Snow Balls and Brass Balls (Pg. 39-52)

“You know what your problem is? You’re just too hip to be happy!”-Danny DeVito, Heist.

The underrated and under viewed movie Heist, written by David Mamet, is full of little gems like this. The line comes from Danny DeVito’s crime boss getting frustrated with master thief Gene Hackman who has double crossed him. Shot in the leg, held at gunpoint, Hackman refuses to give up the gold and instead cracks wise. This ties in to this week’s Twilight post, not because of the context but from the literal reading of the above line.

Bella, is just too hip to be happy. It’s her second week of school in Forks, Edward hasn’t been in all week which it seems she is getting more and more comfortable with. The crush is obviously passing…or it would have–more on that in a couple minutes. She walks outside after her first class and she sees snow, a lot of it. Enough that an impromptu snowball fight has broken out among the students, something that is not only realistic but pretty much mandatory in a high school. Bella, who I remind you, is from Arizona and has only visited her father in the summer (we assume since the book isn’t that specific), is mortified, “Ew, snow. There went my good day.”

“Ew?” Really, Isabella Swan? This is the first time she has more than likely been in snow. We know this because she tells Mike that she’s only seen it on television, which could be an exaggeration but probably isn’t, and her first reaction is disgust. “Once people start throwing wet stuff, I go inside;” this is an odd reaction for two reasons: A) snow isn’t wet, it’s dry. She doesn’t have the prior experience either, unless they can throw rain in Arizona. I mean, sure it melts and becomes wet, is made of water, but snow itself is a dry substance; and B) This is her first snowfall and instead of gazing at the natural wonder and beauty of the cascading snow she needs to go inside.

Does she not want to get hit? That’s a possibility, not having the experience before doesn’t mean that one would be utterly clueless of what it felt like. But that isn’t it, it’s because everyone else is having fun and she needs to be a loner. She’s allergic to fun and must take all matters completely serious. She runs inside with “the look” on her face. “The look” is a facial expression that I am way too used to, it mostly came from women I knew as I would try to goof around. It’s a rolling of the eyes so quickly, so hard, that it makes a noise. It’s usually followed by a shake of the head and the phrase I have heard out of every girl/woman I have ever known, “Did you really just do that?”

Bella is too hip to be happy, too cool for school. In the future, depending on how the series ends she’s the morose woman in the black turtle neck sitting in the back of open mic night angry because some guy had the audactiy to read the lyrics of DMX as a poem for a larf,* or shaking her head in disgust when someone comments on the miss/hit ratio of the latest school shooter. Take away the vampires and in ten years she’s telling her boyfriend that he needs to take life more seriously. She can’t just have fun, the snow didn’t ruin her day, it was being reminded that everyone around her is a kid.

All of that is in the past, even though Mike is planning a snow battle of Napoleonic proportions (The actual Napoleon actually did this in war college) she doesn’t care. She notices that Jessica has got a bit of a thing for Mike. It’s a complete non-sequitor that she notices this but I have to give Meyers credit becaus she writes that possible love story off with us not worrying about whether Mike is going to be miserable in the long run. Next to that, Edward is back in school, at lunch shaking the water out of his hair, but it’s different with him because he looks so damn hot doing it.

Seriously, she makes this comment several times. The important thing to note is that the Cullens can have fun too, in the long run of their relationship she’ll wear him down. Ok, maybe I’m being hard on Bella again. She’s new at the school, her dream guy is finally back in attendance, and she’s in an alien world where white crap falls from the sky (which means she drives like every asshole on the road in Western New York at the first snowfall). If only there were some line in the book that could push the lever one way or the other…

“It’s too bad about the snow isn’t it?” Edward asked…”Not really,” I answered honestly, instead of pretending to be normal like everyone else.

You be the judge, who is she lying to: Edward or us? It has to be one or the other since she spent four pages telling the reader that she needed to hide from the snow. I understand that since she has a huge crush on Edward that her answer might change, but that would be to Edward she wouldn’t tell us that she was talking honestly to him and then say that the snow wasn’t bad. The only other option is that I am correct and that the snow never bothered her whatsoever.**

This exchange takes place in the Biology class, where one week ago Edward was aghast at being in the presence of Bella. He’s better, color has returned to his face and eyes. To fans of the mythology of Vampires this means that the population of Forks has recently dropped by at least one person in the last week, but let’s not get bogged down in trite details because we have a pissing contest to attend.

We know that Bella is smarter than her peers, Edward, is apparently also having the advantage of going through this before.*** Now they must each display their feathers proving that they are worthy mates. They do this in a well written sequence over the different stages of cellular mitosis (anaphase, prophase, etc.). Each underestimates the other and each are surprised. It’s nice and unlike everything else we have seen from Bella this shows her advanced maturity. She’s testing Edward looking for something more than a pretty face, she appreciates intelligence. They blast through the exercise and now make chit chat with Edward doing what all dapper young Casanovas do: gets her to talk about herself. She tries to go back into “too hip” mode but her usual brush off phrase doesn’t work:

“It’s complicated.”
“I think I can keep up,” he pressed.

I love his retort because he’s already proven that he’s at least as smart as her. She is completely subjugated by him and for all her superiority it’s nice to read it. He listens to her, asks her personal questions, then tells her why she’s wrong about herself. He’s not just some hot guy in school, he’s smart too, but it’s more than that–he’s a hunter. He knows women: listen, listen, compliment, tell her she’s wrong about herself, make an observation, then walk away. It leaves her wondering and that is his intent the whole time.

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*NOT a true story.
**We know which one I am voting for.
***That question still persists, but I’m waiting till he explains it before I offer my own explanation.