, there is a toxin in the Vampire's saliva that changes the human into the undead. That's why Bella's hand is burning, it's been infected.

Carlisle looks to Edward, "See if you can suck the venom back out. The wound is fairly clean."

Edward hesitates and then hems and haws. Finally doing so. Why? Because Carlisle isn't a very good doctor that's why. This type of advice appears to be sound, in fact at some point we were probably taught that this is what you do if you are bitten by a snake, BUT YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT DO IT. Carlisle should know this, and he should know that Bella is screwed unless there is some sort of anti-venom she can take. First off, sucking the venom out is bad because the sucker is now poisoned. In this case we can assume that vampires are immune to the vampire-making toxin. Secondly, the blood stream isn't like a series of straws. You cant just rewind the circulatory system by pulling in the other direction. And thirdly, how long was Bella out? A couple of seconds or an hour? Even after a couple of minutes a snake's venom is dangerous when the bite is untreated, and Bella wasn't doing anything. We can assume that she was unconscious for more than a few seconds because she never realized that she was being bitten.

The heart pumps the blood at a good rate so that venom from her finger tip should be long gone by now. Edward's sucking it shouldn't work at all, even worse as he sucks the counter motion in his mouth could actually put more of the venom back in her! Carlisle and Edward are realistically making this situation much worse than it was. Bella ought to be done for, but then Edward finishes, "Her blood tastes clean,' Edward said quietly, 'I can taste the morphine."

I don't know where the morphine came from or why it's in Bella's bloodstream. The more important question is to ask why Edward knows what Morphine tastes like. I wonder how long has he been chasing the dragon?

Nice Move (Pg. 442-451)

Bella has escaped the airport through the daring and creative move of walking out the door and hopping in a shuttle and then a cab. I've said numerous times that she is neither possesses the intelligence or the ingenuity that she would like us to believe, but despite that her plan worked. At her mom's house she does as James asked her dialing the number on the phone. Again James answers with a playful voice that is befitting someone who is outsmarting someone that is completely below his level. I wonder if Moriarty had this voice when he was taunting any opponent other than Sherlock Holmes...then again probably not. Moriarty was too smart to actually make contact with his other victims.

"Unless you didn't come alone, of course.' Light, amused." First off there is no way that he can know whether or not Bella is alone. The only reasonable motive for her to actually be alone is fear of James and his mother. Secondly what is with that second sentence? It's clearly not a sentence since it contains only two adjectives, I've been seeing this more and more in fiction which leads me to believe that this is either being taught somewhere or some extremely popular writer used it a decade ago. The placement of the comma is even more confounding because at this point why should the writer even pretend to be using the rules of grammar?

Bella is instructed to leave her mother's house and go to the dance studio around the corner. This seems unnecessary. If she's already alone why make her do something else to attract attention? Maybe I should cut James some slack as he could just be exercising caution, let's go with that as it actually makes some sense. If Bella showed up with the Cullens in tow he might not notice it right away, but making her go to another location in the sun would certainly indicate the presence of the other undead. She opens the Dance studio door which has a sign indicating that the place is closed for Spring Break. Yeah, sure whatever. A private studio wouldn't close for Spring Break, it has no reason to, in fact it might stay open as its customers wouldn't have school to interrupt their lessons there.

"Bella? Bella? That same tone of hysterical panic." Bella hears her mother's voice, but the "as" is misplaced if she's not going to tell us what it refers to. The tone she heard on the phone earlier? The general tone she uses because she has mental issues? We don't know, but then we find out.

Bella looks around for her mother and instead sees a television playing a tape from a vacation they took several years ago. It would seem that James has pulled a ruse. A well done ruse I might add. Apparently I need to backtrack a little bit in my entries because James really did a good thing here. Everything that I have said previously about James and the hostage situation and how dumb it was has to be retracted, he never had a hostage. So while Alice and Jasper were keeping vigil (although not as vigilant as they ought to have) over Bella's mother's house it was all for naught. They would never have seen anything because Alice's vision of him going through the tapes was completely accurate. They just thought it was more than it was, such must be the trouble with being able to see the future.

The only thing wrong that James did, although it worked out for him, was assume that his opponents were completely stupid. It wasn't wrong in this case, because they are, but he assumed that Bella would do exactly as he asked with no backup plan. He's either really new at this or really old at this. The former because it's quite a risk, the latter because he could just really understand his prey. "Sorry about that Bella, but isn't it better that your mother didn't really have to be involved in all this?"

Ah the polite villain. While I can't actually back this up with evidence I do wonder if this has its origin in "The Final Problem" where Holmes and Moriarty meet having a relatively polite conversation. Now it's such a trope that we are almost shocked when our villains act like villains. Another trope Meyer exploits here is the idea that the villain must explain his actions to the protagonist. Instead of just killing Bella he has to go into a monologue about how beneath him she is, how the Cullens were so easily duped, and how the two of them are now meeting in the studio.

The biggest problem with this is that by not knowing how everything worked out James seems that much more impressive. When he explains what happened it makes his plan seem less and less impressive because those he was outwitting acted really oblivious. Here's what we can piece together: James headed North behind Edward and Carlisle. Victoria stayed behind where Esme tracked her around Charlie's house. So far the Cullens have their ridiculous plan working. Then Victoria gives up on Charlie and somehow finds out more information on Bella which she then communicates to James. James just stops heading North and flies directly to Phoenix. We should note that Phoenix had always been the destination of Bella, Alice, and Jasper. When James disappeared, no one thought to either follow him or head to Phoenix, where I should note they were going to head eventually anyway. Not one of the super-awesome Cullens ever thought to watch Bella's mother's house or at least inquire as to her location. Edward couldn't read James's mind to determine anything. If, Bella is killed then the Cullens are as responsible as she is. This is the most incompetent group of guards to work outside of the James Bond universe.

It also gets a little eye-rollingly coincidental as James explains that the only time he had ever been outsmarted is when he went after a young woman under the care of an older vampire in an insane asylum. He remarks that the woman would have been burned as a witch a hundred years prior for her visions, but not was being subjected to electroshock. This woman is, of course, Alice. Again this is just like how Leia's ship gets attacked over Tatooine in Episode IV. Of all the forests in all of the world, James had to walk into Forks. This also means, that the explanation of the psychic powers of the vampires is bullshit because Alice had her visions before being a vampire. The established story thus far is now unravelling.

This also means that Alice, not Bella, was the original target of James.

The beating begins. James attacks Bella, throwing her against the mirrors in the story and hurting her in several ways before she passes out. It makes no sense for him to do this other than to enrage the Cullens, but just biting her as was his intention should have done this as well. The needless sadism of the scene lends us to believe that James is more of the psychotic type of villain than his previous politeness would have indicated. Bella is unconscious, beaten, and bitten (we assume) by James. Left to die with a nice recording of it on the video camera. We assume he wants revenge but we don't know why. If he's doing all of this for the sport of the thing then why leave the tape? New mysteries abound but none of them are exactly interesting, they just simply are.

The Troubling Future (Pg. 431-442)

Note to faithful readers: due to my school schedule I shall be moving the updates BACK to Mondays.

Last week I ended with the hope that the good vampires are aware of Bella's plan to ditch them at the airport. Bella has to do so because James demanded that or else her mother, his hostage, will be hurt. The interesting thing about that fact is that Alice cannot see either James's plan or Bella's. Odd. Even more odd is that Bella is more worried about Jasper, which leads me to doubt what exactly his power is. We know that he calms people down with some sort of empathic dominance but Bella is worried that he will be able to sense her emotions. Maybe he can, maybe he can't, it's a pretty fuzzy notion so far.

When Bella leaves the bedroom of the motel she sees Alice sitting at the desk gripping it with both hands. "Alice?" She didn't react when I caller her name, but her head was slowly rocking from side to side..."

Descriptions of how someone sees the future are curiously lacking in classic literature. Herodotus, in his Histories, never gives us a description only the mysterious foretellings of the Delphic and Pythian Oracles. Because of their mysterious utterings we can assume it is a trance like state, and Meyer continues on this trend. Alice is seeing the future, now typically she goes into a wide-eyed state where she speaks to the room but this time she isn't doing so. Leading me to believe that she is seeing the encounter that Bella will have with James. Then Alice speaks, "Bella,' she said."

Alice isn't talking to Bella, but merely saying her name. Whereupon she turns to Jasper and buries her head into his chest. This is evocative of concern, although we have to guess at that because Meyer doesn't give us any description of her voice, only her actions. Can we fault our author for this? Long answer no, short answer yes. I'll explain the long answer.

The thing about using a prophetic character in a story is that it often times has the effect of ruining the story. We know that Alice's abilities are accurate to some degree. So far, Meyer has gotten around this by making Alice's visions come either too late (as in the case of meeting James in the woods) or are intentionally vague and mysterious (like the room at Bella's mother's house). In both cases we find out that Alice is right. The trouble here is that Meyer has to write around Alice's vision while handing the reader an answer to the obvious question of how Bella is going to outwit her. The only way she can do so is by not telling us what it is that Alice sees. It's a valiant attempt but it is also a cheap one.

Herodotus gets around the whole thing by making the visions completely ambiguous even when it refers to a historical fact. When King Croesus goes to the Delphic Oracle to ask who will win the war between himself and Darius the Great of the Persians the answer is, "the winner of the battle will destroy a great kingdom." It's clever because while it is established that Darius had won the battle by the time Herodotus finishes his book it answers the question of why Croesus went to war if the Oracle had informed him of the result. The prediction was thus misinterpreted by Croesus whose kingdom was destroyed preserving both the accuracy of the prediction, the historical event surrounding it, and the suspense in a first time reader.

Here Meyer could have done better. Maybe Alice doesn't see Bella and James together but maybe some sort of danger. Anything, because it doesn't make sense if Alice cares about Bella that she wouldn't warn her of whatever her vision is that has Alice so rattled. Bella, though sees that Alice is having a vision and maybe has divined her plan. She does the reasonable thing: panders to her guilty conscience asking Alice, "How does it work?"

Oh good, some explication. Thought to Meyer's credit there haven't been too many of these, unlike those horrid Left Behind novels, but the answer is worth quoting in full, "Yes, things change...Some things are more certain than others...like the weather. People are harder. I only see the course they're on while they're on it. Once they change their minds--make a new decision, no matter how small--the whole future shifts."

The first part of that quote is fine. Things like the weather obey laws, meteorological laws that aren't about choice. Here Alice's abilities would be more like someone who detect the small details that indicate a shift in condition that the weather would change under, like subtle spikes in humidity or pressure. The second part is what doesn't make any sense and I would go so far as to say that it is wholly incorrect.

A person's actions do not take place in a vacuum. It's not like I make a decision that is completely independent of any other decision that I have made in my life prior. What we do today is representative of the amalgamation of our lives up to this point. My decision to begin this blog is representative of a couple of things from my past: my previous and current other blogs, my desire to write, my preference for series in blogs, my fascination with popular culture, the existence of my daughter for whom teen fiction may be something that she desires to read, etc. Deciding to write this was not an individual decision made on the day I first began it about a year ago.

It's important to note because if Alice could have seen me two years ago she would have been able to see my writing this even though at that time this was not something I could have conceived. Yet, I was on that path. The path that will take me wherever I end up in ten years, is the path that I am on now. No matter what decisions I make or if I suddenly change my mind. The trouble for Alice's description is that a person could only change their mind and throw off her prediction if they knew the future and the decisions leading up to it. If Bella knew the result of her encounter with James and then changed her mind about meeting him, that would be close to what Alice was is talking about. Close, but not close enough, because even then the future doesn't change. It is written as it is written. Bella cannot outsmart fate. The trouble is that even if we accept all of the problems with Alice's description it doesn't do anything to help Bella, she hasn't changed her mind.

At the airport Alice is acting strange but Bella waves this off, "she must be attributing the change in her vision to some maneuver of the Tracker rather than a betrayal by me."

Repeating from last week, Bella is an idiot. She is doing this whole charade because James asked her to do so. She's not betraying Alice, just keeping a really dumb secret. The whole scene in the airport is rather trite. She escapes by entering into a two story bathroom, then hops in a shuttle and then a cab arriving at her mother's house. It's quite unlike the daring escape that she would need to perform to outwit a psychic and an empath, whose powers mysteriously disappear. Which again, from last week, I hope they are just pretending if only for the sake of the plot making sense.

Hostage (Pg. 421-431)

Still holed up in the danky motel room, Alice and Bella have a brief discussion about how one transforms a person into a Vampire. Way back in this book Edward spoke of Carlisle's history and Bella noted that there was something in his turning that he was leaving out.* I posited that it was sex for two reasons: first because it was funny and I could easily reference a horrible movie that I rented**. The second was that it made sense for Edward to repress the memory and skip over it. What else could be so traumatic, unless it was a shared blood drinking action like Ann Rice used in Interview With A Vampire (the movie, I never read the book)?

Alice explains that her kind are infused with a superfluous weapon--venom. They bite a human and the venom is carried on in the bloodstream, then after a little bit they are transformed into vampires. Apparently this is so traumatic that Edward can't just explain that this is all it takes. I have the feeling that our author wanted a bit more but then couldn't come up with anything that would be original but non-sexual. So this is kind of a let down.

What isn't a let down is what Alice is doing right now. Alice is furtively sketching the room from her vision. This is good, it makes a lot of sense. They need to see the room, and by illustrating it they can move forward to solving the mystery. James is in the room but other than that we only know that it is populated by a gold rim around the walls and there is a wooden table and a television. Without the table it sounds like he is on a private jet or in a limo, either would make sense since Carlisle followed him to Vancouver where he boarded a plane but then there is that table. Bella looks at the drawing and recognizes it as her mother's house.

Alice is on the phone immediately and declares that, "Edward is coming to get you."

Right, my question is to ask how that helps anyone? Alice had the vision yesterday,** so we don't know when it is coming true. Since it involves a Vampire we do know that it is going to be more accurate than otherwise. We have been shown that her visions are pretty damn good too so Edward's presence will only serve to get Bella away from the situation. I suppose that is a good thing but it is only marginally good. None of these people have even considered laying a trap yet. Which is really odd considering that they know exactly what James is after. Just carelessly clue him in and then waylay him on the way there. For being super-predators they really don't think like one at all.

"But my mother...he came here for my mother, Alice." No you idiot, he's after you. Your mother's house is merely a means to an end. However James isn't the sharpest tool in the shed not considering that there could be a trap for him.

Then there's a phone call which Alice hands to Bella mouthing to Bella that it is her mother. Bella begins to calm her mother down, because we must remember that she's emotionally unstable, when a male voice begins talking. It's James and he's right where Alice thought he would be but didn't do anything about it. This ploy of James is a cliche, but well apt for the situation and level of intelligence we are used to reading about, as he gets Bella to answer in one word terse sentences until she's out of ear shot.

Even then, he's aware of the super hearing of the Vampires and continues the charade. Good thing he knows he's called a cell. He's also smart, "Why don't you walk another room now so you're face doesn't ruin everything?"

Good move, score 1 for James. How many movies does this not happen in? The person has to suck up their facial expressions while the cops listening in pretend not to notice and then never act on their observations. Basically every mystery in an episode of CSI involving hostages revolves around the double cross and no one seeing it coming.

James, for all his cunning on the phone, is a complete idiot. His plan, on the Dark Knight Joker Scale of Over-Complication (patent pending), is about a 6. It's needlessly complicated which gives it an original scale of 8, but since it only relies on one other person we can knock it down to a 6. He wants Bella to ditch the super sensitive vampires and go to her mother's house. The very same house that Alice and Jasper have just said they were going to keep an eye on. That's not such of a problem since Bella plans on escaping them at the airport, but James can't know that. What he can know is that there is only one reason they would be in Phoenix to begin with. He's being careful but not careful enough, the phone call is probably too risky. Extended conversation with your intended victim and giving her a location to call him from? No possibility that information could be used against you. Good thing he's up against Bella and the Cullens because there are two possibilities that the Cullens sans Bella are ignoring: that James is either at Bella's mother's house or on his way there. In either case the Cullens' quarry is at a place known to them, or on his way. This is the, and I mean THE, perfect opportunity to get him. After all didn't Carlisle and Edward seek to lure him away for just this purpose? Maybe Alice and Jasper aren't equipped to handle James but they can certainly keep tabs on him.

And Bella is being just as stupid in keeping this quiet. She should just confess what James has told her and the three can wait for Edward and Carlisle and make a plan. While her plan on the DKJSOC is a 0, she just isn't thinking it through. Getting away from a person in an airport, especially post 9/11, is pretty easy. Yet Bella has to outwit the future seeing Pythian of Alice. Alice, who in the meantime is deep in thought on the bed, we know what this means--she's seeing the future.

She breaks from this to reassure Bella that "We'll make sure she's (her mother) fine, Bella, don't worry." Curious that Alice can't see that James already has her, which leads me to believe that Alice is playing Bella right now and already knows what is going on. I hope so because to assume otherwise would mean that Alice's prescience comes and goes for the plot's sake.

__________________________
*I covered it in September 28th's post. http://reading-twilight.blogspot.com/2010/09/mysterious-case-of-dr-carlisle-pg-329.html

**Modern Vampires if you are curious, but don't actually see it.

**Which, by the way, it is getting harder and harder to remember what day it is...my best guess is that it is Thursday.

Foundation of Absurdity (Pg. 410-421)

One of the things that is important when writing long papers for graduate school is to build the argument off of sound premises. No matter how good the writing itself can be, it doesn't work if the argument itself has a catastrophic flaw. I learned this the hard way about a month ago. The professor remarked that he felt the conclusion and the latter half of my paper was well organized and well thought out, the only trouble was that in the beginning a made an error involving the reversing of two terms. No matter how well the paper turned out (even the first part was well done he said) the error negated the entire thing. It was one of those mitigated compliments, "I liked the paper a lot but..." That 'but' dropped the paper all of the way into the low B's. Not good at all.

This week's section is quite similar to that paper. It's well done, in fact, extremely well done if not for the absurd situation that brings Bella, Jasper, and Alice into the dank motel room by the airport in Phoenix. The idea that our heroes would have to run all of the way to Phoenix is laughable, the fact that their adversary would be able to follow them is equally so, and this whole shielding Bella's father from what is going on is half-ridiculous, but it's a pretty big half.

The half that isn't ridiculous is that Charlie has to be kept in the dark because to tell him everything would mean confessing the secret of the Cullen's nature. The fact that one person seems to want to murder Bella would have an easy cop solution--guard her with firearms, that won't work here and Charlie's cop brain is going to need to know why. I get that part, it's the other part that doesn't make sense. James, the "tracker,"* doesn't know who Charlie is. Furthermore he doesn't even know who Bella is! He just knows her by the errant scent that he picked up when the wind blew in his direction and then placed that on her person. He could pick her out of a lineup but as for her name, where she lives, etc. There isn't much that he knows. They could have driven to Seattle and hid in that population once they were sure he wasn't following them, but we need the mother/daughter conflict I suppose.

Thinking that all of their actions make perfect sense Bella and company wait for Alice's phone to ring. They wait and wait. Bella wants to know why they are going to all of this trouble for her, "Do you think any of us want to look into his eyes for the next hundred years if he loses you?"

Jasper is claiming that the rest of the Cullens are being altruistic in regard to Edward. The problem for them is that in a hundred years they are going to have to look into his eyes and see it. I mentioned this two weeks ago so I won't spend more time rehashing it. Unless they are planning on turning her into a vampire then this might be an issue but that raises a whole host of new issues,** I still side with Rosalie. She might be Edward's girlfriend, but that's it for now, it's a cold way of looking at things but this is a lot of trouble just to make sure that Edward doesn't get sad(der).

They wait, and wait. Here is where the writing really steps up. Meyer describes the passing of time and the boredom that Bella experiences, "Sometimes I stared at the abstract prints, randomly finding pictures in the shapes, like I'd found pictures in the clouds as a child." This, and others like it, convey the feeling of being bored in a motel. Those paintings are the most innocuous things in existence, they aren't designed to be looked at--like muzak, they are there to be ignored. Their non-meaning is so pungent it's offensive to the taste which is why no one ever steals them. Get bored enough and you begin to wonder what it is and why it was painted. I really love the whole scene here.

Finally the phone rings and Alice jumps up. We also finally get the full description of the plan. Edward and Carlisle headed North to draw James North and then they were going to turn and trap him. Esme and the remaining Cullens were to head West to draw away the feral woman vampire, then return and keep vigil over Charlie's house. It's a stupid plan because Esme had donned Bella's clothes thus part of her scent so shouldn't both vampires be tracking Esme? Apparently not, because Carlisle and Edward lured James all of the way to Vancouver, where he got on a plane and headed back to Forks...they assume, although I guess they could have checked on that.

After the phone call, Bella tries to call her mother to warn her of danger. Which is stupid, because while it is possible that James could have determined who Bella's father is by following them to his house, there is no way that he could determine who her mother is, given the different last name, different city. Bella thinks about James checking the school records but how? You can't just walk in and ask for a child's school records, there are forms to fill out and while James has some vampire powers in that vein, Edward couldn't even use them to change classes in the beginning of the book. Obviously bureaucracy has grown to meet the needs of the bureaucracy just enough to make sure the vampires can't override the schools.***

Alice has a flash. I love these sections as Meyer is really at the top of her craft here. Alice sits up straight and then stares off relating her vision, "Just the mirrors, and the gold. It's a band around the room. And there's a black table with a big stereo, and a TV."

It's not a good description of a room, but it's a good description of a dream about a room as it's happening. It reminds me of Ashley Judd in hypnosis during the movie "Kiss the Girls"--a panicked description about a vague memory. The whole rest of the section is about them trying to divine the room, and where James could possible be. The only trouble is that we haven't seen the room in the book so far, or if we have we haven't been told we have. This whole section would be great, if it weren't for the foundation of sand it's all built on. And don't even get me started on the aside about how to create a vampire, that's for another time.

________________________________
* Which by the way we have no idea what exactly a "tracker" is yet.
**For example: what if they can't cure her of the blood lust?
***I've always suspected that teacher's unions were too powerful.

Is It Safe? (Pg. 407-410)

We're at a seedy hotel by the airport, inside is Jasper, Alice, and Bella waiting for a phone call to find out whether or not it is safe. Along with the oddly reminiscent scenes this book has with 90s era softcore pornography, it is starting to become a cliched cop movie. In that movie I see Bella as the witness to a murder in which the male-female cop duo, who totally don't get along are waiting to hear from their snitch whether the witness can be moved or not. The trouble with that scenario is that it is far more interesting than what is going on here.

Bella has switched clothes and then been carted off back to Arizona to hide from James, the tracker (we still don't know that means) who is in Forks. It should be noted that this drive is over 1500 miles and would take almost a straight day of driving. By all of this we can assume that it is now Tuesday. The night baseball game was on Sunday, they panicked and ran, 24 hours of driving and then a groggy Bella wakes up...Tuesday at the earliest. This also means that for Charlie, his daughter has been missing for two days but since he isn't that central to the plot or the story we don't have to concern ourselves other than a fleeting mention that Bella makes.

"Edward reminded me that you have to eat a lot more frequently than we do." Alice comes skipping in with this witty writing. This comment breaks the fourth wall, it reminds us that we are obviously in a vampire story. Alice goes to school with high school kids, they interact with humans all of the time so why should she need to be reminded that Bella needs to eat. This far in the book we know who the vampires are, we don't need to be beaten over the head that Alice is one of them. The comment further serves to get Bella to mention Edward without him actually having to be in the room. Lest we forget that he is also in the story.

There's a brief exchange between Bella, Alice, and Jasper wherein Bella wants to know what is going on, and why everyone is so careful and quiet. With the absence of lucky strike cigarettes, and Joe Pesci this plays more like a scene from JFK only with more paranoia. In that movie Pesci's character and everyone else thought they had something to fear, in this book we have an actual fear but it is so remote that the tension seems false. If Phoenix was only an hour away from Forks or a couple of hours it would seem more real, or if Phoenix was the size of Port Angeles than, again that would be something else. Here, past 24 hours and 1500 miles of water, wind, and bridges the odds of James being able to continue to track them should let them relax.

Bella is, of course, not concerned about herself but about the fate of Edward. The bit about the waiting is good, I'll grant that. The whole thing is about not knowing that something is going on when something probably is going on, and then wondering what the outcome of that something might be. Yet in two days, no one can pick up a phone?

Finally when someone does call they just tell Bella that everything is fine. But, "Her eyes were wide, honest...and I didn't trust them."

They were so honest she couldn't believe them at all. Is that irony or is actual irony?

Fort Sensible (Pg. 401-407)

"The Indians said, throw out the captain and everyone will be spared."
"What happened?"
"They threw him out! And that's why it's called Fort Sensible."
              --The Simpsons, "Whacking Day"

We're back after a week off so that I could finish my assignments for the semester. We bring up a classic episode of the Simpsons, from when it was good,* because it illustrates a problem that the Cullens are having with Bella that only one of them seems to understand. To recap, three new vampires are in town and two of them really really want to kill Bella and eat her. Out of the blue, the Cullens decide that the best course of action is to rush her out of town forcing her to abandon her father with no prior notice. All of which she accepts with only token protest. I should note here that this is indicative of the religion of the writer. If a person marries in to a Mormon family, they have to adopt the ways and means of the new religion. I'm aware of this through personal experience as well as many testimonials regarding the religion. The Mormons take to shunning non-Mormons, this is evidenced even by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the very first Sherlock Holmes story "A Study in Scarlet," although it's less fatal now.

They are trying to escape a Tracker, which is some sort of super vampire that they can't just hide from. Which is an idea that never really crosses their mind. James isn't from the area, and although it's not that big, he doesn't know where anything is. They could hide her in town and then set a trap, but apparently none of the Cullens received the gift of knowing how to bait a trap. Which is odd given how old they are supposed to be, just watching season 2 of the A-Team would allow them to have basic knowledge of this concept.

Intelligently, however, their plan involves having Bella switch out of her clothes. Edward asks Rosalie to do this and Rosalie, clearly the most intelligent of the group replies, "Why should I?' she hissed, 'What is she to me? Except a menace--a danger you've chosen to inflict on all of us."

Rosalie's reply is pragmatic, and the rest of the Cullens must understand this because they don't rebuke her. I understand that she is supposed to come off as a bitch here but she's right. Bella isn't anything to them other than Edward's girlfriend. There are many numerous ethical theories put forth throughout the history of Philosophy that will state that Rosalie is being unethical. From Plato to Kant to Rawls, and even Levinas who said that our first duty is to the other, but Rosalie has a point. Bella isn't important other than being Edward's current relationship. He's not 17, he's a vampire who will not die of old age while she will. Later Jasper will tell Bella that they are protecting her because they don't want to see him lonely again, which is very nice for family cohesion, but she will die. Furthermore it's implied that Bella's scent is something different, more special than other humans so other vampires will be hungering for her if they catch it as well. Rosalie wants to sit this one out, I don't blame her. At most protecting Bella gives the undying Edward, what, another 70 years? It sounds like a long time for us mortals but to the undying it's like a week. Aside from Happy-Go-Lucky Alice, she makes the most sense.

Speaking of the precognitive, they actually consider her when they formulate their plan which I'm calling the "Audrey Hepburn Gambit" since I watched three episodes of Leverage and Ocean's 13 in the last week.** Esme and Bella go off to the room to undress each other (seriously) and switch clothes: the plan is that Esme dressed like Bella will go off in the jeep. Later Jasper and Alice will drive Bella somewhere and meet up with Edward. It's like a bait and switch but a little over complicated. Why not just leave at the same time, James can't be in two places at once?

Someone gets handed a "tiny silver phone" which given the time of this writing and the apparent wealth of the Cullens was probably a Motorola Razr. I'm just mentioning that.

Carlisle, before putting on his black leather gloves and popping a cigar in his mouth asks the brains of the operation, Alice, "Will they take the bait?"

Good job, centuries old patriarch, consulting the person who actually can tell how things are going to turn out. It would have been better to come up with about five or six plans and then ask her how they would end up but at least you are aware that your shitty plan still needs the future to work out.

They speed off. Bella falls asleep and wakes up in Arizona. Jasper asks her for directions to the airport, which Bella gives and then asks why, "It's better to be close, just in case."

Having been written post 9/11 this is the part of the plan that doesn't make any sense. You can't just go into an airport and buy a ticket in a hurry. That's a security flag. You also need at least an hour to get through security, so if James has figured out the Hepburn Gambit and is on his way then they need to pack up Bella, drive to the airport, buy a ticket, check their bags and get into the hanger. Then they will be sort of safe, if James doesn't follow them and do they exact same thing. Or James could just lose interest. I've seen cheetahs and bears do this on the discovery channel (er, National Geographic since Discovery is about motorcycles now for some reason), the prey gets too hard to catch and they go after something else. Since James has already eaten in Seattle he can't be that interested in one person.

Although he's a hunter and Laurent has said that it's the chase that thrills him. If that's the case, then isn't all of this running, hiding, and switching actually making him more interested in all of this?
____________________
*Which is always more than six years ago, and a statement which is true as long as it is made after season 7.
**I just love the names they give to these elaborate cons.