Riding in Cars with Vampires

[lily_handmaiden]

icon mine, photo by cleolinda

13-year-old Erin and I are back for the second installment of Project Twilight.


First, my wholly positive observation: The “cold ones” story is creepy. Well-played there. Also, I like Jacob so far.

Now I’d like to return to a topic from yesterday: Bella’s boy problem. At the top of chapter 6, my disgust with Bella was mitigated by my disgust with the stupid boys who are all in a pissing contest over her. Ugh. I’ve decided that she can treat them like dogs if they’re all treating her like their fire hydrant.

“I TOLD YOU!”

Whatever. Speaking of what you told me yesterday, though, what are you thinking about Bella’s attempt at fake flirting?

“…I can’t believe she pulled it off.”

No, me neither. I can’t believe she even tried, and didn’t somehow fall down in the process.

“You wouldn’t have thought it was a good plan.”

No. Of course, her rational breakdown of her Google vampire research may have been the first actually smart thing she’s done in the entire book. When she was attempting to read Jane Austen, I said out loud, “Oh, fuck you, Bella!”

“Really? That’s… an intense reaction.”

Listen, you don’t know it yet because you’ve only read Sense and Sensibility, but Jane Austen is made of awesome, and if Bella is too emo to enjoy her, that’s her own intolerable stupidity. There’s no one named “Edward” or anything even close in Emma or in Northanger Abbey or in Persuasion. I don’t think, anyway. She could have picked one of them. You know what, she doesn't deserve Jane Austen.

“…Okay.”

I’m truly surprised that she knew what “misogynistic” meant. I don’t know if it’s worse that she knows and is apparently totally cool with it. No, wait I do know-it is. Regardless, I think at the bottom of page 140 we get the paragraph that defines Bella-where she says that making decisions is the hard part for her, but once she’s made them she sticks to the, come hell or high water.

“I think that’s really cool, and I really like-”

I sigh loudly, cutting my younger self off. Here’s the thing: I’m having trouble buying the Love That Is So True. 13E isn’t.

“Well… I mean, yes, on the one hand, I’d be scared of Edward and would probably stay away from the intense guy who’s always thinking about murdering people, especially me. And he drives like a maniac, which…”

Yeah, for real. He was looking at her, like, the entire ride back from Port Angeles. EYES ON THE ROAD, CULLEN! Out of consideration for your passenger at least.

“Yeah, so, I’d be scared…”

I’d be annoyed. Emotional whiplash followed by “What are you thinking?” Gah! Who needs that?

“Well, Bella does, I guess. I mean, she knows that she’s supposed to be with him. She knows just like that.”

Oh, please. Girl needs to get a grip. “Crippling desolation” because the Cullens aren’t at school one day? Really?

“But she loves him!”

She hardly even knows him! She knows that he’s a vampire with eclectic taste in music, that’s about it. Oh, and she’s wondering whether it should bother her that Edward is following her around everywhere? YES IT SHOULD BOTHER YOU, BELLA.

“But they have a connection. He’s just trying to protect her.”

Pfft. No. Let me tell you what-Bella is an angsty, masochistic teenager-

“Oh, so you’re saying that they can’t really be in love because they’re teenagers? Even if it’s destiny?”

Look, I don’t want to… demean the power of destiny, at least in fiction, but… I don’t know, it seems like she went from zero to obsessed in the space of about an hour. I mean, he’s nice to her a couple of times and she completely, irrevocably loves him, even though he’s a jerk to her just as much as he’s nice. I don’t mind Destiny keeping them together if there was some kind of draw there that made sense, aside from “He is a vampire and oh so dangerous, whee!” But that’s all I can figure out.

And what makes it worse is that all of those things that made Bella almost sympathetic in the first few chapters? They’re gone now. I guess she’s got stubborn bravery going for her, but all of her personal characteristics, her entire personality, has disappeared in favor of thoughts about Edward and feelings about Edward and everything she thinks or feels anymore is tied to Edward. She’s obsessed to the point where she’s lost herself. I’ve seen something like that happen to people in real life, and trust me, it’s distressing.

“Yeah… I guess I see what you mean… but it’s because she loves him so much. She can’t stop thinking about it because it’s more important than everything else in her life now. It’s that deep a… thing.”

But don’t you think autonomy is more important than love? Is love really love if it denies you autonomy?

“…I don’t know.”

Oh, child. Look, I’ll stop lecturing you and let you mull that one over for yourself. Suffice to say, the last lines of chapter nine, the “Of three things I was certain…” lines that are on the back of the book? Oh, eyeroll.

So, about Edward’s end of the whole thing: He’s pushy, and it’s starting to grate on me. So is Rochester, I thought to myself, but then, it’s not 1830 and Edward is neither 35 nor Bella’s boss. But then I remembered that Edward is actually 100 years older than Bella, which would explain why he does act like her 35-year-old boss, even if it’s not really an excuse for acting like he’s from a past century, because he had a lot of intervening years to adjust. This also makes him a little pervy. Cradlerobber.

“He did use the world ‘unequivocally.’”

Yes. His nice vocabulary, I will give you.

Best line of these chapters-Bella, after finding out that Edward has been following her scent: “I couldn’t think of an acceptable response to that.”

I lol’d.

13-year-old Erin and I will see you next time for chapters 11-15.

IN THE MEANTIME. Today I discovered that Lucy Scherer, a.k.a. The Original German Glinda of whom I have become a great fan via my Wicked translation project, was previously in the cast of Tanz der Vampire, a German musical about vampires. Which prominently features as its love ballad a German version of the song, "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I went directly to YouTube, and spent a good deal of time watching clips with this face: / : 0. And laughing hysterically. If you were wondering how "Total Eclipse of the Heart" could become even more ridiculous and awesome...

Behold!

Click to view

This is the best clip of Lucy actually performing I could find. Click here to listen to the whole song as performed by a different cast (I'm pretty sure) and here to hear a recording of Lucy's performance of the whole song. The highlight for me may well be that "Turn around, Bright Eyes," became, "Be prepared, Star Child."