Vampires Are Cool (Pg. 361-369)

Again Bella is nervous, and again it's for all the wrong reasons. She should be nervous because she's going to hang out with a bunch of vampires at night, isolated, and to play baseball in the middle of a thunderstorm. It's not that though, she's nervous because she's going to have to do a little off roading in Edward's truck and then be carried by him as he runs through the woods which is something that she's already done before. He assures her that it's perfectly safe but she is still nervous. He decides that to make it better a little making out is in order. I suppose this makes a little sense, he wants her to think about something else but it gets weird, "I was suddenly welded to his stone figure. I sighed, and my lips parted."

Ok, so far so good, but then, "Damn it Bella!' he broke off gasping."

I've re-read this section two or three times completely unable to figure out what it is that startled him. He was lightly pecking her lips and then she goes for the deeper kiss he all of the sudden gets worried. Literally there is no indication for what made him so upset. Is it that he was going to have feel her internally? Perhaps having part of his mouth inside her would awaken his normal instinct of wanting to eat her? That might be the case but there is no indication of it. If that is the case then we have to wonder about how chaste their relationship is going to be. She reminds him that he's indestructible...for some reason, which causes him to retort, "I might have thought that before I met you."

It's been a long time since we've seen sociopath Edward in action so this is a refreshing reminder of the consistency that Meyer has written his character. Here, Edward is setting up blame for anything that goes wrong in his life on Bella. Before her, Edward was invincible but now...he's capable of being harmed. She's his all too convenient kryptonite. It's not as though she's going to get him in trouble, that's not what he is saying, he's saying that being involved in her life is prima facie dangerous to him. Although we don't know why because he hoists her on his back and then runs her to the field. She drops off of him and as a reminder about how clumsy she is she falls right on her butt.

"He stared at me incredulously, evidently not sure whether he was still too made to fine me funny. But my bewildered expression, pushed him over the edge, and he broke into a roar of laughter."

The best part here is that his only two choices for action are to be mad or to laugh at her. It never crosses her mind* that he should be concerned that she fell or that she could have fallen on something. Nope, he's either inexplicably mad or amused at her clumsiness. This probably isn't even evidence of her clumsiness given the setting. He's just run her at blinding speed through the woods at night so she's probably experiencing a little vertigo or disorientation and it has been pouring. Falling is actually a normal thing, but he doesn't care. Not only that, it never crosses her mind that the man who just told her that he loves her should be concerned.

In Sebastian De Grazi's book, Machiavelli in Hell, he describes the philosopher's work in terms of his view on women. He takes the position that women don't bear any particular focus for Machiavelli women are mere trophies for men. I disagree with that conclusion since Machiavelli writes about Italy in the Renaissance and Roman history in which women weren't especially noted by the historians. Yet when a strong woman of some importance comes into the fray Machiavelli does mention her, Caterina Sforza is the great example. If Grazi was correct it's a misogynistic view. What do you call it when it is the woman who is viewing herself as merely a trophy for the man? Because Bella does that, "I whispered, remembering the black moods that pulled him away from me, that I'd always interpreted as well justified frustration- frustration at my weakness, my slowness, and unruly human reactions..."

If a woman is viewed by a man as being a trophy this is precisely how he would view her. She should show up and shut up, present only to look good and be occasionally charming--but not too charming--to the more important male friends. This is how the man in that relationship thinks that the woman should view him as stronger, faster, and cool in his relations with others. Bella does this to herself from the outset. Part of me wants to shrug my shoulders saying that she chooses this herself but the greater part of me remembers that this woman, this relationship, is idolized and that I have a daughter. Sure, I can admit that I have been sometimes frustrated at a girlfriend's "unruly human reactions" but I also now that my frustration in those instances is NOT "well-justified." We can't expect Bella to behave like Caterina Sforza did toward the Orsi brothers.** We can expect her to not be this weak and insufferable. The whole point of the comment is to let us know how good Edward is by putting up with her despite her flaws which should cause him to run. Ladies, it's a bad sign if you ever think this and it's even worse if he ever says it.

"Are you ready for some ball?" Edward comments. No, I'm not nearly prepared for the lameness that's about to ensue, and I know it's lame before it even begins. This is going to be worse than Blitzball, Rollerball, and that stupid game from the beginning of Starship Troopers. It's done at night, by Vampires so we are supposed to think it's cool. The only reason for this to exist is to further tell us that Vampires are awesome, because they play baseball.

"I tried to sound appropriately enthusiastic, 'Go Team!" Bella can't seriously be this out of touch can she? "Go Team?" There really aren't any teams, it's just the Cullens with Esme as Umpire. That means it is three on two with probably a designated pitcher, no, wait there is a designated pitcher...Alice.

This is about the stupidest thing you can do. Alice quickly becomes my favorite in this story because she's easily the best person morally. How do we know? Because she is happy, carefree, even though she knows how everything turns out, which means that for most of the time she just makes everyone feel good about their lives by pretending not to know that happens. Let's be clear, they put the one person who can see the future as pitcher. She could have a great night pitching a perfect game, because she knows the outcome of every pitch. Even if the future is all emotion, as Yoda says, she could still do it. It's a testament to her nature that they even let her do this given her ability which we know works best on the Vampires. Ironically it's Bella that has the best chance of surprising her with actually hitting the ball. Yet, Alice is pitcher and she softballs the throws like a Fox News Anchor interviewing Sarah Palin, and Jasper gets a hit. No matter how good Jasper and Caslisle might be, no matter how fast the dreamy Edward is, they have to know that if they even touch the ball with the bat it's because Alice allowed them to. I wonder what her in house chess record is.

Not just a hit, but a HIT. This is like a baseball game between the Hulk and Superman. It's not just baseball, it's extreme baseball. Several times we notice how fast everything is and how Bella can't see the ball. Well no shit she can't it's night time. Which brings us to another problem. It's dark, overcast with the occasional bolt of lightening how can Bella even pretend to see. She runs with Esme across the field yet never trips despite her alleged clumsiness. This is just patently inconsistent especially where above she just fell down.

Yet my favorite part of the section is when Esme and Bella are running along and Esme recounts her origin. She tells what has to be the most uncomfortable story ever told by a mother to her son's girlfriend. First off, she had a baby that died a few days after it was born. I horrible tragedy that I can't even begin to sympathize with, but do you want to be mentioning this to a stranger? Then it gets even better as she explains her distraughtness over that compelled her to commit suicide, which she would have succeeded at had Carlisle not turned her into what she is now. "Awkward" doesn't even begin to describe it. What is Bella supposed to do with that information? Especially when you consider how even she considers any normal reaction to that kind of story to be "unruly?"

It's Carlisle's turn at bat but then Alice grows stiff. It seems the fates have grabbed her attention...
___________________________
*Because we must remember that she is narrating this story.

**Assassin's Creed II fans know this story, it really happened. In brief Caterina "Il Tigre" Sforza (her last name means "fire" and she also gets nicknamed "The Tiger" she was quite the badass) was capture by the Orsi brothers and somehow convinced them to let her in her castle at Forli. Stupidly they agreed and as soon as she was in she locked the doors behind her preparing for a siege which she knew they could not accomplish. They still held her children however and in pointing this out, she climbed to the battlement hiked up her skirt and informed them that she still could make more. See Machiavelli's Discourses Book III chapter 6.

Parenting (Pg. 354-360)

Bella has just told off Billy Black, and Billy who knows what Edward and the rest of the Cullens are just shrugs his shoulders and leaves. I guess knowing that you are dating a creature that eats other people is better than not knowing even though it should change nothing in Billy's head. He drops off his fish and speeds off in his car. Bella, "stood in the hallway for a few minutes listening to the sound of their car..."

Jacob was with him as well, but he does absolutely nothing during this whole time. We know that he's got a thing for Bella, that he's kind of embarrassed about the old legends, so it's at least a little strange that he says nothing. The reader could assume that Billy and Jacob had a little conversation on the way over wherein Billy told Jacob to mind his business, but if that were the case why did Billy just take a whole bunch of guff from Bella?

There is also another problem with this section and the whole chapter: exactly what day and time is it? The dance was yesterday, so that means that today should be Sunday. Since the vampires never go out during the day, we can assume that it's late and given that it's Spring it must be around 7pm, dusk at the earliest. It's important because Bella is planning to watch Thunderball, which must take place at night during the thunderstorm. Sunday night, a school night. This is important to note but let's move on with the plot for right now.

After making sure that they are gone, she runs upstairs to try on some clothes, "now that I was removed from Jasper's and Edward's influence, I began to make up for not being terrified earlier." We can assume that Edward calms her down since she's quite neurotic and completely unsure of herself, unless she's confronting adults. Since she's completely dependent on Edward I'm unsure how his influence affected her when he had already been gone for the whole conversation. What I'm even less clear about is how Jasper is affecting her at all. It's been established that Jasper has the ability to project feelings on to other people. He can calm an entire room, why he isn't running for any kind of office doesn't make sense to me, but this is his super power. I'll buy that Bella isn't immune to it like she is to Edward's ESP, but Jasper isn't there. He wasn't in the car, and as far as we know he wasn't really paying attention to Bella at all in the house. Is the influence assumed? Should we assume the presence of Jasper's emotional manipulation every time Bella is calm and assertive? Should we picture Alice and Jasper cloaked sitting next to each other like the Fates of ancient Greece one foreseeing the future the other moving it along? Actually that last question would be a better idea for a book than this.

So it's getting to be baseball time and Bella has gone native deciding that a flannel shirt and jeans will make her outfit. She's gone grunge exactly fifteen years too late to be relevant. Her father is home and now it is time for her to bite the bullet, she's got to tell him the secret that she's been keeping for weeks for absolutely no reason. Remember Charlie Swan likes the Cullens, he's explicitly said so and even risked his relationship with his best friend because of it.

Bella runs downstairs, tells her father that Billy dropped off some fish fry for him (even though Charlie has been fishing all day), fixes dinner like a good little wife...er daughter and then drops the bomb. Charlie drops his fork. He's under the misunderstanding that Bella is seeing the older Cullen, Jasper perhaps, not Edward. Once this is cleared up he takes it well for any father listening to a story about his daughter and her first boyfriend.

I'm not exactly looking forward to that day myself but I actually hope to have Charlie's reaction...minus the dropping of the fork. All he does is clear up the information and then move on with his dinner. I've received so many pieces of conflicting advice about the subject. One school of thought, the stupid typical guy school, is to scare the boyfriend so that nothing will happen...yeah that doesn't work. I know that doesn't work because I know how teenagers work, you push really hard one way and they push back the other. The being friends with the guy isn't supposed to work because the girl will get bored or uncomfortable with the nice relationship you have and dump him for someone less friendly. Indifference won't work, because it will be false and kids can see through that kind of crap. Charlie's method of curiosity and information desire seems to be good enough. Bella still has to explain her plan for the evening.

After telling Charlie he doesn't bat an eye. Which is completely messed up. It's Sunday night, a school night, the sun is setting, it's raining, and his daughter, who is as uncoordinated as a drunk epileptic having a seizure is going to play baseball. What kind of parent is this? It makes me want to retroactively delete the preceding paragraph because of the audacity that Meyer possesses in order to get us to believe this. Edward arrives and Charlie has a short conversation with him, "So I hear that you're getting my girl to watch baseball.' Only in Washington would the fact that it was raining buckets have no bearing at all on the playing of outdoor sports."

No Bella, it's not Washington. It's Forks and whatever it is that is in the drinking water. It's not outdoor sports that is the problem, it's outdoor baseball. To me baseball is a waste of time. I've played it so I know that in driving rain you can't play baseball. No one can see the ball in order to hit it. Other sports, such as both versions of football for instance, can be played in the rain to no detriment. The fact that Charlie is a baseball fan and he ignores this basic fact of the world is all too convenient. With the coming thunderstorm he should be at least concerned about safety, but he's not, because it's essential to the plot that he lets her go. This is pure Deus Ex Machina. He doesn't even register concern when they climb into the 4x4 and Bella notes that it's raining so hard that she can't really make him out standing on the porch. If you think about it, does Charlie's existence even matter? Has it really mattered this whole time? Even when Charlie and Billy were watching the game Bella noted that they didn't talk much.

Consider also, if he didn't exist and was merely a figment of Bella's imagination what would have changed in the story thus far?

And this Just Sounds Racist (Pg. 349-354)

It's been decided that Bella is going to watch the vampires play 'Thunderball' later tonight. Edward is doing Bella a disservice here because Thunderball is one of the good Bond movies...but we aren't talking about movies, we're talking about some ridiculous game related to baseball that the vampires play during storms. Not having arrived at the game yet I must be emphatic that the only reason for them to do this is so that they look cool, dark, and mysterious in front of Bella. While the idea is no more ridiculous than Quidditch at least Quidditch served a purpose: to let the neophyte wizards learn their abilities and practice them competitively. To take a routine game like baseball and change it to night/thunderstorm baseball is pointless at best. It's also not the vampires showing off, but Meyer showing off that the vampires are different. It's like she needs to convince us that Bella needs to be impressed by them more so that she falls in love more, but by now if the reader doesn't think she is hopelessly in his thrall they just aren't paying attention.

Bella needs to go home and get some new clothes so they take her truck back to her house. At the door are the Blacks waiting. Edward snarls. Bella is confused but then comes to a realization, "He came to warn Charlie?' I guessed more horrified than angry."

This whole section spirals downhill faster than I thought possible. It's symptomatic of the entire book, we get a pretty decent section (the cuteness between Edward and Bella in his room), a small descent (the whole scene with Alice and Jasper), then the sudden Wile E. Coyote drop off the side of the cliff. They've seen the Blacks, but it's doubtful that the Blacks have seen them and Edward needs to pick up Bella later. This isn't a problem because, as we know, he just shows up to check on her whenever he needs to. He tells her that he will be back, "After your get rid of them--."

He snarls at the Blacks and it comes off as racist. We know that the Cullens don't like the Blacks and vice-versa, but what we don't know specifically is why. As readers going through the book for the first time none of this makes sense. The old cliche of the "Magical/Wise Native," activates here for the reader. The Blacks know that the Cullens are vampires because their magical legends tell them so.* For the purposes of the story we can buy this as an explanation. What we don't know is why the Cullens hate the Blacks and it seems unreasonable for Edward not to explain any of this to Bella. It's not strange that he doesn't, because he never tells her anything that might be considered important, but for him to snarl and talk about "them" he should offer up something. Perhaps, Bella could ask about the myths that Jacob told her.

Edward vanishes and Bella invites the Blacks in. That's when Billy and Bella get into it. Billy wants to tell Charlie that he should watch out for his daughter because of who she is dating. Of course, it's not about who but what she is dating. In this respect, the whole thing comes off as racist but there's a problem. How does Billy know that they are dating? He's seen them together once, and that just happened a few minutes ago. Jacob might know a bit more, but only from distant rumors as he doesn't even go to school with her. Maybe Billy saw them together the last time he popped over but his leap from seeing them talking to assuming they're dating is too big to make. We know that Billy is right, but he can only be making an assumption based on the theoretical one time he's seen them together before tonight. Unless he has the foresight as well.

Billy explains that the Cullens have a reputation and that is why he is looking out for his friend's daughter. A noble motivation, but he never says what that reputation is, without explaining why he just comes off as racist. Which is appropriate because we are talking about another species here. Bella rolls with it, "But that reputation couldn't be deserved could it? Because the Cullens never set foot on the Reservation, do they?"

This fact-of the Cullens never setting foot on the Reservation-brings us waaay back to the beach trip in the beginning of the book. Sure this is a correct assertion, the Cullens do not set foot on the Reservation, but Bella leaves out the why. They don't come there because they aren't allowed on the Reservation. The eldest Black made that explicitly clear. We know why, Billy Black knows why, Bella knows why, but it's unclear why Billy should make that assumption about Bella. They aren't allowed, it's not their part of town and they need to 'git. The book heads in the typical direction of disapproval of the new boyfriend, "Though it would be my business, again, whether or not I think that it's Charlie's business right?"

The problem is that neither Bella nor Billy seem to be addressing two important facts: the first being that Bella is a teenager. She doesn't know anything so she doesn't really get to make decisions for her father's friends. Billy just admits that she is more informed than he thought she was and then backs off. Really!? Your best friend's teenage daughter just told you off and you are going to walk away? This is some shitty adulthood, but it's nothing worse than any of the other parents we've seen in Forks. Charlie lets his daughter treat him like they are equals, Carlisle really has no idea what is going on with his brood, and now Billy Black lets some smart ass teenage girl run him off.

It's especially weird because the second important fact is that Edward isn't human. It's in his nature to murder people and drink their blood, an action he's admitted to doing already, but Billy just ignores this small fact. A fact, that he knows to be true or else he wouldn't be there to warn Charlie of his daughter's new boyfriend which is the fact that he shouldn't actually know. Speaking of Edward, how come none of the Blacks inquired as to where exactly he went earlier when they noticed him in the car? No wonder the werewolves always lose.

_______________________________________
*Which in fiction is always portrayed as being 100% accurate. If the wise old Indian says so it must be, and this tends to blend in with real life unfortunately. Just look at how many idiots believe in this Mayan Doomsday bullshit.

It Just Doesn't Sound Right (Pg. 343-349)

We've dispensed with the story of Dr. Carlisle and now Edward wants to show off his room to Bella. Normal stuff for bringing home the girlfriend at that age...or at 17 which Edward certainly is not. Either way, they have some privacy but now the pair want actual privacy. Edward's room is large and has a bunch of CDs. I suppose this is supposed to give us a clue as to Edward's musical talent, but it begs the question about how exactly one shows off their music collection now.

Going to school I see a number of students plodding along with headphones and little red and pink squares attached to their bags. These are obviously their iPods and MP3 players. It's a scene right out of the nightmares of Ray Bradbury,* but how does one show off their music collection nowadays? I've never been a big music person myself, my collection is maybe one hundred albums and all of them are in my computer. I carry around with me, maybe 200 songs on my cellphone, how do the kids do it now? Do they have to impress their paramours with actual conversation or do they just toss their little plastic cubes over and let that person scroll through their playlists?

We can't really fault Meyer for this idiosyncrasy, the book was published in 2005 and iPods were certainly popular then and the digital music player goes back to 1979, but only very recently has the idea of buying music without actually paying for a thing (i.e. a physical medium) really taken off. The next Video Game Consoles probably won't even have drives on them, yet most people keep their cds that they have already bought if for nothing else than a testament to what they paid for.

The two have a some banter, it's nothing of note until Bella again asserts that she's not afraid of being in the house alone with a bunch of vampires. That's when Edward bares his fangs and leaps at her in playful wrestling. It's sort of cute and how I imagine the children of Krypton flirted...until that is I remember that it orbited a red sun. It's at this point, when the making out is about to ensue that Alice and Jasper walk into the room, "It sounded like you were having Bella for lunch, and we came to see if you would share,' Alice announced."

Wait, I saw this movie. It used to air at 2am on Cinemax right? I thought this was a book written by a Mormon for teenage girls. Does the film adaptation star Alyssa Milano and Charlotte Lewis? They've aged well if the movie posters are any indication. Obviously I'm reading into this more than is necessary, but what is the other conclusion that I am to draw? That they are joking about murdering her? The fact about this book is that there are so many unlikable characters that I want to like Alice and Jasper so I'm forced to think that they are making a sex joke and not a murder joke because of the two choices that's the better one. Adding to that is that Alice doesn't laugh through the comment, she announces it then gracefully dances through the room. It has to be a sex joke.

Their proclaimed reason for coming in the room is to ask Edward if he wants to go play thunderball with them later tonight. This is something, related to baseball, that the Vampires do when there is a thunder storm. I'll let the ridiculousness of this slide since it's no more outrageous than Quidditch. Also thunderball is just another really obvious way to show that Vampires are cool: they play baseball in the rain! duh duh DUH.

Alice then has an idea, "Let's go see if Carlisle will come,' Alice bounded up and to the door in a fashion that would break any ballerina's heart. "Like you don't know,' Jasper teased."

Aside from the really difficult time I had imagining the layout of Edward's room these two sentences really made me think. I don't think that Jasper is actually teasing Alice here, I think he's rolling his eyes. It's been established that Alice is Delphic Pythian of the group and given her carefree cute nature I'm willing to bet she's just a pain in the ass to live with. If she can correctly prophesy whether or not Carlisle is going to play a game, a trite prediction no matter how you look at it, then she just has to be the most annoying person in the world. Especially since the limit to the power she has is that it is only really accurate when it has to do with others of her own kind. If Jasper sits down to watch a hockey game, he's interacting with that game--albeit passively, but that's interaction as he is involved in the game. That activates Alice's power and if she wants to be a jerk she can just tell him who wins...all the damn time. There's a funny scene in Scary Movie 3 where this is portrayed as the "Oracle" ruins a basketball game for "Morpheus," who then laments, "I get shit for women I ain't even slept with yet."

It's such a trite prediction for her too, usually the device of fortune telling in fiction is used for important plot points not things like choosing to play a game. In this I think that Meyer gets it right. For my part, skepticism has obliterated any faith I put in prophecy and the greatest weight of my skepticism comes from Cicero's "De Divinatione." Cicero makes a great point of mentioning that all of the examples of accurate fortune telling have to do with great events. As if the soothsayers** are building in an excuse for why the Delphic couldn't predict the outcome of the Olympic games, or the Augurs various matches in the Arena, or why John Edwards hasn't made a ridiculous killing betting the ponies or the Superbowl. If Alice can make these types of prediction, on day to day affairs it actually gives her credit toward her ability. Even more so that Jasper makes his comment.

He doesn't know, but he knows that she does and all they are doing is going through the motions of actually having to ask him. This is probably the best thing Meyer has written so far, but it's subtle. We believe Alice has the gift because everyone else is annoyed with it. It's too bad this kind of subtlety doesn't prevade the rest of the writing.
____________________
*If you ask him, Fahrenheit 451 isn't about censorship and burning books, it's about not reading and becoming detached from society through media like the personal radio.

**I know I'm using terms that different types of prophesying as if they were interchangeable.

The Prodigal Son (Pg. 341-343)

Continuing on from the strange origin of Dr. Carlisle, we have him in the New World more than likely prior to the American Revolution.* At this point Carlisle has probably been established as a doctor of medicine in Italy and travelling to the English Colonies would mean that he's probably got a job and estate already set up there. At the very least he has the means to do it himself. It's odd though, "He dreamed of finding others like himself. He was very lonely you see."

He's in Italy among members of his own kind. They have a rift over human blood and he leaves for the undiscovered countries of the Americas so that he can find others like himself. It's quite a leap of reasoning to assume that there will be other vampires in the West. Which works with the story very well because he doesn't. He's alone for two centuries, well not alone, I'm sure with his outrageous perfection he's at least making friends. This is like the Jesus story in the bible, you read all about his infancy to middle childhood (in some versions anyway) and then bam, he's thirty with followers and on his way out. I would be more interested in a story that dealt with these two centuries of Carlisle rather than this tired story of two sociopaths getting together.

Especially from the point of view of a doctor. When exactly did leeches go out of style? Was there some sort of medical establishment backlash against not using leeches? How did Darwin's theory impact the study of medicine? What about the advent of psychology? There is so much that happens in those two centuries from a purely scientific standpoint that it would be a far more interesting story, but no, we skip ahead.

"When the influenza epidemic hit, he was working nights a hospital in Chicago." Suddenly it's 1918 in this flashback and Edward gets turned. Edward thinks it's of note that Carlisle chose him because he was already dying, that somehow that makes Carlisle ethical in his choices. However, that's like asking a person if they want to take an experimental drug to prevent their terminal cancer. A dying person is going to say yes to just about anything that gives them a small fraction of hope for survival. Just look at what we do to keep 90 year old people alive. Fear of death is one of the most primal habits** man possesses. When Carlisle asks Edward (we assume) if he wants to live or die, that isn't a choice. Instinct answers that question. Carlisle isn't morally better because Edward is already on his way out, it actually makes him worse. Ethically you have to be very careful when you experiment with inmates in a prison, because they will agree to most anything just to break the routine. A dying person has more than just monotony to worry about.

Edward being the first of the new brood is instructed by Carlisle to ignore the raging blood lust in his mind and just eat animals. It's a nice sentiment and all but this is like asking a cat to start eating its veggies. So Edward splits. He relates the tale of his murdering for food by trying to portray himself as some sort of avenging angel. He would only stalk and kill criminals. One time he saves a young girl from being murdered by mauling the would-be perpetrator and Bella wonders when the girl sees him, "would she have been grateful, that girl, or more frightened than before?"

The question would be pertinent if this were a well thought out idea. It works in stories like Batman or the Punisher where a murderer/rapist is brutally attacked by a shadowy figure saving a young, usually female, victim. Here, because we have been constantly reminded of how beautiful Edward is it comes down to looks. Would she be grateful if the angelic Adonis Edward had saved her? Bella, we know, thinks yes. The question is abnormal for another reason as well, and that is the manner of saving. When Batman beats someone up or the Punisher shoots someone; those are normal things. They are scary and dangerous, to be sure, and no one wants to be such a close witness to that kind of extreme violence, but they are normal fitting in with the rules of our world. When Edward attacks the murderer it breaks those rules and defies expectations.

It's not the flip of the cloak and the blur of a shadow that saves the her. It's something that has come to feed, an ultra fast human that is drinking the blood of another human being. No matter Edward's victims' intent, it's still a human being and one of the rules of the world is that people don't get eaten by people. In this case, surely the woman must have been in abject terror.

After years of this behavior Edward comes back to Carlisle and now Esme, "They welcomed me back like the prodigal. It was more than I deserved."

"The prodigal," is obviously an allusion to the parable of the prodigal son in the Christian Bible. Summarizing, a father gives his two sons their inheritance early. One stays at the farm and works while the other gets as drunk as a poet on payday, consorts with loose women, blows through his money. Poor he returns home looking to work for his money earning the enmity of his brother. The moral of the story is that it is good that the prodigal son returns and we should rejoice rather than hate him for his ways.

The problem is that most people misunderstand the word "prodigal." It isn't the fact that the son left home that makes him prodigal, it's that he spend all of his money on women, wine, and parties. He could have been prodigal without ever leaving his home...which actually would have been a better story.

It's a misunderstanding that most people fall into because those that speak from the pulpit get it wrong when they speak of the moral of the story. Because oddly enough, the moral of story doesn't change one bit if the person telling the story doesn't know what the word "prodigal" actually means. As said earlier the moral of the story is about welcoming back one who has become lost, perhaps that is where the misunderstanding actually comes in: we tend to think of "lost" primarily in a spatial sense. The prodigal son was lost both in location and in his ways so again, it oddly works.

For Edward's example it works accidentally as well. It all depends on what he meant by "prodigal." Was he referring to himself as being like the person from the story? If the answer to that is "yes" then he is completely wrong. He wasn't prodigal, he was merely bloodthirsty, and Jesus' tale wasn't about a person who left the home to go on a murder spree. Edward wasn't throwing parties and such. Only if his reference was to the welcoming back by Carlisle does the allusion work in the correct sense. Unfortunately the structure of the sentence doesn't support the latter claim.

Not even the religious can get the religious stories right most of the time. I do wonder if Carlisle's father at least had it right.

____________________________
*Since it kind of ceased to be called "the New World" once
**I stress the word "habit" in the vein of American Philosopher John Dewey.

Prodigies (Pg. 338-341)

It's the 1660s, give or take since time was marked that accurately or something back then (hint: it was), and Carlisle has just swam to France. Edward is still telling his story about his patriarch and Bella despite being afraid of the fact that vampires don't need to breath has decided to stick around. Let's be clear: the only thing that scares Bella about hanging around with Vampires is that they don't need to breathe. Not the fact that it is only through an exercise in will that they are resistant to their bloodlust. Perhaps it makes sense because the lack of breathing reminds her that she's falling for a corpse but that's me being generous.

Edward continues with the history of Carlisle, "By night he studied music, science, medicine--and found his calling, his penance, in that, in saving human lives."

There's a lot to unpack in that one sentence. When I was teaching one of the eminent philosophers I used to cover was Thomas Hobbes. He lived from 1588-1679 and was one of those rare people who actually lived through what he was teaching. He also was a professional academic. It's important here because the University system worked a lot differently back then than it does now. There wasn't tuition, the student paid by the class. A student of Hobbes would go to a lecture, learn what he could, then pay the professor directly. This was the standard method of attending higher education during this period, unless you were royalty. It's been established that Carlisle wasn't royalty being the son of a preacher. So we have an important question: how exactly did Carlisle attend school.

Another problem is that this isn't England, it's France. French Universities during this period weren't like Universities now. You don't just show up with the requisite money and you are in. The University system of those days required you to be of the Aristocracy or at least have a benefactor who was Aristocratic. Carlisle has no one in France, but somehow he manages to get in to the colleges...at night.

Which brings us to problem three in this failure of a sentence. The concept of "night class" is formed around the idea that someone would want to better themselves while already working, thus they can go to school and their job with no conflict. This wouldn't even be an idea that Royal France would have in the late 17th century. It makes sense now, although I doubt you can become a medical doctor by only attending night classes, but this explanation for how Carlisle became a doctor only works if you know nothing about the history of academics. Carlisle would have been better served an origin detailing his work at the barber shop and slowly being introduced to medicine through it.

Which brings us to the last problem, although it's not with this book but with history. Medical history is so full of oddities that it's remarkable people made it through at all. Medicine in those days largely relied on the theory that blood would spoil, so in order to get better they bled people. Ask George Washington how the "bleeding treatment" worked out for him. Given Carlisle's nature he must really have overcome his blood lust quite quickly (only a couple of decades) in order to be able to bleed a person's fever out (seriously) and toss the blood away. I guess his strength of will was really quite remarkable even in the youth of his Vampirism.

"He was studying in Italy when he discovered the others there." The Italian vampires are described as being much more refined than those of England. These are the Aristocratic vampires that are so popularly depicted in literature. If Carlisle had stumbled upon them first, then went to school, we would have a much more believable story. Yet these vampires must be the Stregoni Benefici that Bella stumbled upon back when she knew Eddie was a Vampire but needed to prove her theory on the internet. Here's the trouble: according to the book the Stregoni Benefici, are supposed to be "on the side of goodness, and the mortal enemy of all evil vampires."*

So Carlisle has found that group of vampires that are old enough to have overcome their bloodlust as well. Edward points at a picture that Bella describes as either Greek/Roman mythological or Biblical...not really much of a difference since the images of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are clearly inspired by representations of Zeus/Jupiter from the classical period. So their at the latest Roman. Yet Carlisle doesn't stay with them, he decides to try the New World, the phrasing means that it is at the latest the mid 1700s. He doesn't stay with them because they are at a detente over the lack of human blood in his diet. Yep, he's one of THOSE vegetarians always preaching about their moral superiority because they don't eat cow. I wish I could be like those vampires and kick them out of my continent as well but what this means for the story is that the "good" vampires still eat people.

What I really I really love about the implication here is that even thought these Romans are "good" they still drink blood. Which means that in order to be good in Meyer's world the measuring stick is being true to your own nature. How very pagan of her to be slipping this type of lesson into her books. It also means that there is a separation in her eyes between being good and being a vegetarian. Or barring that you can still be a vegetarian without being a douche about it...maybe I do like her after all.

__________________________________
*I mentioned this site before and it so obviously is the site that Bella went to that I wonder who set it up: the publishing company for the book or some fan. In either case this is the definition that she gives.

The Mysterious Case of Dr. Carlisle (Pg. 329-338)

"How old is Dr. Carlisle?"

This is a good question, although because of his unique nature it has two answers. Like Edward who is both 17 and over a hundred, we need both of them mainly because of how badly Edward is written. If you've been following this blog one my main complaints is that Edward is supposed to be a centurion but acts like a 17 year old with more talents than the average teenager. Dr. Cullen is going to be much older, but we don't know exactly how old he was when he was changed. It's curious because there is the possibility that Meyer is going to write consistently here. Perhaps the vampires in her universe are forever stuck in the age when they were changed, that would be odd but it would at least allow us to forgive Edward's actions a little bit.

First off we learn that Dr. Carlisle is the son of an Anglican preacher. I'm not sure if that makes him more interesting or if this explanation is just a lame attempt to drive religion into the story. I'm willing to suspend judgment on that thus far. He's Anglican and then we learn that, "Carlisle was born in London, in the 1640s, he believes. Time wasn't marked as accurately then, for the common people anyway."

An interesting point of history is that the religious sect known as the Puritans were still allowed within the umbrella of the Anglican church until the 1660s. I think that if Meyer was going to set up some dichotomy between what Carlisle was raised as and what he eventually became it would have been better to call his father a Puritan rather than a simple Anglican. The Puritans, to quote Robin Williams, were the people so uptight the British didn't even want them. They make our Christian Fundamentalists look progressive by comparison, that makes for a more interesting conflict. So obviously we don't get it...then again the story isn't about Dr. Cullen so we can give that a pass.

The thing about time not being marked accurately is odd to me. The Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582, the Julian calendar had been adopted since the time of the Romans, so I don't understand how he couldn't know his exact age. The printing press, the church, and the government of England would have kept dates. If we have exact dates for the landing at Plymouth, the date of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, etc. not having a date for Carlisle's birth is odd. It's not like his father was a coal miner or some peasant either, he was a preacher which meant he was literate and could read a calendar. Also he would be quite able to remember how many summers he's been alive, the exact date...maybe not, but he should have the year down.

Carlisle's father gets more and more Cotton Mather-ish as the descriptions go on, "He also believed very strongly in the reality of evil. He led hunts for witches, werewolves,...and vampires.' I grew stiff at the word. I'm sure he noticed, but he went along without pausing."

So he wasn't just a preacher he was a crusader. I wonder how many the senior Cullen put to the flame that were actually creatures of the netherworld. If you read any of the history about the witch hunts you will discover two important features: the first is that a great deal less people were executed than popular culture (and Wiccans) would have you believe. For instance the infamous Salem witch trials killed 20 people,* that's it. While the Satanists and the Wiccans refer to this period as the "burning times" they also seem to neglect the fact that those unfortunates in Salem were hanged. The other feature is that hardly any people practicing witchcraft were killed at all. The problem was that accusation was as a good as guilt, plus the "victim" of the witch was also able to make a property claim on the witch's estate. This led to a great deal of abuse, especially by those following the malleus maleficarum** as the guide to locating witches, or professional witch hunters looking to collect bounties. Remember that it would be virtually impossible to prove that someone isn't a witch once accused. In fact, things like this are STILL happening in modern sub-Saharan Africa.

The end of the above quote confuses me as well. Why does Bella stiffen at the mention of the word "vampire?" To be sure that is a fear response, but what is she afraid of? She's already in the den of the vampires, she doesn't care that they exist, and she's there of her own free will. Is it because they used to hunt the vampires? That doesn't make sense since they don't live in Kenya. That Edward doesn't stop is actually testament to him. She has no reason to be afraid if she's come this far.

Dr. Cullen's father passes away, we never learn how, and the burden of hunting evil is thrust on Carlisle. He finds some real vampires, which implies that he's been killing fake vampires for awhile now, and they live in the sewers of London, "In those days, when monsters were not just myths and legends, that was the way many lived."

At first I thought that sentence was stupid. Then I realized that it is very cleverly worded. It's not that vampires and werewolves don't exist in Bella's present it's that no one believes in them now. As opposed to back then when people thought they were real. Meyer did good on that sentence.

Carlisle chases the vampires into the sewer with a crowd of pitchfork and torch wielding commoners running down a vampire who attacks them. The vampire cries out in Latin but gets the drop on Carlisle who hides under potatoes for three days emerging with the full knowledge of what he had become. Something is missing. Carlisle is attacked but then he hides when other people come to his aid and chase off the vampire.

Carlisle was merely attacked, is that all it takes? "He paused. I could sense that he was editing something, keeping something from me."

Really Bella!? Edward is hiding something from you and you think that it's noteworthy. Here's a clue sweetheart: he's always hiding something from you. What could he be hiding? I'm thinking the sex. In a dismally horrible movie with Casper Van Dien and Craig Ferguson called "Modern Vampires" that was the key to turning a person into a vampire. What else could he be hiding? Blood draining? It's really the only thing that makes sense.

Which would be a nice metaphor because this whole Vampire hunting preacher that becomes one himself would be just like all of those Anti-Gay ministers that get busted for having sex with men.*** Too bad Meyer is a Mormon and that their church was so instrumental in getting the ballot voted down in California last year. Carlisle recognizing what he has become decides that he's going to attempt to kill himself, but he doesn't know how which is a nice touch since he can't do the normal things like laying out in the sun. The other thing we learn is that Meyer's vampires can't get killed by being dunked under running water, which is an old myth that has gone the way of phlogiston theory, but it used to be a classic.

Carlisle overcomes his bloodlust and swims to France. Bella is aghast, "He swam to France?"

Edward is funny because he reminds her that people do that all the time. The point of Calais is so close to England that it's a regular event for trained swimmers. What surprises Bella the most is that she finally realizes that Vampires don't need to breathe and she freaks out. The super-speed, strength, the mind reading, the blood drinking, the lack of regular food, the prophesying, the agelessness, hypnosis, she takes all of that in stride. Only two things about being a vampire really get her attention: the striking good looks and the fact that they don't need to breathe. She can't really be this stupid can she?

_______________________________
*Or 19 depending on when you stop the period of the trials.

**"The hammer of the Witch" a 15th century handbook on finding, prosecuting, and executing witches.

***It's a nice coincidence that it happened again this week.