In Which I Read Twilight: Chapter 2 -- Open Book · 5:54pm Dec 19th, 2017
Even though her first encounter with him was almost completely negative (except for the fact that he’s so frigging hot like whoa), Bella’s next day at school is terrible because Edward isn’t there. She keeps expecting him to show up, as if he’s skipping school to wind her up. She suspects his absence is her fault, which I can kinda see, but is also ridiculous and egotistical (something she herself points out, but that doesn’t make it not ridiculous and egotistical).
When Bella gets home, she checks her email for the first time and sees three nervous/snippy messages from her mother. After responding, she re-reads Wuthering Heights and I really want to know why she likes it. I’m guessing it’s for “She likes classics! She’s smart!” cred, but that doesn’t tell me much about her. When I read 1984, I didn’t like it because it was a classic. I liked it because it was a fascinating exploration of a dystopian nanny state and the near-indomitable spirit of the human condition. Simply name-dropping Wuthering Heights with no context is like ticking “smart” items off of a checklist. She might as well have said The Canterbury Tales.
Bella briefly talks with Charlie about the Cullens, asking about Edward in a roundabout way. According to Charlie, the patriarch of the Cullens, Carlisle, is a great person, a great surgeon, and an asset to the community. The kids are all well behaved, and we get another mention of how they’re all so frigging hot like whoa. We get it, Meyer. The Cullens are purty. You don’t need to keep telling us that.
Edward doesn’t show up the next day, or the next, or the rest of the week. Bella gets more comfortable in her role at school. We get more evidence of Bella being a negative person when she gets invited to go to the beach as part of a large get-together in a few weeks and agrees to go, as she puts it, “more out of politeness than desire”. Why doesn’t she want to go?
Beaches should be hot and dry.
Only if you’re going swimming, you whiner. My family’s gone walking on the beaches of Lake Michigan during the fall and winter, and it’s gorgeous. Grow into some new experiences, will ya? And if you really don’t want to, say something like, “Sorry, but I’m still adjusting to the temperature here and it’d be a bit cold for me. Maybe next time.”
Over the weekend, Bella goes to the library, but finds the selection limited and plans to go to Olympia or Seattle for a good bookstore, and I’m wondering why she doesn’t just use Amazon. It’d been around for about a decade at the time the book had been released and had started life as an online bookstore, after all.
On Monday, Bella finds it in her to complain about snow. Not heavy snow, not bad roads, just snow. Why? “That means it’s too cold for rain.” And I haven’t been mentioning this because I didn’t think it was important, but Bella doesn’t like the rain of Forks, either. So apparently nothing’s good enough for her. She complains about everything. No, really. She’s mentioned only one or two things she likes, and she loathes pretty much everything else. What do you like? Warm weather? Grapes? The color purple? Dancing the Macarena on your desk in the middle of class? What?
Oh, wait. She likes Edward. Because guess who’s back?
In biology, Edward’s perfectly nice to her. For some reason, Bella doesn’t ask him what the heck was up with him on her first day. They do a lab with little trouble and Bella notices that Edward’s eyes, formerly near-black, are now gold. They have a discussion on why Bella moved to Forks in the first place if she hates everything here. Short answer: Bella’s mom got remarried to someone who travels a lot (he’s a minor league baseball player), so Bella moved to Forks so her mom could travel with him and not have to stay at home with her.
So, she moved to Forks to make her mom happier… and yet, she doesn’t check for emails from her mom, even though she knows her mom can be high-strung. I’m sensing a disconnect here.
Anyway, it briefly comes up that Edward has a hard time reading Bella, even though she thinks her face is like an open book. And during this brief discussion, Bella’s already falling for him. Sheesh, couldn’t things move a little more slowly? Build up to the romance a bit? We should at least get to know Edward a teensy bit before trying to push him and Bella together.
The rest of the chapter passes without incident. Didn’t think much happened? Good, because it didn’t. The book is pretty slow. I might write about slow pacing sometime during this.
Oh boy. I'm really looking forward to these now. :D
This is exciting! :D
Oooh. I just realized I'm looking forward to these :o
I'm glad you're doing this. I much prefer this type of summary than trying to read a book like that myself. Sorry you have to put up with it though.
Thanks for going through this coprolite with tweezers. Looks like you're already finding things to pick out!