Chapter Eleven (continued)
Need-to-know basis: Seriously. I really want to know. What possible, freakish reason could Edward have to want know Bella’s favorite gemstone?
Yeah, she pulls her usual “easily embarrassed by the weirdest details” routine and admits she switched her favorite gemstone to topaz recently because it’s the current color of his eyes, a conversation piece that’s interesting enough in its own right, but her unhealthy obsession isn’t the issue here (for once).
Why did he ask her in the first place?
Is he starting some kind of Bella Journal where he keeps every last detail of her existence written down in case he forgets something?
“Oh crap. I forgot our anniversary again. Wait! I’ll consult the Bella Journal! And I’ll look up her favorite food and jewelry types to plan our dinner and her present while I’m at it. It’s like I don’t even need my memory anymore. I’m totally a genius.”
Forgetful comedy fathers in sitcoms everywhere could really take a lesson from Edward here. It’s not exactly subtle, but it might at least avoid some of those oh-so-wacky misunderstandings.
Irrational desires: “I leaned forward on the table, resting my chin on my folded arms, my hidden fingers gripping the table's edge as I fought to ignore the irrational longing that unsettled me.”
Never before have I had such a strong desire to do jumping jacks. I couldn’t explain it. I only knew that it was taking every ounce of strength within me to keep from springing to my feet in the middle of the classroom and bursting into a vigorous session of exercise, right there in front of everybody. The urges worried me. I normally don’t even like doing jumping jacks, but I’ll be damned if, right then and there, they weren’t my number one desire in the entire world.
Unbalanced ratio: If I recall correctly, when it was Bella’s “turn” to ask questions to Edward she got to ask a few scant questions before he got violently angry and threw her out of the car while speeding down the highway.
Or something.
Now that it’s Edward’s turn to ask questions, he’s bombarding her with enough material to fill a feature-length magazine article, albeit an unbelievably boring one. Questions all day at school and “hours” spent talking in front of Bella’s house afterward.
How about some balance in this relationship, eh?
Jerk.
Shut-in: “I tried to describe impossible things like the scent of creosote … the high, keening sound of the cicadas in July, the feathery barrenness of the trees, the very size of the sky...”
Here’s an impossible thing I’d like you try and describe: Why someone that’s as old as whatever the bloody hell Edward’s age actually is (I tend to forget he’s actually pretty ancient – the story’s creepy enough already without that thrown into the mix) needs to have the entire world described to him in detail by a teenager. Has he just not been paying attention? Does he have a really bad memory? What’s going on here?
OMG: “The hardest thing to explain was why it was so beautiful to me — to justify a beauty that didn't depend on the sparse, spiny vegetation that often looked half dead, a beauty that had more to do with the exposed shape of the land, with the shallow bowls of valleys between the craggy hills, and the way they held on to the sun.”
You know, at the very beginning of the mind-numbing project, I stated that I would try to be objective and that I would try to comment on both the good and the bad of what I came across while reading this terrible, terrible book.
To this point, I haven’t really had much to show for the former part of my promise. I’ve found enough bad to fill, oh, roughly eighteen installments of a scathing satirical feature, but nothing good. No diamonds in the rough for me.
The above passage is, by far and away, the best sentence I have yet found in the entire book. It might even be able to pass for decent writing, slightly moving even, were it not buried in the proverbial pile of crap that is the rest of this book.
Color me ever so slightly impressed. It’s not much, but I honestly didn’t think Steph had even this much in her.
I just thought, in the interest of fairness and honoring my original mission statement, that this was worth passing along.
I wouldn’t get used to it if I were you.
Hardy har har: “’How late is it?’ I wondered out loud as I glanced at the clock.
‘It’s twilight,’ Edward murmured…”
HA!
HA HA!
SHE USED THE NAME OF THE BOOK! IN DIALOG! NO WRITER HAS EVER DONE THAT BEFORE!
Best. Writer. Ever.
Amiright?
Ever-changing sunlight: Edward: “’Darkness is so predictable, don't you think?’"
Totally. Not like that stupid sun. Always being all “bright” or “not quite as bright”.
Make up your damn mind, sun! We’re tired of your trickery and deception!
Silly light pollution: Bella: “’I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.’ I frowned. ‘Not that you see them here much.’
[Edward] laughed, and the mood abruptly lightened.”
I can relate. I don’t know about you, but I simply can’t help myself from bursting into fits of uncontrollable laughter every time I think about one of the myriad ways mankind is ruining the planet.
It’s just so gosh-darn hilarious.
Try bringing it up at a party sometime. Instant ice-breaker.
Awkward human movement, lesson #1: “[Edward] flung the door open in one swift movement, and then moved, almost cringed, swiftly away from me.”
Edward cringed away from her?
Steph, I don’t think you’re allowed to use that word as verb that way…
I know there’s artistic license and all, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
Plus, you know, you shouldn’t be allowed artistic license. Because, well, you’re not an artist.
More of an untalented hack, really.
So cringing is not a form of movement, got it?
Also: you pulled the “almost” thing again. Did Edward do some weird form of movement that was almost a cringe but not quite and this is just your lazy way of describing it? Did you use your crazy mind powers to know that he was about to cringe but decided not to?
Details like this are important.
He’s melting!: “In the passenger seat was a much older man, a heavyset man with a memorable face — a face that overflowed, the cheeks resting against his shoulders…”
Oh eww. Eww eww eww. That’s disgusting.
Is his face melting off or what? That is not a natural way for a face to be.
Lessons in nonsensical character description: Think after all this time you’ve developed a sort of immunity to Steph’s weird brand of inane, self-contradictory character descriptions?
I did too. Until I read this:
“And the surprisingly familiar eyes, black eyes that seemed at the same time both too young and too ancient for the broad face they were set in.”
I think that might be a new low.
Continue to Part Nineteen
Fri, April 16, 2010 at 5:17 PM 
