This post was originally published on October 9, 2015. It has been lightly edited for content and style.
Previously: Bella met Jacob and everyone needed a cold one!
—
Catherine: Pop quiz time everyone!
This chapter starts out by revealing Bella’s feelings about basketball.
Does she:
a) Hate it
b) not care about it
or c) she’s the worst.
Did you guess? That’s right! The answer is she’s fucking the worst and all of the above.
Bella hates basketball. I also hate basketball, but you didn’t know that ’cause I’ve never mentioned it before because no one cares and I get that.
But I’m not being very charitable here, and God knows that Bella needs all the charity we can give her. (K: Which is none.)(M: Or at least very little.)(A: I’m the tie-breaker here and I vote NONE.)
What she actually says is:
“I told Charlie I had a lot of homework to do and that I didn’t want anything to eat. There was a basketball game on that he was excited about, though of course I had no idea what was special about it, so he wasn’t aware of anything unusual in my face or tone”.
Lol. Wonder why.
Bella goes to her room and engages in the time honored teenage tradition of blasting music to drown out her feelings. Apparently it’s a CD that Phil gave her for Christmas. Lest you think that Bella actually has music that she regularly listens to and enjoys.
Next she powers down—oh, uh, I mean, she falls asleep and has another Edward dream.
In this one she’s in a forest by the beach of stories from last chapter. She starts heading toward the ocean when Jacob suddenly pops up and starts pulling her back into the forest.
Jacob is all ‘run!’ and Mike also shows up and he’s all ‘run too!’ when Jacob starts twitching and shaking and falls to the ground.
Before her eyes he transforms into a wolf.
Mari: See, that’s charity! I would not call this foreshadowing. I’ve been going with “cheating.” Stephenie might think she’s laid down enough pieces for this kind of bullpoo because she’s mentioned werewolves and vampires, but she hasn’t. We have no in-story reasons to believe that Bella would be having these oddly accurate, almost clairvoyant dreams. I hate it.
Catherine: There never is any, either. This shit is never explained.
Edward steps out of the trees and tells Bella to come to him and trusts him but he has two sharp-pointy fangs. Jacob jumps in between them and noms on Edward and then Bella wakes up.
Remember, this is just a dream. Nothing interesting actually happened or anything.
Annie: “Nothing interesting actually happened” should be the liner notes for this stupid book.
Catherine: It’s now 5:30 in the morning and Bella gets up and takes us through more exposition of her long, boring morning routine as she thinks about her dream.
Finally, she sits down at her computer and then manages to get a bowl of cereal, eat it, wash the bowl and then tidy up her room a bit all while her computer is dialing up to the internet. When she does get connected, her screen is filled with pop up ads.
Oh, ten years ago.
K: So I mentioned in chapter 5 that I have a theory about this series that I was going to save until we got to chapter 7. This seems like as good a time to mention it as any: my theory is that this book is set in the 1990s. I mean, seriously. No one has a mobile phone. She has dial up internet. Texting apparently doesn’t exist. Volvos are seen as the height of class. Everyone wears turtleneck sweaters. People listen to CDs. Hypothesis: Clinton is President.
Mari: Accepted, but I’ll ask present a back-up theory: someone really, really out of touch wrote this story.
Annie: I say both are correct. Maybe she wrote this in the 90s, but had to shop it around for over a decade to get a publisher to sign on?
Catherine: TWIST! I accept all three.
Bella goes to her ‘favorite search engine’ (M: AOL Search? Netscape? Ask Jeeves?) and then types in ‘vampire.’
Honestly, I’m still torn about this scene. On the one hand, why would you need to google vampires? Who doesn’t already know everything about vampires? Bitey, stakey, garlic vampires. Ya done. End of list.
But on the other hand, she is out of her depth, and Google is the arbiter of all knowledge.
K: This is what we call “The Buffy Summers approach to searching the internet.”
Catherine: Bella ends up on a site with a list of different vampire myths from around the world. None of them seem to describe what she has witnessed of Edward, though.
“I’d made a little catalog in my mind as I’d read and carefully compared it with each myth. Speed, strength, beauty, pale skin, eyes that shift color; and then Jacob’s criteria: blood drinkers, enemies of the werewolf, cold-skinned, and immortal. There were very few myths that matched even one factor.”
Um, gonna call you up on your research here, Steph. Aside from the eyes that change color and maybe the werewolf thing these are all very common vampire criteria. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most of these things are what make up what we know as a vampire. This is basic stuff. Most vampire myths from around the world do include most of this list.
Trust me here, guys. I’m a goth. I know this shit cold.
Mari: I don’t actually know much about the lore, but I’m pretty sure BLOOD SUCKING is, like, the whole thing. Like, part of the definition of vampire, yeah?
Catherine: I guess we’re supposed to assume Bella lives in a universe where vampires do exist but they only eat rainbows and fart sunshine.
K: I mean, folklore in the Balkans says that if you leave a watermelon out during a full moon it becomes a vampire(!), so anything is possible.
Mari: Take care of your watermelons, folks.
Catherine: Bella gets ticked that her search isn’t yielding any results and then Steph’s amazing research comes into play again as Bella “snapped off the computer’s main power switch.”
What? You mean your computer isn’t a robot from the 50’s? Yours has a button? Pfft, nerd. (A: Snapped off the computer’s main power switch? What kind of computer is she using, exactly?) (K: Hypothesis: she’s running Windows 3.0 in 1999.)
Bella decides to exercise her frustration by throwing on her rain gear and power walking out into the woods. It’s only once she worked off her steam and sits down on a fallen tree (M: a recently fallen tree, because suddenly Bella is all hip to the outdoors and knows this kind of stuff…) that she remembers that her Edward dream from last night took place in a forest and this is also a forest?
She pushes that out of her mind and tries to focus on the two main questions plaguing her at the moment.
-
Whether or not what Jacob said about the Cullens being the ‘cold ones’ could be true.
-
If it is true, what was she planning to do about it?
Mari: She does this “unwillingly.” Bella does everything unwillingly. I don’t know who is forcing her to think, walk, and talk, but they can stop now.
Catherine: Obviously, she doesn’t want to believe that Edward could be a vampire but she also knows that he saved her and he’s super strong and his eyes are weird and yada, yada, yada.
Oh, she also mentions that he:
“–Sometimes spoke with unfamiliar cadences and phrases that better fit the style of a turn-of-the-century novel than that of a twenty-first-century classroom”.
So, ya know, somewhere E.L. James is getting wet.
Bella figures that if he is a vampire, the smart thing to do would be to stop being friends with him immediately and avoid him.
So… end of book?
“I was gripped in a sudden agony of despair as I considered that alternative. My mind rejected the pain, quickly skipping onto the next option.”
The next option is that she changes nothing and pretends like this whole vampire thing is just an endearing quirk like being a bad dancer or having a Republican phase in college.
“There was one thing I was sure of, if I was sure of anything. The Dark Edward in my dream last night was a reflection only of my fear of the word Jacob had spoken, and not Edward himself. Even so, when I’d screamed out in terror at the werewolf’s lunge, it wasn’t fear for the wolf that brought the cry of ‘no’ to my lips. It was fear that he would be harmed—even as he called to me with sharp-edged fangs, I feared for him.”
I excerpt this passage so that you can see how Stockholm Syndrome works and also because lol Dark Edward.
Bella thinks some more about how she can’t stop being friends with Edward ’cause he’s just so PRETTY and she just wants to be with him.
She’s also says here that “The rain made it dim as twilight” so do a ‘they said the thing in the thing’ shot, everyone.
K: Oh, hell. Let’s break this thing out.
Catherine: She makes her way back to her house and then drags us through the process of changing her clothes (jeans and a t-shirt since she’s staying indoors) and doing her homework (the paper on Macbeth that’s due on Wednesday) since Steph loves ALL!THE!DETAILS and doesn’t know how to write “I went inside, changed my clothes and started on my homework.”
Bella notes that she feels better now that she’s made a firm decision to continue being friends with Edward and risk her stupid life, and she’s totally not gonna keep vacillating back and forth about that for the rest of the book and then three more after that. (She is.) (M: Worst spoiler ever.)
Apparently she feels that she’s very good at following through on her decisions and is usually relieved that the choice is made even when it’s “tainted by despair” like her decision to come to Forks.
More boring normal stuff happens with the exception of Bella getting chills up her spine when she thinks of her trip to Seattle next week with Edward. But apparently it’s not “the right kind of fear.” So I guess she’s just feeling horny? IDK guys. (M: Horny fear? IS THIS WHAT INSPIRED E.L. JAMES?)
Even though she goes to sleep here, the chapter doesn’t end, and the next morning she wakes up to a sunny day. Apparently she “skips” to the window. Fuck off, no you didn’t. You would never exhibit any kind of joy it would destroy your aesthetic.
Mari: Also, the window is probably like three steps away so at most it was like an enthusiastic hop to the window.
Catherine: She goes downstairs and is even nice to Charlie for once, telling us that when he smiles she can see what her mother saw in him all those years ago.
After almost an entire page detailing her ride (during which nothing eventful happened), Bella gets to school, bumps into Mike and is also nice to him for once. Maybe she’s like a reverse vampire, and the sun makes her more human.
They chat a bit about their homework and the Macbeth essay. Apparently Bella’s essay is on Shakespeare’s misogynistic treatment of his female characters. Alright Bella. Four for you. I would read that essay.
K: And yet her favourite book is Wuthering Heights. OKAY, GIRL. SURE.
Catherine: Well, to be fair, I doubt Stephenie Meyer has ever actually read a book that she didn’t write.
Next, Mike asks her out and she gets uncomfortable and tries to distract him by letting him know that Jessica is into his pasty boy body. Which she is, I guess, for some reason.
He’s surprised to find this out, and she asks him if he’s blind and yeah, he is Bella, ’cause he’s still hitting on you even though you basically shed your skin to get away from him every time he comes near. (A: Poor Mike. He can do SO much better.)
They go to class, and Jessica comes up and tells Bella that she, Lauren and Angela are going to Port Angeles to go dress shopping and they want Bella to come. Bella isn’t sure if she should. She thinks it would be great to “get out of town with some girlfriends,” which is hilarious because she has been leading me to believe this whole time that she hates these girls but okay.
She tells Jessica maybe, but we all know she ends up going so I’ll spare you the suspense.
Later, they go to lunch and the Cullens aren’t there, obviously because it’s sunny, hello.
“Desolation hit me with crippling strength. I shambled along behind Jessica, not pretending to listen anymore”.
Also, Bella has spent like this entire chapter referring to Edward as ‘him’ in italics and everything. It’s oddly unsettling.
K: Maybe she’s referring to his dick. Dick de Grey 1.0?
Mari: I mean, if you are going to be curious about any vampire parts…
Annie: A world of no.
Catherine: Bella eats lunch and ignores her friends and spirals down into misery (her words, not mine) and then goes through the rest of her boring day boringly and with too much detail.
She goes home and emails her mom and then goes outside to read. New quiz!
What does Bella read:
- A magazine
- a trashy book
- a fucking tome.
OF COURSE it’s number 3. She picks up some fucking Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen collection for some light reading and then agonizes over which one to reread. I see now how so many modern day teenage girls identified with this character.
She can’t make a decision about which Austen to read since Sense and Sensibility has a character named Edward and Mansfield Park has a character named Edmund and those are the only two Austen novels that Stephenie Meyer knows. No references to Northanger Abbey where a young girl embarks on a journey to an old castle that she fears is run by a guy who is literally a vampire. (K: Shame.)(A: Which also proves any earlier suspected foreshadowing was clearly a mistake, because Meyer missed her opportunity here.)
Giving up, she turns over and takes a nap. If only I could, too.
Next thing she knows it’s hours later and Charlie is home and the sun has gone behind the trees. Bella notes that she feels like she’s not alone outside. Creepy.
She eats dinner with Charlie and they watch TV together and even though she doesn’t like the show she feels good to be doing something with Charlie “despite my depression.”
Steph takes the next, like, 3 pages to explain to us about the next day of school (The Cullens were absent again) and Bella asking Charlie for permission to go to Port Angeles and then coming home and getting in a car and driving to Port Angeles.
This chapter would be 70% shorter if Steph knew how to write “Then we drove to Port Angeles.”
Mari: Her sentences are basically clown cars, into which she packs useless information. It’s absolutely exhausting to read, all while we also have to contend with Debbie Downer. Some would argue that this is “normal teenage” mood swings, but I would say that is insulting to teens everywhere. Also, even if we accepted this behavior as “normal,” I’ll repeat that the author shouldn’t go out of her way to tell us how different Bella is and what an old soul she is.
I mean, Edward doesn’t show up to school one day, as is his custom, and here is what Bella has to say about that:
“A shiver of panic trembled in my stomach…” pg 145
“With dwindling hope, my eyes scoured the rest of the cafeteria…” pg 145
“Desolation hit me with crippling strength.” pg 145
“I shambled along behind Jessica…” pg 145
“…while spiraling downward into misery.” pg 146
“I realized I’d been holding on to a last shred of hope…” pg 146
“…felt a new wave of disappoint.” pg 146
“The rest of the day passed slowly, dismally.” pg 146
“I was glad to leave campus, so I would be free to pout and mope…” pg 146
Girl, free to pout and mope? What do you think you’ve been doing ALL DAY?
And who really wants to read about this girl who feels DESOLATE because a boy didn’t come to school one day?
Don’t answer that.
Next time on Twilight: Bella gets into some out-of-town trouble, but thankfully Edward is a stalker in Chapter 8!
I am a 30-something year-old human woman who lives in Maine. I'm a freelance writer who mostly spends time that I should be doing that, watching T.V. I also love reading and comic books way too much.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
Fuchsia-haired, caffeine enthusiast, dog person, Raptors fan, sometimes blogger, music & social media geek, freelancer, human being. She/her.
