Recycling (Pg. 229-246)

This is one time when I think that I will agree with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, recycling is a bad thing when it comes to plots. Once things are resolved they should be just that, resolved. Dredging up the past for the sake of convenience is not only boring but it also reminds you of all of the bad things from before. When we yearn for the past we are romanticizing it, forgetting the bad and only remembering the good.

For instance, in the last novel it took almost 300 pages to get to some actual tension. The meeting of the evil vampires. Looking back in my memory it would seem as though it was a highlight of an otherwise wearisome book. That doesn't mean that I want to relive the same shit from the past, because unromantically I remember that it was shitty. Unfortunately fate is a fickle mistress that likes to mess with you just because she can.

Before we get to that last week I had a criticism of Bella. It's pretty normal of me and this blog, but I mentioned how Bella is pretty dumb for wondering why Jacob hadn't called her when she was pretty explicit about not returning his affections and in fact never going to return his affections. Well if only I had turned the page last week, "He was taking my advice and not waste any more time on someone who couldn't return his feelings."

You get one point there Bella Swan, but the debt you're running is going to take forever to even up. Moving on.

Bella, upset about Jacob not calling lies to her father and decides to go and look for the meadow at the top of the forest herself. I suppose that her character could have grown, but if the experienced Jacob couldn't find the place it's pretty doubtful that the ignorant clumsy Bella could find it on her own. Except that her clumsiness isn't expressed once in the whole trip. Remember when Edward had to carry her because she couldn't make it without falling down? Yeah, me too.

Miraculously, she makes it just fine locating the meadow herself. It's been a year and it seems that nothing has changed. There is even a dark figure who steps out of the woods as she enters it herself. Who could it be?

"Laurent!' I cried in surprised pleasure."

We remember Laurent from the last book...and we're at the recycling. This is only book 2 of a series and there is roughly no reason to reintroduce a character that played no major role in the previous book. Sure he was part of the evil coven but he wasn't the evil one, that was James. Laurent had given the impression that he was going to convert to the vegetarianism of the Cullens going so far as even slap one of those apple stickers on his car (that's a joke for faithful readers with good memories). So why bring him back? It's lazy and cheap at this point. It's as bad as the fact that every iteration of Star Wars has to revisit Tatooine, it's a desert planet and it's not that interesting (they even say it in the first movie).

What's more puzzling is that Bella's reaction isn't one of mild fear or even hesitance but pleasure. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. She's so deluded that seeing a vampire, even an evil one, reminds her of her dear sweet Edward. It's so incredibly stupid. Visiting the place where they had their first kiss is also stupid, but it's heart broken stupid which is forgiveable. It's important to note that this is a reaction, she doesn't have time to think, 'oh it's Laurent and I shouldn't be scared but rather happy to see him because he reminds me of Edward for some reason.' It's the first thing she thinks of, it's her impression upon first image. That's pretty messed up.

The message here ladies is this: if a group of people try and kill you and your boyfriend saves you by murdering one them, but later you meet one of the survivors you should be happy because that person reminds you of your boyfriend.

But wait there's more. Seeing Laurent sends Bella into some kind of nostalgia. Laurent apparently was a convert moving to Alaska to live with another vegetarian family up there, this memory forces her to think about the Cullens: "The other family like...but I couldn't let myself think the name." Later it occurs again but this time she allows herself to think it "I'd begun to picture him, on the rare occasions that I thought of him at all, with the same golden eyes that the...Cullens-I forced the name out, wincing--had."

Both of these are internal monologues, and she winces at them? She's not talking to anyone and the thoughts of a person don't change much if you don't use their name. What is she trying to do, not summon them? And who thinks occasionally of a friend of the person that tried to kill them? Idiot.

What's worse is that Laurent doesn't just look the same, but exactly the same. Meaning that he looks at Bella like she's food, Laurent hadn't changed, he met up with Victoria who is going to be upset, "about me killing you."

So Laurent, the person who thought that the Cullens had it good, actually lived in Alaska with the other vegetarians, is now suddenly an evil vampire once again. I get that sometimes people don't change, actually it's most of the time, but these two people put an entire country between them and somehow Laurent can't help but run into her. Why not bring us a new character or have Victoria be the one who returns. Laurent is there at her behest, why bring in a middle man. It's not like stealth seems to be his modus operandi, if the Cullens were there he would have been found and interrogated or just straight up murdered.

Just as Laurent is about to eat her, out comes the saving hand of the divine. A wolf so large and dire that it was the creature being mistaken for the bear in the woods. Laurent is afraid of it, and for once we actually get a good scene because Bella admits that she doesn't know what the hell is going on. She wants to know why Laurent is afraid, I mean they're wolves but he's a vampire. He should be able to annihilate them. Her questions make sense, her anxiety makes sense but the wolves don't seem to care about her at all. The trouble is that the situation presented is better than the writing of it. Bella is just too whiny and too enthralled with the voice of Edward in her head to make it work. Which is odd because the voice in her head has to be a memory, Edward's telepathy doesn't work on her, but somehow the memory is able to give new information for new, completely unique situations. If the voice never appeared the scene would have been good.

I should mention that there are five of them, and how many people were getting approached by the La Push gang (A French Rapper if I've ever hear of one*)? Two (Jacob and Embry), plus the three original members. We know where this is going.

Subtlety cannot be made with a hammer.

________________________________
*Not my joke, but a commenter on the wordpress version of this blog made it.

Narcissism (Pg. 225-228)

"Jacob didn't call."

Jake not calling is a big deal, but I wonder why it is for Bella. I say it's a big deal because we know that he is infatuated with Bella from last chapter and since they have been spending so much time together him not calling is odd. It's especially odd since he told her that he would call, and the sickness that everyone had seemed to pass over in a day. Could Bella be showing signs of humanity in her narcissistic worldview? Perhaps. We should note that this is the first sign of actual concern for another human being that she has. It's entirely altruistic, concerned with the other person without referring it back to herself or how her life would be affected.

Bella calls a couple of times and is not able to get through. She then has her dad call Harry Clearwater, friend of Billy's, to find out what is going on. From this circular route, which is a reasonable way of going about things I suppose, we find out three things: 1) Harry has been in the hospital for some kind of heart thing. 2) The phone lines have been messed up on the Reservation so that's why Bella hasn't been able to get through. 3) Jacob has mononucleosis.

Number 2, seems like a lame story but we must remember that this is the next day. The phones being down could just be a coincidence although phone companies do tend to put up a recording informing of the problem. The fact that Jacob has mono (or is claimed to have mono), explains some of his symptoms. I've saved the first thing for last, Harry's heart problem because of the reaction Bella has to it:

"Charlie was too worried about Harry. That was clearly the more important issue--it wouldn't be right to bug him with my lesser concerns."

This leads us to a discussion about one of the main problems with this book, and the last one. That of artificial tension between characters. Tension ought to arise from natural personality conflicts, or competing mutual desires ala Thomas Hobbes. For instance we understand that tension between Mike and Jacob at the movies last chapter because they both, for some reason, want Bella. It makes sense, it's identifiable, etc. The problem with this series thus far is that we know that there is tension between two characters because we are told there is tension, without any evidence for it. Furthermore, Bella's frequent impatience or anger at her father is utterly fictional. We can picture her rolling her eyes at her dad's concern for his friend, but why? The "lesser concern" of hers is just that: it's a lesser concern. Mononucleosis, isn't treatable and just goes away on its own.

I should know, I had it my second year of college. Harry's heart problem is potentially fatal, and Bella being the selfish narcissist that she is shows impatience at her father for being more concerned with the person who could die. This is very similar to Bella hiding Edward from her father in the first book. It didn't make any sense for her to do it, Charlie spoke of nothing bad about the Cullens going so far as to admire Carlisle and his family. Yet Bella thought it of some importance to hide her boyfriend from him. The conflict with Lauren is the same way, it comes out of the same place that the character of Lauren comes from: nowhere. However we are told that Lauren is a bitch and are supposed to read the story as though she is one. If Bella didn't like Harry for some reason it would make some sense or if Jacob's health was in the same danger as his it would be the same thing.

Bella does some web research on Mono, finds out the usual stuff and is aghast when she discovers that it could last a month. Yeah, that's possible, but a bit on the rare side. A couple weeks is usually the case. She's suspicious though, thinking that Jacob didn't act sick until he was sick on the phone. Maybe...

She forgets the situation with Mike. Jacob was smart, he used Mike's sickness to play up his inherent weakness as a mate. With that in mind we might understand that if Jacob had symptoms he wouldn't have told Bella about them because it would completely scupper any game he was building on Bella. She could, I suppose, plead ignorance of this sort of behavior but it seems that she should at least be aware of it as a possibility.

A week passes, and we are thankfully spared the details of the passage of time. However, we are treated to the dependency that Bella has on other people to be around. Her nightmares have returned, she wakes up screaming, gets shortness of breath all of the time. I'm beginning to think that she has a medical issue herself. Some kind of heart arrhythmia along with sleep apnea would be my amateur diagnosis.

The week is up and she decides she's going to call. She gets through to Billy, finally, who explains that Jacob didn't have mono but some other virus. Billy also explains that Jake is better he's just gone for the day with some of his friends: "Jacob was better, but not well enough to call me. He was out with friends. I was sitting home, missing him more every hour. I was lonely, worried, bored...perforated--and now also desolate as I realized that the week apart had not had the same effect on him."

First off, how is one "bored" and then "perforated." Those two words aren't related in any bit. The ellipses that connects them indicates thought, the narrator has to think of the word they want and the previous word must have something to do with it. If perforated is a metaphor for "empty" or "hollow" then you have to use those words because "perforated" doesn't mean the same thing. Unless she feels "holy.*" I'm also not buying her use of the word "desolate" here. "Desolate" is like a desert or a forest after a raging fire has just passed through. People can't feel desolate, but they can feel isolated or solitary which is what I think she meant.

Finally, the whole point of that couple of sentences is to show that Bella is hurt by Jacob not calling once he was better. Well guess what sweetie, you brought that on yourself. Last chapter Jacob confessed his crush, Bella blew him off, Jacob pressed, and Bella told him that "you shouldn't waste it (his time) on me," that she was never going to change her mind, etc. Jacob has moved on but now Bella feels insulted because Jake did exactly as she said he ought to? Yep this chick is definitely worth having around.

________________________________
*I know, it was lame.

Guilt (Pg. 201-224)

The thing about guilt is that it is largely artificial. There's no innate sense of guilt. That bad feeling that we have when we do something wrong is based entirely on our upbringing. It begins as a feeling of regret from being punished, then it's anticipatory of punishment, and then it becomes largely a matter of ethical teaching. Regardless of where it comes from and what form it eventually takes, guilt is the feeling that is supposed to make you change your behavior. If you guilty about something, you aren't supposed to want to do it again. The word "guilt" is also one that frequently appears in this chapter yet seems to have actually no bearing on anything that happens.

The beginning of the chapter is indicative of how bad a person Bella Swan truly is. Now, another blogger doing roughly the same thing as I (only she's going the much saner route and doing one chapter per entry instead of the longer and more wearisome as I am), has repeatedly made the claim that Bella is a "Mary Sue" for Stephanie Meyer. A "Mary Sue" is a character that is a stand in for the author, what the author does is place greatly exaggerated versions of the themselves in a story thus living out their fantasies. I agree...sometimes, this is not one of those times.

You can't be a "Mary Sue" when you have such a low opinion of yourself, "...to circle in a tight little orbit around the empty space left behind, ignoring the laws of gravity."

Bella likens her broken self to a moon whose planet was desolated (she means "destroyed" or "annihilated"--a desolated planet would still exist) and continues to circle the gravitational free fall that all moons are in. I'll give her credit for one thing: she at least looked up the fact that it would have to "ignore the laws of gravity." If we take this simile on it's own we are left with the fact that Bella looks at herself not as a thing with its own self worth, but as a thing that can only exist in reference to something else which is greater than it. Every satellite needs something to orbit, it is that which ontologically defines a satellite. Bella is saying that she is not a person, or a being; but something whose only worth is determined by that which she is around. Nice role model eh?

Another point before I move on, the simile would actually work much better if she said something like, "I was like a planet drifting through space having lost a star for which to anchor it."* This would preserve not only a sense of self worth but also would more accurately reflect the feeling of drifting through her life that she has told us about.

...back to the guilt thing.

Jacob and Bella have been hanging out a lot. So much that she is getting decent at riding a bike, also that she is becoming aware that Jacob might have a crush on her. Really Bella? No shit, that was apparent in the three brief scenes with the two of you from the last book. In fact, if your just picking this up now, you are basically telling us that everything you told us about Jacob and everything you told Edward about Jacob was a lie.

Jacob asks Bella on a date-ish thing and Bella turns him down. In her words, "I saw a chance and took it..." She makes up a ridiculous claim that she is going to a movie with her high school friends as a way of breaking the rhythm between them. It's a bit cruel to lie like that, but I suppose it's understandable. Then she invites Jacob along with them (keeping in mind there is no "them" yet)!? WTF as they say on the internets. She wants to break the constant hanging around with Jacob but then invites him along? It doesn't make sense--I guess we are past the "making sense" thing with this character though.

Bella invites Mike, who is always willing to hold that torch for her, then sends him on the errand of inviting everyone in the highs school that matters. Note that Bella doesn't do this herself, she doesn't ask a single person other than Mike but has her lap dog do it for her. At some point a 17 year old boy is going to tell her to fuck off, especially one that isn't as attractive as she says she is.** Some of the people are busy, some are not.

What's more important is that Lauren and Jessica are out to sabotage the movie experience. Jessica is still understandably mad at Bella. Lauren, "Lauren got to Tyler and Conner before Mike could, so those two were also busy."

They were busy, it could be on their own, not part of a conspiracy but it probably is. More importantly, who the hell is Lauren? Lauren has no reason to hate Bella, just does...because we are told she hates Bella and we are supposed to hate her ourselves. It would be nice if just once we were shown why we should hate something, or even like something, or feel anything.

Adding to our bad writing seminar is this little gem. Bella finds out in a phone call that Angela is sick and her and her boyfriend aren't coming. Some kind of stomach flu. Three paragraphs later, "Ang is sick...she and Ben aren't coming." Only one time is necessary, thanks Steph. This time though, we can blame the editor.

So now only Jake and Mike are coming. Bella, is not excited but she tries to muster some enthusiasm, "with grim sarcasm." One of those words doesn't fit with the other two, it doesn't matter which one, it won't work with the others.

They get to the movie with Mike and Jake eyeballing each other the whole time. Mike gets sick with presumably the same sickness as Angela and Ben begins throwing up. Jake is delighted, because his rival has now been relegated to the position of pathetic sniveling wreck of a person, a shell of where a man used to be. That's not entirely inaccurate, it's actually a sign that Jacob is human delighting in the misery of his opponent. He's nice about it though, he does take Mike to the bathroom. It's rather nice, but it's clearly a victory march back to Bella.

This is where he makes his move. Bella shoots him down, because...actually we never really get a reason. Fortunately for her Jacob won't give up, this lets her put another guy on the back burner until Dreamy McDreamboat comes back. The best thing so far is that we've only heard him mentioned a couple of times. The less of him the better, if only we could get rid of her too.

Mike is done throwing up, and the three decide that it is a good time to leave. On the way out Jacob stops and thinks about the move, walks back to the counter, "Could I have a popcorn bucket please?"

It's a good thought, Bella explains that the girl behind the counter was looking at them, saw the situation and didn't want to clean it up so moved them out of there. They got the bucket.

Bull. Shit.

I worked in a movie theater for over four years, and while I didn't like sweeping up vomit it was part of the job. What wasn't part of the job was cleaning up the outside where they were almost out of. Furthermore, the person behind the counter doesn't clean up the floor, the usher does that. Thirdly, he won't get the bucket. Ever.

The bucket is how the theater keeps inventory. Popcorn, drinks, etc. are inventoried by the packages they are sold in. An 8 dollar bucket of popcorn costs about a nickel to make, the popcorn itself is basically worthless. A worker who is giving up that paper bucket, when there are garbage bags available, is basically giving herself a nightmare at closing.

They go home. Everything goes to shit for no reason. Mike is sick, Bella gets sick, and Jacob feels off. It amounts to nothing at all, and as a convenient plot device it doesn't make any sense. The only thing we know is that Jacob doesn't have the same thing as the other two, of course we know what it is he has, Lycanthropy.

At this point it's not even a surprise anymore, but it's probably going to get drawn out over a hundred or more pages because these books need to be 500 long, for some reason.***

____________________
*It's cheesy, but I'm not a professional fiction writer. 

**Remember in this world the prettier you are the better you are as a person...I guess this world and the world of Toddlers and Tiaras.

***I'm blaming JK Rowling for this one.

Nihilism ( Pg. 180-200)

After last week's break on Monday, I really meant to write this up on Wednesday. Truly I did but this section, which consists of an entire chapter, is so pointless so utterly void of anything that happens that cutting it out wouldn't have made much of a difference in the story.

Now, I say, much of a difference because the only thing that really occurs is that Bella "learns" to ride her motorcycle. Which is amusing in a couple of ways, but none of them intentional. The first amusing thing is that Bella seems to get the balancing part right away. I've never ridden a motorcycle, a bicycle yes, but not a motorcycle--so if someone that has done both were to say to me, "you can't quibble that point it's the same principle. Once you get going the balancing takes care of itself." I would concede to their relative expertise on the subject.

However, Bella has repeatedly told us from the start of the first book that she has balance issues. Remember Gym class when she couldn't hit the shuttlecock in badminton without falling over and hitting herself and Mike in the face in one swoop? So in order for her to ride a motorcycle, she would have to retroactively not have this problem. She couldn't have gotten over it, because she hasn't been riding a bike. She couldn't be able to ride a bike as a child because of the aforementioned balance issues that she has told us about, and that the infallible Edward has told us about as well. Yet she has no problem riding the bike.

That she falls over while riding it has nothing to do with the balance issues. She falls over because she hit the break too hard on one occasion and the wrong break on the other. What we have here is an egregious consistency error, at best. At worst it's a case of deus ex machina. I doubt it's an error, because the clumsiness aspect of Bella only crops up when it's utterly convenient for the plot. Aside from that one incident in gym class, it HAS NEVER HAPPENED. Our judgment must then be that this is a case of convenience, it is deus ex machina.

We've talked about it before where we literally translated the phrase as "hand of god." However that is a translation not a transliteration. Transliterated the phrase means "god from hand," which makes no sense but "god out of the machine" helps us a little more. The author is god, the machine is the story, what god wills the story must bend toward. However when things show up randomly or without prior cause or consistency the story is thus rendered nonsensical or absurd...or in this case at least the character. Let's let the "Master of those who Know" tell us:

"The right thing, however, is in the characters just as in the incidents of the play to endeavour always after the necessary or the probable; so that whenever such-and-such a person days or does such-and-such a thing, it shall be necessary or probable outcome of his character; and whenever this incident follows on that, it shall be either necessary or the probable consequence of it...there should be nothing improbable among the incidents."*

That was written by Aristotle around 335 BCE. It's a basic call for consistency, if our character is going to be clumsy than let her be clumsy, but she has to do it. To repeat, she has never fallen in the story and we only know that she fell because she told us in a memory. It's entirely improbable that she would be able to ride a motorcycle.

Why does she do it? Because a disembodied voice in her head that sounds like Edward yells at her to stop when she does. That is seriously what happens, she "hears" this, "Do you want to kill yourself, then?" Is that what this is about?"

The comma between "yourself" and "then" is not a typo that is how she wrote it. Here's a good exercise, whenever you see a comma take a quick breath. That's what they are used for and you probably did it without thinking about it anyway but reread the quote....done? Good. Notice how ridiculous it sounds. Typically a writer should be technically better on their second book but we seem to be regressing.

She crashes and then...blah blah blah.

This was the emergency break crash in which she cuts her head bleeding quite profously. In a rare moment of research we learn that, "head wounds just bled more than most."

Despite the error in verb tense, she is right. This is why wrestlers (WWE not Olympic) end up with cuts on their forehead quite frequently. It looks a great deal worse than it is. However, she did flip her bike and head wounds--since she wasn't wearing a helmet** probably gave her a concussion, which is significantly worse than a cut. This is addressed but it's quickly rendered non-important (because possible brain damage is a minor issue), only that her father checks on her for a bit after buying her "I fell" excuse.

The rest of the chapter has Bella and Jake searching the woods for place that Edward took Bella last book. It's trite, it's contrived, but we're along for the ride for some odd reason. What's worse is that Jake is playing third wheel to someone who isn't even there, and Bella never tells Jake why they are doing any of the things that she is having them do. What a role model for young girls everywhere.

There's some more bullshit about reports of a large bear or something in the woods which Charlie is concerned with in his capacity as Sheriff but none of the other major characters are. Jake makes a point about how bears don't like people meat, which is factually correct but we know better. We know that it's not a bear, because Billy doesn't care one bit. It's a damn werewolf. Thank you trailers for the second movie, because there could have been some tension there.

Jake makes a joke, "I bet you'd taste good."

I really should have kept a score card on the accidental porn dialogue this novel uses but Bella follows up in her thought with a comment that it wasn't the first time she had heard that. I would like to ask her, are you sure about that?

____________________________
* 1454a33-1454b4: I admit that using Aristotle to criticize the Twilight series is a bit like using a flamethrower to kill a bee. Although it doesn't mean that it's not fun.

**the bad examples just pile up in this series don't they?

Interlude I

Well faithful readers, this week we have a short break in the "action." My school schedule has shifted again and since going this apparently takes about two days to write I find myself hemmed in the needs of the far more important course work that I have to read for. In all honesty reading Totality and Infinity, while more difficult, is much more rewarding and in the long run more fruitful.

Although...ripping this book apart is much more fun. Especially since it seems to get worse and worse as it goes on.

Next week, we'll be back on schedule. Where we continue with Bella's experimentation into motorcycle driving...I think since that's where we left off. Until then.

Foreshadowing (Pg. 169-180)

The concept of foreshadowing is a really simple one. You subtly hint at something to come and then later when you actually arrive at it the reader (or viewer) is supposed to think to themselves, "oh wait I remember this from before." The thing about foreshadowing is the subtlety. Subtlety is not a word I would use to describe anything in this book, especially with regard to future events. Certain things are so obvious that it's really hard to buy into the tension. Instead our only thought is, when and not if. Good foreshadowing should always play on some level of doubt.

All of that is, of course, stepping toward our second big reveal in the series. That Jacob is not as he seems. Which is too bad because in this book, he's probably the best written of the characters. A shy, unsure of himself, 16 year old who happens to be really good at fixing mechanical things, in this case, motorcycles. In fact he's so good that he's already fixed the two that Bella brought to him. This is odd for the reason of the quickness that he fixed them.

It was four weeks ago, in blog postings that Bella brought Jacob the bikes. In story time it's been a week or two. We haven't had any transitions of time but instead have plodded along with Bella as she details the minutiae of her life. Being generous we could say that it's been two weeks: now on its own that amount of time isn't anything special. I assume that a decent mechanic can fix two motorcycles in two weeks. The problem is that one of these bikes isn't average and Jake was talking about how they would have to order special parts to fix them, expensive parts.* I wouldn't mention it normally, but it was stressed by our author that the parts were going to be a difficulty. Remember Bella wanted to use her college money, Jake didn't want to charge her, it was a bulwark of this burgeoning relationship. Now, though? It's all forgotten, Jake used his magic native powers to fix the bike.

Some bullshit with Charlie and Bella is riding in the truck with Jacob talking about how great he is, and how great she feels around him. Not to him of course, but to us. What this means to me is that he has been relegated to "friend" territory only he doesn't know it yet. He's not Mike, and Bella has yet to make up anything about him to dislike him. The way she treats him, more like a puppy, is all we need to know. On the way Bella sees someone dive off a cliff and it understandably panics her.

Jacob on the other hand laughs. Which leads Bella to think he was callous. Which leads me to think she doesn't know what callous means. A callous person would either ignore her comment or ask her why she should care. Laughing is more Arthur Schopenhauer territory, to laugh at the mention of death is often our first reaction he once said. Jacob explains that they are "cliff diving," and suddenly Bella wants to go. My question is, isn't it still January? Did we skip forward a couple of months without anyone knowing? It would make sense if we did but we have no indication that it happened.

Bella relents after feeling a glacier breeze or something like that on her, which again leads me to believe that, yes, we are still in January. Continuity is becoming the biggest chore in reading this book.

Who are they? "The La Push Gang."

The reservation has a gang. I'm not going to quibble on that point, if it's not a reflection of reality it's not absurd for a bunch of people united in common heritage to form some sort of group within the reservation. They're a good gang though, "they're all about our land, and tribe, and pride...it's getting ridiculous." Jacob describes one incident where the gang ran off a meth dealer. The leader's name is Sam Uley and he's kind of a dick.

The mention of his name triggers a memory in Bella, "a trio of tall, dark men standing very still and close together in my father's living room...had that been Sam's gang?"

This must have been from when she went to sleep in the woods after Edward dumped her and Charlie called anyone he could to help find her. Why she's making this connection now is a question I can't answer. I also deplore the detail of, "standing very still." I guess we are supposed to read this as being threatening or ominious but isn't this the exact same way that Edward used to watch her sleep? Furthermore the three, whoever they were, were also trying to make sure that she was ok as they were literally tasked with looking for her.

There's more going on here with the gang. One of Jacob's absurdly named friends, "Embry" is now a member of the gang. The way it played out was that one day Embry didn't show up at school and this continued for two weeks. When he returned he looked shocked, but then quickly joined up with the Sam's group. Again we have a time issue, but this may clear it up. Embry had to be gone for two weeks, so it must have been two weeks since we last saw him. However, now we have to make enough time for Jacob to notice that Embry has completely divorced himself from Jacob and Quil. That should take a week or so, given that the first few couple of days could be chalked up to Embry getting over whatever it is happened to him. Three weeks is enough time of the bikes, the parts, and perhaps the weather to warm up to pass the freezing point, but I shouldn't have to do this much work to figure out that we are in mid February. Non-essential plot details like time can be told to the reader since we only need them for reference.

Jake doesn't like the gang, because they are apparently shown deference in council meetings, just like Jake's father. We run into a tragically consistent pattern here with Jacob. In this book and the last, I commented that the more Meyer writes about a character the less I tend to like them. Every detail added to Edward's personality made me dislike him less and less until I just downright hated him, same with Bella. Jake suffers the same fate which is too bad because he seemed like such a nice kid.

Jake hates the La Push Gang because they are shown some favoritism and no one shows him any. Ok, jealousy, not a good trait but a realistic one. Then you consider that he's 16 and it makes it more forgivable. Then literally the next paragraph he comments that what annoys him the most is that Sam and the gang are now showing Jake a level of respect that they don't show anyone else. Which is it Jake? You either want the respect Sam and your father get, or you don't. Because you can't hate it both ways.

We then find out that Embry was on the cliffs a second ago, but no one thought to mention it earlier. That's just bad writing, either make it a point or don't, but don't throw it into the story and then leave it.

Bella, for once does a good job comforting him and in a rare well done scene Jake twists a momentary expression of anger into some casual flirting. Telling her that he'll freak out more often if it means she's going to hug him more. Bella as usual ignores it but moves on to describing her relationship with Jacob, "I didn't relate to people, so easily, on such a basic level.--Not human beings."

We know that she means Edward. In reality though, she didn't relate to him either. Unless you count master (him)/slave (her) as a basic level. On the other hand this is the sort of messy foreshadowing that I mentioned earlier. Of course she relates to Jacob but not anyone else, Jacob isn't human. If there is such a thing as an "obvious hammer" it must be worn down to a nub with this book.

_________________
*Not in reality though, most of the parts were about fifty bucks on ebay.

Abadon (Pg. 158-168)

Our last section ended with Bella being nostalgic about how it had been one year since she moved to Forks. That doesn't seem right to me because it's January now (an important point as we will discover later) and I had some inclination that she moved to Forks in the Fall, at least that is how the descriptions of it went. The kids were still going outside and such, visiting the beach, in winter? Maybe, but with the temperature averages as a high in the mid 40s and lows in the mid 30s, it seems unlikely that despite what we are being told, this story is taking place in January right now. Especially with the building of the motorcycles. The weather in Forks is apparently a slave to the plot's needs: which is bad bad writing. You can't appeal against nature.

Our chapter begins with Bella driving to the Cullen's old house, which they've apparently not sold but rather abandoned. Yep, nothing says inconspicuous like just leaving a house that you will still have to pay taxes on. It's odd that this one detail is missed, because it could have been quite important. Bella could see a "For Sale/Sold" sign on the front of the driveway or have seen people moving in. Anything but the abandoned house would make more sense than this. Shouldn't someone be trying to sell this immaculate house that was described to us in the last book, even if Carlisle sold it at below value?

"Now that I was really awake, the nothingness of the dream gnawed on my nerves, a dog worrying a bone."

There's a lot wrong with that sentence. Bella is giving us her thoughts as she drives up toward the Cullen house. First off, what is this dream she is describing? The only one we have been given is her lost in the woods with the sense that someone was searching for her and then she can't get out. So where is the nothingness? This is a flat out pandering attempt to be deep. The nothingness isn't there, it's a sense of being lost, and it's a wonder that I can describe the dream's metaphor better than the person who made it up. Secondly "nothingness" can't gnaw, because it's nothing. Nothing can't do anything because it is, by definition, no thing. Thirdly, I get what the metaphor at the end of that sentence is supposed to do but it's obviously shoe-horned in. You can almost see the "like" that is missing between "nerves," and "a" that was simply deleted. I think Meyer was getting sick of using similes. The whole sentence is just clunky, unless of course she's actually seeing a dog worrying* a bone.

Why is she here? Because she wants to jog her brain into producing the memory of Edward's voice. Meh, I'll buy that, we've all done something really stupid and inane when we were just dumped, but then I remember that her being dumped was four/five months ago. We're being hit with a hammer here, and not in a good way. See, Bella is truly and irrevocably in love with Edward, at least that's what we are told and we are being told that this is still the case. Told, but never shown. You expect that at novel two the writing would get better. Why is she chasing a memory of a voice when this is how she describes the owner of that voice, "unattainable and impossible, uncaring and distracted..."

The first adjective makes sense, but that's it. "Impossible?" What's impossible? She already had him. "Uncaring and distracted" those two show me who she's talking about but not why she's chasing him. It's like she's telling us that she wants someone who doesn't show any concern for her and won't pay attention to her either. He's a winner, but we never really know why.

"The tall ferns had infiltrated the meadow around the house..." This is a good example of why we, as in everyone aspiring to be a writer in the current age, have a distinct advantage over every generation of writer previous: we have the internet. I get the fact that Meyer wants to show the passage of time by having the plants grow in the yard...er meadow. But ferns have a life cycle and a quick trip to wikipedia can show us that the ferns wouldn't have grown that fast, in the damn winter. This isn't Pripyat Russia where thirty to forty years have passed since anyone has lived there. It's been five months, but it's also been winter months and shit doesn't grow in the winter. That's why it's winter and not Spring. That's why Peresephone spends this time with Hades and the rest of the time outside of the realm of the dead. Simple research, or just plain observation. We could have had longer grass, or better yet mud soaked driveways given the rain, instead we've got some sort of super spreading vegetation, must be all of the sparkles.

Sigh.

"Nothingness of Nightmares..." despite the fact that we've already discussed that her nightmares aren't about nothingness this sounds like the title track to my failed heavy metal band "Kefka's Abadon." It's one of those phrases that sounds really cool but makes no sense if you stop to think about it objectively. It's like our author read one line of Nietzsche "if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you" and decided to run with it in order to make Bella's whining over her six month relationship with Eddie that much more plausible.

As we are abruptly led to the Cullen's house we are led out of it. Seriously, Bella decides that she is leaving and it's off to Jacob's place for some more bike work. This is where it gets interesting. We know that Jacob has a crush on Bella (for some reason) from last book. He's a bit younger but they've been playing a rather cute game where they keep adding years to their age for skills and acheivements. I wonder how many Bella lost for her clumsiness?** Jake shows some foresight here with the game because it lessens the reality of the chronological difference between them. Then he places a thinly veiled confession of his attraction and affection toward Bella. It's a bold move by the 16 year old, but it's out there. What happens? Nothing. It's a huge moment in their friendship, one that could very well break it in any realistic setting and it's like it never happens.

Back at school, with no transition or anything, Bella remarks about how her friends have "kindly overlooked my few months of aberrant behavior." First off, let's take a quick visit to the dictionary to define "aberrant" which is a deviation from the normal. This is the wrong word. Bella has been just the same as she was before. Those last few months where she was just sitting and not talking to everyone was exactly the same as when Eddie and Alice where in town. They all sat at the same table, but Bella just ignored them. So how exactly has her ignoring of her friends the last few months been any different than it has the last year? The only actual difference is that in the last few months she hasn't been ignoring them in favor of someone else but they were still getting shunned.

Not everyone is happy about her "return" (because she hasn't gone anywhere), "...Jess was more resistant. I wondered if she needed a formal written apology for the Port Angeles incident." Again with the "Jessica is a bitch because I say she's a bitch." Maybe Bella should try an oral apology, or any kind of apology before making this claim. None of it makes sense, Jessica has a legitimate complaint here and doubly so since Bella hasn't shown any kind of remorse for scaring the crap out of her.

"I needed something to distract me from nightmare and nothingness." I went to a Catholic highschool, and one friday every month they made us go to church. Eventually I realized that while they could make me go, make me kneel, and make me sing/chant/recite they couldn't make me pray. Same thing here Meyer, you can keep making me read words like "nothingness" or "abyss" or "numbness" but I'm not going to believe it. Bella is not deep, she doesn't have dreams about abadon or oblivion. She's a superficial bitch who lost her good looking rich boyfriend, and now has to cope with the reality that she may not be at the top of the ladder anymore. I suppose that might be worse than nothing for her though.

_____________________
*"Worrying" here is actually correct, it's antiquated, but correct.
**Wait a second, did that aspect of her personality just go away because it's no longer convenient for the plot? Strange.