Saturday, February 19, 2011

Vampire Marathon, Part II

And here we go again.

3:00 pm. p 152. I think I like Angela better than any other character in this book. That perhaps does not bode well for her future vitality.

3:03 pm. P161. "I braced myself, feet apart, trying to remember through my panic what little self-defense I knew. Heel of the hand thrust upward, hopefully breaking the nose or shoving it into the brain. Finger through the eye socket--try to hook around and pop the eye out. And the standard knee to the groin, of course." Wow. I guess not every lesson Bella's mother tried to impart was about looking at the sunny side of life.

3:05 pm. p 162. "It was amazing how instantly the choking fear vanished, amazing how suddenly the feeling of security washed over me--even before I was off the street--as soon as I heard his voice." "Put your faith in older, mysterious men" may not be the best message to convey to impressionable yound ladies.


3:10 pm. P173. "Only you could get into trouble in a town this small. You would have devastated their crime rate statistics for a decade, you know." It's funny, because she was nearly raped and murdered. TOO SOON, Edward.

3:15 pm. P190. "Don't you see, Bella? It's one thing for me to make myself miserable, but a wholly other thing for you to be so involved. It's wrong. It's not safe. I'm dangerous, Bella--please, grasp that."
I haven't known Bella long, but it strikes me that telling her this is like telling a crack addict they shouldn't smoke this particular bit of crack because it might be too awesome for them.

3:21 pm. P195. And the money quotation: "About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him--and I didn't know how potent that part might be--that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him." "Unconditionally and irrevocably." Wait to make love sound like a venereal disease, Bella.

3:24 pm. P200. It's interesting that both Bella and Sookie Stackhouse have the built in protections from their opposite attraction's powers--the vampire can't read Bella's mind, and Sookie can't read vampires, though she is in turn protected from their glamour abilities. I guess there's a limit to exactly how much a power deficient is "sexy."

3:35 pm. P227. "It must be a hard thing, to be a father; living in fear that your daughter would meet a boy she liked, but also having to worry if she didn't. How ghastly it would be, I thought, shuddering, if Charlie had even the slightest inkling of exactly what I did like." I think Charlie is my next favorite character. Essentially, I seem to like the ones that don't say anything.

3:39 pm. P231. "I hurried to change afterward, ill at ease, knowing the faster I moved, the sooner I would be with Edward. The pressure made me more clumsy than usual, but eventually I made it out the door, feeling the same release when I saw him standing there, a wide smile automatically spreading across my face." Honestly, she's usually much scarier than he is.

3:42 pm. P242. "He grinned his crooked smile at me, stopping my breath and my heart. I couldn't imagine how an angel could be any more glorious. There was nothing about him that could be improved upon." She is so, so much scarier.

3:44 pm. P245. "Having the advantages I do, I have a better than average grasp of human nature. People are predictable. But you... you never do what I expect. You always take me by surprise." Edward said earlier that he preferred day to night because the night was so predictable. That's a downside to immortality that doesn't get covered in your classic Greek version--run-of-the-mill boredom. I guess that's why Zeus was always turning into swans.

3:48 pm. P248. "Our relationship couldn't continue to balance, as it did, on the point of a knife. We would fall off one edge or the other, depending entirely upon decision, or his instincts. My decision was made, made before I'd ever consciously chosen, and I was committed to seeing it through. Because there was nothing more terrifying to me, more excruciating, than the thought of turning away from him. It was an impossibility."
No. All joking aside for a moment, just... no. One of the most insidious lies you can tell to yourself is that you don't have a choice, especially when the one taking away your power is you. ...Sorry to get afterschool special, but the romantic tragic teenager has never been a trope I have a lot of patience for. (I chose a great book for that, huh?)

3:55 pm. P252. "I woke early, having slept soundly and dreamlessly thanks to my gratuitous drug use." Thus solving the intense dream problem forever. FOREVER.

4:02 pm. P273. "Bella, I couldn't live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don't know how it's tortured me." How to tell your relationship with a vampire will be difficult pointer #456: when his dialogue becomes indistinguishable from that of an abusive spouse.

4:06 pm p 279. " 'I'm a bit heavier than your average backpack,' I warned. 'Hah!' he snorted. I could almost hear his eyes rolling. I'd never seen him in such high spirits before." pointer #457: when your vocabulary while literally riding him takes a turn towards the equestrian.

4:08 pm p 284. "You're intoxicated by my very presence." Pointer #458: you both continually refer to his effect on you as a drug.
Later Days.

4:13 pm p293. Edward reveals that he comes by nearly every night while Bella is asleep and spies on her. Look at these pointers. They do not form a foundation for a healthy relationship.

4:23 pm P310. Edward responds to Bella's question re: a possible sexual tryst: "It's just that you are so soft, so fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we're together so that I don't hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by accident." I haven't heard that line since I stopped reading those Klingon Harlequin romances.

4:30 pm p 328 "Finally, a rational response!" he murmured. "I was beginning to think you had no sense of self-preservation at all!" He's joking, but I remember a certain passage a few hundred pages back where Bella speculated that her father was now okay with leaving guns in the house loaded because he thought her "old enough to not hurt herself accidentally, and happy enough not to do it deliberately." Whose mind works like that? Who sees a gun and thinks, "gee, I guess my dad doesn't think I'm suicidal after all?" To answer my own question: generally speaking? The suicidal are the ones who think like that. Bella had issues long before Eddie showed up.

4:37 pm p342. Bella chalks Eddie's "murdering people and drinking their blood" phase to youthful rebellion. This is the same girl who hates speeding, and goes to great lengths to avoid lying. Those things are bad, but a little murder is okay.

...And on that note, I'll call it a day. Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion.

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