Twilight: Psychic Surveillance

Twilight, pp. 171-178.

Bella, her hunger sated by the end of a breadstick she nibbled, is ready to get down to what's really important: What color Edward's eyes are.

"Usually you're in a better mood when your eyes are so light," I commented, trying to distract him from whatever thought had left him frowning and somber.

He stared at me, stunned. "What?"

"You're always crabbier when your eyes are black--I expect it then," I went on. "I have a theory about that."

"More theories?"

"Mm-hm." I chewed on a small bite of the bread, trying to look indifferent. 

"I hope you were more creative this time...or are you still stealing from comic books?" His faint smile was mocking; his eyes were still tight.

His eyes were still tight? Okay, help me out here, people. What the hell is Meyer talking about? I've been on this Earth a few decades, and English is my tool, and I've never once see or heard eyes described as "tight", probably because it makes no fucking sense. But at least this passage explains my earlier issues with how the Cullens can get away with living in Forks under their original names for generations (not continuously, perhaps, but often enough that plenty of people who knew them would still be living when they came back) without being noticed. The people of Forks are apparently so unobservant they don't notice the radical changes in Edward's eye color (from amber to black) and the accompanying radical changes in behavior. Even more hilarious is Edward's shock at someone's figuring this out. It ain't exactly brain surgery, there, Eddie. We're not talking about eyes that sometimes look green and sometimes look blue and sometimes look grey. Forks may be a town of dullards, but anyone with even half a brain could piece that together.

Of course, a meta-explanation is that Edward doesn't behave any differently no matter what color his eyes are. So far he's been the same smug, condescending asshole in every scene. You know, like Clooney.

The "stealing from comic books" line is of course a reference to Bella's earlier speculation that Edward might be Spider-Man or Superman (which he basically is, though since dumb ol' girls don't buy books about superheroes, Meyer made the book about vampires). Bella does have a theory, and baby, it's the stupidest moment in the book yet. And that's saying something.

I glared at him and continued slowly. "Let's say, hypothetically, that...someone...could know what people are thinking, read minds, you know--with a few exceptions."

That's...just...imPOSSIBLE. Where the hell did she get that? She hasn't had any reason to believe Edward can read minds. Come on! He has never once told her anything that anyone was thinking. As I noted last week, the film has Edward say in the car that he read the minds of the four gangers, and during the restaurant scene, he allegedly demonstrates this power by telling her what some of the other patrons are thinking. (I say "allegedly" because Bella makes no attempt to confirm that what he says is in fact what they're thinking, because of course she knows, because Meyer knows.) But at least the film threw us that bone. The novel doesn't even do that. Out of nowhere, Bella suddenly starts talking about mind-reading. That didn't even come up in her vampire Googling!

And what's with the exceptions? Why would there be any exceptions? Is that the way most people conceive of mind-reading powers? They work on everybody except Catholics, or people under 5'3", or redheads? How hard would it have been for Meyer to have Edward occasionally let slip that he "heard" something that someone didn't actually say? The answer is not at all since the film seemed to do it with no trouble. Stephenie [sic] Meyer is just that lazy.

Our leads play this game of "hypothetically" while they both know it isn't hypothetical and admire each other for figuring out their little game in the way that only annoying pretentious teenagers can. Bella outlines that she came up with the mind-reading thing to explain how Edward was there to rescue her from the criminal scum. (No attempt is made to explain where the exceptions idea came from.) Okay, that's the most plausible explanation? Not that he has some sort of danger sense (I mean, she already guessed he was Spider-Man), or clairvoyance, or psychic powers? How about this one, honey? He's stalking you. See? It explains everything and doesn't require an appeal to anything supernatural.

They go over the "I'm dangerous" thing yet again (still not buying it), and then Edward says that he was stalking her. (Bingo!) Okay, I'm paraphrasing. He says that he followed her to Port Angeles, for her own protection, of course, not because he's a creep who enjoys breaking into a young girl's house to watch her sleep. Then he reveals that he constantly reads Jessica's mind in order to keep tabs on Bella.

If you're reading this sentence, you didn't fully appreciate the last one. Go back and read it again until you get it. I'll wait.

Five. Star. Creepy. Edward constantly monitors a young girl's thoughts. It's the ultimate invasion of privacy, a gross violation of a person's most sacred space, and Jessica is subjected to it precisely because she's been nothing but friendly and welcoming to Bella, so how does Bella react to Edward's morally reprehensible act of psychic breaking and entering in the service of his constant surveillance of her whereabouts? Shock? Horror? Rage? Fear of who else he might be monitoring?

I hope you're sitting down for this, because I don't want to be responsible for giving anyone the vapors: Bella...doesn't react. At all. Edward continues speaking about how he found her after she left Jessica's awareness--by "randomly searching the thoughts of people on the street", natch--until he heard the thoughts of the go-gangers, and Bella lets it all pass without comment. Edward explains that he kept her with him instead of letting her go with her friends because otherwise he would've stalked and slain the miscreants. Finishing his story, Edward is ready to take Bella home. Her thoughts "incoherent", Bella is clear that she doesn't want to leave the presence of the ambulating cadaver who's been reading her best friend's most intimate thoughts for the past week without anyone's knowledge or consent.

Remember, girls: If he doesn't use invasive surveillance techniques to keep himself constantly informed of your whereabouts, it isn't True Love.

Aaaaaand...chapter! Yep, Edward gets the check, they get in the car about to start a conversation...and the chapter ends, right after the conversation's opening line. Were chapter breaks mandated every 20 pages or something?

So...yeah. We're done for the week, I guess. Don't look at me, I didn't insert a random chapter break. Anyhow, tune in next week for more hot talking-to-each-other-in-the-car action!

Twilight: Emotional Flatline

Twilight, pp. 165-170.

Edward knows that being almost assaulted and/or raped really works up an appetite, so he takes Bella to dinner. He doesn't ask her to dinner. He simply takes her.

I heard the door open and turned to see him getting out.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm taking you to dinner." He smiled slightly, but his eyes were hard. He stepped out of the car and slammed the door. I fumbled with my seat belt, and then hurried to get out of the car as well. He was waiting for me on the sidewalk.

He spoke before I could. "Go stop Jessica and Angela before I have to track them down, too. I don't think I could restrain myself if I ran into your other friends again."

Okay, this passage is so badly written I had to read it a couple of times to get what Meyer was going for. She means that Edward wants Bella to stop Jessica and Angela from (I think) searching for her so that Edward doesn't have to rescue them from those same four not-so-smooth criminals Bella just talked him down from brutally slaying.

The first time I read this, I thought Edward was telling Bella to stop the other girls from coming up to him because otherwise he would track them at some later date and eat them. And really, isn't that the more plausible reading? I mean, surely no one, having read the gangbangers' minds and found they were going to do to Bella something so terrible that it took everything he had not to kill them all where they stood, would in the immediate aftermath refer to them as Bella's "friends". I mean, there's gallows humor, and there's being an insensitive twat. I assume Bella makes the same mistake I did, since she doesn't kick Edward in the daddy marbles for calling her attempted rapists "friends".

Maybe I'm just so desperate for Edward to actually behave like a vampire that I'm seeing things, but I don't think so. Any normal person would just say, "Let Angela and Jessica know you're okay." But of course Edward is a gigantic asshole who's going to use this opportunity to manipulate Bella emotionally, so he will get rid of the girls and begin the process of isolating her from other friends and family, which culminates, as I noted in my review of Twilight, Part 4: Part 2, in her severance of virtually all non-Cullen relationships.

"Um, actually, Bella, we already ate while we were waiting--sorry," Angela confessed.

"That's fine--I'm not hungry." I shrugged.

"I think you should eat something." Edward's voice was low, but full of authority. He looked up at Jessica and spoke slightly louder. "Do you mind if I drive Bella home tonight? That way you won't have to wait while she eats."

Jessica demures about just abandoning her friend--because, unlike Bella, Meta-Jessica cares about other people, though neither Bella nor Meyer gives her credit for this. Ha! I refer to Bella and Meyer as if they were separate people because I am making a joke! Bella isn't having any of it, though.

I winked at her. I wanted nothing more than to be alone with my perpetual savior. There were so many questions that I couldn't bombard him with till we were by ourselves.

I know we're supposed to view Bella's non-reaction to being moments from being physically and possibly sexually assaulted as due to her maturity and total got-it-togetherness, but it isn't. I don't care how mature and got-it-together you are. Human beings react to situations like that. Maybe Meyer's alien leaders didn't teach her that before they sent her to Earth. Oh, and Bella, you just rode in the car alone with him to two different destinations. Why didn't you ask him then? Answer: Got to pad out the book somehow. Do I even need to mention that the film actually does something with the restaurant location? Can we just assume that from this point, the film is an immense improvement on the source material and still isn't very good? Oh forget it, I'm bitter. Let's just watch Edward order Bella around some more.

"Honestly, I'm not hungry," I insisted, looking up to scrutinize his face. His expression was unreadable.

"Humor me."

He walked to the door of the restaurant and held it open with an obstinate expression. Obviously, there would be no further discussion. I walked past him into the restaurant with a resigned sigh.

I guess "unreadable" doesn't mean what I thought it means. You can't say Twilight isn't educational. I'm learning that so many words mean the opposite of what I learned they mean. It's good to see Bella not even putting up a token struggle anymore. Her man speaks, and she, resigned, obeys.

So they go into the restaurant, and the animated corpse charms the hostess and gets them *yawn* a good table. He refuses the first table for "something more private", which Bella tells us she has never seen anyone do "except in old movies"(!), and then they order beveragezzzzz....Oh, I'm sorry, I dozed off for a second. Edward says he's waiting for her to go into shock (I'll say!), and she says she won't, and they order food while Bella drinks her Coke "obediently" (of course), and Jesus Christ get ON with it!

I got a laugh when Edward gives Bella his jacket, revealing that he's wearing a turtleneck sweater. I picture a century-old vampire looking through his closet, ready to dress for the day. "Hmm...the long flowing black cape? No, too showy. Ah, my turtleneck! Magnifique!" I guess it's not that silly, because Jerry Dandridge was a snappy dresser and he was just fine as a vampire. But then, Jerry Dandridge was hot and ate people, so he can get away with it.

Edward keeps trying to feed her, since that's how you deal with people going into shock, but Bella puts her foot down at being forced to eat delicious breadsticks.

"Really, I'm not going into shock," I protested.

"You should be--a normal person would be. You don't even look shaken."

Ah, but Edward doesn't realize that our Bella is emotionally stunted. I guess that's why it's okay for her to become a vampire, becoming forever fourteen seventeen.

She wasn't going to develop anyway.

Twilight: Near Miss

Twilight, pp. 157-164.

When we left Bella, she was too busy moping to pay attention to where she was going. As it happens, she stumbles over to the seedy side of Port Angeles. And baby, you will never find the more wretched hive of scum and villainy. I mean, just check out one of the four dastardly villains that accost Bella in an alley:

Two of them had paused, and the other two were slowing. The closest, a heavy-set, dark-haired man in his early twenties, seemed to be the one who had spoken. He was wearing a flannel shirt over a dirty t-shirt, cut-off jeans, and sandals.

A fat guy in sandals--my God, the horror! Run, Bella! A guy like that, who knows what he'll do? He might offer to sell you marijuana!

Flannel over a t-shirt, cut-off jeans, and sandals were what all the guys in their early twenties were wearing in 1992 2005. Meyer sure has her finger on the pulse of popular culture!

I'd also like to point out that this reprobate, who will be around for all of eight pages, has been given more of a physical description than Jessica, who didn't even get clothes. Hell, we get about as much as for him as we got for Edward. This must be part of Meyer's "don't show, don't tell" writing strategy. The vaguer your characters are, the more they can be whoever the reader wants them to be, and the better to be your wish fulfillment, my dear.

The rapscallions chase Bella around the back alleys of this Port Angeles Skid Row--well, they don't chase her so much as "casually stroll after her as she kind of meanders around". These passages are some of the worst writing yet, such as when Meyer makes it a point that Bella, who is being stalked in the night by four strange men in the bad part of town, feels a chill that "had nothing to do with the weather". (Thanks!) When the hoods finally get her cornered, Bella is choked with fear and just barely musters the energy to demand they stay away from her. One of the four, apparently thinking he's Huggy Bear, responds, "Don't be like that, sugar." This devastating riposte sends the other three into hysterics, and Bella prepares herself for combat, resolving that she isn't going to go down without a fight. Get ready, my little droogies. Bella Swan is about to do something!

Suddenly, just when we most expect it, Edward appears to the rescue!

Headlights suddenly flew around the corner, the car almost hitting the stocky one, forcing him to jump back toward the sidewalk. I dove into the road--this car was going to stop, or have to hit me. But the silver car unexpectedly fishtailed around, skidding to a stop with the passenger door open just a few feet in front of me.

"Get in," a furious voice commanded.

It was amazing how instantaneously 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. I jumped into the seat, slamming the door shut behind me.

All right, Bella's going to--oh, wait...but she was just about to...So you're gonna--oh, right. Okay. Right.

Now that a man is here, of course, everything's perfectly all right. One would think Bella would be a little in shock, a little bewildered, a little upset and emotional given she's just narrowly avoided being assaulted or worse. But nope, she's fine. So fine, in fact, that she asks Edward if he's okay! He'll eventually ask her if she's okay, but only after telling her to put on her seat belt, telling her that he's not okay, driving around for a while, and finally stopping the car in the middle of nowhere. Why? Because he's mad, and so of course his anger at these four men for threatening his privileged access to Bella's body (not that he's interesting in actually make use of this access, only in maintaining its integrity against the challenge of other men) trumps any question of her psychological well-being.

But I felt utterly safe, and, for the moment, unconcerned about where we were going. I stared at his face in profound relief, relief that went beyond my sudden deliverance. I studied his flawless features in the limited light, waiting for my breath to return to normal, until it occurred to me that his expression was murderously angry.

"Are you okay?" I asked, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounded.

"No," he said curtly, and his tone was livid.

It's time for your old pal Carl Eusebius to check in with you neurotypicals again: Is this normal behavior? Imagine: You were this close to being physically beaten by four toughs--possibly raped, as Bella earlier feared "they might be something worse than thieves". Would you even give a thought to the fact that you get to see the guy you haven't seen in four days? Would that form even a small part of the flood of relief you felt in the immediate aftermath of escaping that situation? Who's crazy here, Meyer or me? Because one of us definitely is.

And I do de-clare, I believe it's here on page 163 that the word "said" for dialogue first appears. Hallelujah, hallelujah!

"Distract me, please," he ordered.

"I'm sorry, what?"

He exhaled sharply.

"Just prattle about something unimportant until I calm down."

Has anyone been keeping track of how often Edward gives Bella "commands" and "orders"? Because it's fucking often. And it's nice that Bella, upon hearing the word "prattle", doesn't immediately think of Jessica as I half-expected her to do. Bella does talk about something unimportant--so unimportant that I've skipped it up until now and I'm going to skip it again--until we get this.

"What's wrong?" My voice came out in a whisper.

"Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella."

Hold on, just give me a sec, here...I know I've...ah, here it is, The Abuser's Handbook page 34. Allow me to give the full quotation: "Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, and at those times, you might find yourself accidentally falling down the stairs."

But no, Edward's not an abuser! (Well, he is, but his is emotional abuse.) He just means that he desperately wants to kill the hoods. Wait, why does he want to do that? All he saw was four people standing around Bella. This is a crime that warrants death? As I've noted, Edward can read thoughts, so presumably he saw in their minds that the scum were going to do something terrible. But Bella doesn't yet know he can do this. Since she isn't particularly affected by what should be at the very least an experience to shake you up a little, isn't she curious how he knew to come screaming around the corner at that exact moment? Because that's what happened. It isn't like he was just passing by, happened to see what was going on, deduced it was something terrible almost instantly, and put pedal to metal. He comes around the corner already driving like a maniac and heading right for them, so actually he didn't even see what was happening. Bella, of course, doesn't ask about this, just like she didn't ask how he can stop a speeding van with his bare hands. (No, I'm not going to let that one go.)

Once again, the Twilight film improves on this scene by having Edward almost immediately say that he saw the lowlifes' thoughts and so in a sense saw what they were planning to do. This also drops movie-Bella another clue that Edward isn't what he seems (because movie-Bella, as I've noted, has to piece together Edward's vampire nature on her own). Here, though, he doesn't say that, so we're left with Edward in a murderous rage over events he didn't witness, and Bella doesn't think to ask. She clearly isn't traumatized by her experience, and so why doesn't she ask why he's there, how he knew she was in danger, how he knew what was happening, and how he knew so certainly that he's in a murderous rage about it?

She doesn't ask because, of course, she knows. Because Stephenie [sic] Meyer knows. No one in this novel behaves like a real person, or even a believable character in a trashy vampire romance novel.* They never behave in any way other than to move the plot (such as it is) forward. In fact, Bella won't ask why he was there for another eight pages. During that time, they meet up with Jessica and Angela, blow them off (what, you expected them to spend a single moment with other people?), go to a restaurant, and talk about nothing for several minutes, and then Bella wonders how Edward was suddenly right there right when she needed him, because that's when Meyer is ready to tell us. And Bella never asks why he's as angry as he is, why he's having the emotional reaction she should be having.

I'm beginning to wonder if Bella could pass a Voight-Kampff test.

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* I'm rather surprised that necrophilia is not only as popular as it is today, but as socially acceptable as it is, if only in the realm of fantasy.

Twilight: When Subtext Becomes Text

Twilight, pp. 99-104.

This week, we readers of Twilight are treated to a boring conversation about nothing between Edward and Bella. So yes, the same as last week. Unlike Stephenie [sic] Meyer, though, Carl Eusebius will take a different tack with the analysis. This time, instead of banging on about how Meyer hasn't thought through her characters, I'm going to rip into how the conversation is contrived, badly written, and doesn't make any sense even in the context of a crappy tweener novel.

"You scared me for a minute there," he admitted after a pause. His tone made it sound like he was confessing a humiliating weakness. "I thought Newton was dragging your dead body off to bury it in the woods."

Huh? He thought Bella was dead? But why would he think that, when he could just read Mike's mind and know exactly what happened? Or are we to believe that Mike thought Bella was dead? This just doesn't make sense on any level. Edward says a few lines later that he saw them pass by his car, so he must have seen Bella walking. She needed Mike's help, but she was clearly providing much of her own locomotion. Do people normally carry dead bodies beside them, with the corpse's arm around their neck? Does he think she's a walking corpse or something?

Wait...he's a walking corpse,* so I guess they've got me there.

"Honestly--I've seen corpses with better colour. [Yeah, every time he looks in the mirror! Zing!] I was concerned that I might have to avenge your murder."

"Poor Mike. I'll bet he's mad."

"He absolutely loathes me," Edward said cheerfully.

Okay, who talks like that? Take any conversation in this novel--choose one at random--and say the lines aloud. See how unnatural you sound. Feel how difficult it is to talk that way. It's got to take mental effort to write dialogue this mannered and artificial. Surely Meyer has had conversations with other human beings in real life. How hard is it to translate that experience into writing? (Very hard, I guess.)

"I was concerned that I might have to avenge your murder." Why? Even if Edward could somehow believably think Bella's dead, why would he think she's been murdered? Being a century old, he must have seen people die from all sorts of causes all the time. And why doesn't Bella react at all to this odd and deeply creepy statement? "Poor Mike"? How does that statement follow from "I might have to avenge your murder"? Also, note that this may be the only time Edward ever says anything "cheerfully". And, of course, it's because he's inspired intense dislike in someone else. Isn't he dreamy?

Mike becomes the hero of the story when he interrupts their conversation by dragging another fainting student into the nurse's office. Edward immediately makes to get Bella out of there, because God forbid she see another drop of blood. That would make this scene go on longer! Then--and I swear to Edward James Olmos this happens--the following exchange takes place:

I spun and caught the door before it closed, darting out of the infirmary. I could feel Edward right behind me.

"You actually listened to me." He was stunned.

"I smelled the blood," I said, wrinkling my nose. Lee wasn't sick from watching other people, like me.

"People can't smell blood," he contradicted.

People can't smell blood. People can't smell blood? Wha...what? This line brings you to a screeching halt. Like Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse saying "Pain don't hurt." It's just...the mind boggles. You have to stop, wonder if you misread it, go back and read it again. People can't smell blood? You might as well say that birds can't fly at night or left-handed people can't drive cars on Sunday or Congressmen can't use their expense accounts for hookers and blow.

You know, I tried to read this statement in the light most favourable to Meyer, so I thought maybe it's supposed to be some vampire thing. Like, say, compared to their vampire senses, we humans with our puny sense of smell can't really smell blood, something like that. Only that doesn't work, because he never says that about anything else. He doesn't say people can't hear music, or see trees, or feel velvet. Edward does, in fact, listen to music for pleasure, so it's not even the case that he only mentions blood because that's all he cares about. I don't know how this is possible, but I really think Meyer thinks Bella's (and therefore her own) ability to smell blood is unusual. I can't escape the conclusion that she is somehow unaware that people can smell blood. Just about all people can, and do, and have. That, in fact, it has a very distinctive odour. One would think that merely existing in the human world would have imparted this information to Meyer. I'm simply thunderstruck that someone has lived three decades yet missed this simple fact.

Oh and one more thing: "he contradicted"? I mean, that's just...that's just wrong.

Mike comes back to make sure Bella's okay and to confirm that she's still going to the beach with him and his their friends. (She is.) Bella humiliates him some more--though mostly in her narration--and he leaves, despondent that she's in the presence of Edward. This is, naturally, portrayed as jealousy on Mike's part, though I prefer to think he's saddened to know that she's caught up in Edward's mind games. After Mike departs, Edward uses his hypnotism power--I think--to get Bella out of gym class, declaring to the school nurse that he will take her home. Bella then invites Edward to the beach, even though Meyer made sure we knew that Mike made it a point not to invite him. This adds a whole John-and-Yoko vibe to Bella, as if we needed any further reason to despise the character. Edward joins in on the Mike humiliation when he declines the invitation because Mike might "snap", though we'll find out later that the real reason he doesn't want to go has more to do with the location than the people involved.

Edward then assaults Bella when she heads toward her truck to leave. He grabs her by the jacket and "yanks" her back to him, and then he hauls her over to his car.

He was towing me toward his car now, pulling me by my jacket. It was all I could do to keep from falling backward. He'd probably just drag me along anyway if I did.

"Let go!" I insisted. He ignored me. I staggered along sideways across the wet sidewalk until we reached the Volvo. Then he finally freed me--I stumbled against the passenger door.

"You are so pushy!" I grumbled.

Yes, pushy. That's it. That's what you call someone who jerks you around and drags you bodily over to his car while you demand to be released. Pushy.

"Get in, Bella." 

I didn't answer. I was mentally calculating the chances of reaching the truck before he could catch me. I had to admit, they weren't good.

"I'll just drag you back," he threatened, guessing my plan.

You know, sometimes I wonder why I write this blog. In my earlier posts, I interrogated Edward's words and behaviour to expose them as the emotional manipulation that they were. I examined Bella's thoughts and actions and how they reveal a kind of dependent passivity and powerlessness. But now the novel just has Edward directly controlling her person through physical force. I mean, do I even need to talk about this? There's no deeper level to probe, here. The misogyny is right there on the surface. Why continue with this madness?

It became an instant bestseller when published originally in hardback in 2005, debuting at No. 5 on the New York Times Best Seller list within a month of its release and later peaking at No. 1. That same year, Twilight was named one of Publisher's Weekly's Best Children's Books of 2005. The novel was also the biggest selling book of 2008 and the second biggest selling of 2009, only behind its sequel New Moon. It has been translated into 37 different languages. When first published, Twilight gained much critical acclaim.[Source: Wikipedia]

Oh, yeah. That's why.
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* I know I'm striking a deceased equine here, but it continues to astound me that anybody thinks falling in love with a vampire is a believable idea. They're dead, people. They're shambling corpses that reek of the grave. They subsist on the blood of living human beings. There's no heat in their bodies, no life in their eyes, no light in their souls. They are inhuman. Stop saying you love them. It's disturbing.

Twilight: Mirror Universe

Twilight, pp. 25-28.
This week on Twilight (alternate title: Everybody Loves Bella), we're introduced to Mike, who loves Bella. This poor kid makes you feel bad for him from his very first appearance, because, clearly unprepared for Bella's manipulations, he has no idea what's in store for him. He's friendly and polite--already a bad sign--though a little lacking in tact.

I looked up to see a cute, baby-faced boy, his blond hair carefully gelled into orderly spikes, smiling at me in a friendly way. He obviously didn't think I smelled bad....He was the nicest person I'd met today.

But as we were entering the gym, he asked, 'So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen him act like that....He looked like he was in pain or something.'

'I don't know,' I responded. 'I never spoke to him.'

'He's a weird guy.' Mike lingered by me instead of heading to the dressing room. 'If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you.'

I smiled at him before walking through the girls' locker room door. He was friendly and clearly admiring.

That's our Bella--keep it vague, keep 'em guessing, never let them pin you down to anything. The number one rule of emotional manipulation is never let anyone know your true motives.

So, despite Mike's entirely inappropriate reference to Edward's absurd behaviour and his rather too eager 'I woulda talked to you', he's 'the nicest person I'd met today', and Bella likes him because 'he obviously didn't think I smelled bad', as Edward seems to. So from Mike she seeks validation of her attractiveness, a boost to her self-esteem that her abusive boyfriend has shaken, but Bella will set him up with Jessica because, as Jessica's good friend, Bella will allow her to take a partner she herself has rejected. Mike is attracted to Bella because, well, everyone is, but he's lacking something, that sort of open contempt for her and indifference to human emotion that Bella finds so captivating.

This is where the author's lack of touch with anything resembling a normal teenage experience comes out. I've no idea if Mrs. Meyer had such an experience, but if she did, her writing shows no evidence of this. My high school experience was typical (summers in Rangoon, luge lessons), though I share neither the joy of having escaped it nor the nostalgia for it that seem to comprise the two most common American attitudes towards high school.

But I do remember that high school was all about cliques. You were in one whether you wanted to be or not. No-one reading this is going to be surprised which clique I ended up in: the gamers. I was one of the first at my high school to have Internet access (and before that, local bulletin boards). In computer programming class, I was the unofficial teaching assistant. I played Dungeons and Dragons on the tabletop, wrote fantasy fanfiction, and sparred occasionally with swords.

One of the hallmarks of high school cliquishness is that cliques rarely crossed lines. The smokers had their area of the school, and everybody else made fun of them...from a distance. I had a middle school friend who ended up in their clique, which essentially marked the end of the friendship. None of his friends would've welcomed me, nor mine him. (I'm sure they made fun of us, too.) The jocks had their clique, and gangsters theirs, and the 420-friendly smokers theirs.

So the most popular girl in school was really the one who appealed to the most cliques. I remember not being at all enamoured with my high school's Most Popular Girl. I was much more interested in the salutatorian and, before that, the eventual valedictorian of the rival high school in our district. That is, girls who were closer to my clique. (My high school was sadly lacking in gamer girls.)

Twilight's high school is, thus, a completely foreign place to me, where the rules are all different. I'm half-recalling a line from an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, something like 'A perverted world, where the spazzes make fun of the cool guys.' That's what Forks High is, high school turned upside down, where the geeks are popular and the cool kids can't get dates. Bella is not the kind of girl who should be the darling of the school, because she's in the angsty-emo-goth clique. There she would be highly sought after (with her manipulations being just another part of the package), but outside of it, she'd be...well, she'd be regarded precisely in the way Mike views Edward. 'She's a weird girl' he would say to Jessica not long before he asks her out, because Mike and Jessica are in the same clique, and so he would actually find her attractive. He shouldn't need Bella to point this out, and he shouldn't be interested in anything Bella has to say on this or any other matter.

This is where Meyer wants to have her cake and eat it, too. She wants her fauxtagonist to be quirky and deep but also widely popular, forgetting or ignoring that depth and quirkiness aren't popular. The good-looking pretty types (Mike) aren't interested in moody, antisocial types like Bella. They're more interested in people like themselves. People closer to, or in, their own clique.

Of course, high school romances are often about love that jumps cliques. In fact, the story might have been interesting if Bella actually did end up with Mike, with Edward being the one everybody (including Edward himself) assumes she'd go for. Bella and Mike could run into constant trouble because their expectations and the worlds they inhabit are so vastly different. Edward and Jessica would be the obstacles here, representing the safer, conformist alternatives to the difficulties of making their relationship work. But Bella just has that something that Mike can't ignore (just pretend that, in this alternate universe, Bella actually has something), and even though he finds it easier--more practical--to be with Jessica (just as Bella finds her relationship with Edward easier), love keeps drawing them back together, and the story ends with the beginnings of their finding a way to engage in each other's worlds and with a new appreciation for each other's distinctive outlook.

But enough about a potential good story. Instead, we've got to get the emo princess hooked up with the emo prince, with no real obstacles, and we've got to stretch it over four books.

Good lord.

Even according the rules of Meyer's parallel universe, Mike's reaction to Edward's shenanigans is all wrong. This is part of Meyer's persecution complex (hmm...Mormonism popping up?). Everybody must love Bella, because she's fabulous, but they must also look at her in awe and regard her with suspicion, because she's so, like, deep and different and stuff. So when a man she has never seen before in her life flips out when she shows up, not only does she immediately have to blame herself, but so do other people who already regarded the Cullens as freaks. This just doesn't make sense on a human level. If I'm a high schooler who sees the school's nutjob have an episode when the New Girl sits next to him, how could my first reaction be I wonder what she did to him? It's nonsensical. I'd think something more like God, that Cullen's got serious issues.

This is how that exchange would've gone in the real world:

He was the nicest person I'd met. Just as we got to the gym, he said without looking at me, 'I, uh, saw what happened with Edward Cullen.'

'Oh.' My cheeks turned a little red. Just a little. 'You did?'

'Yeah.' He looked at me now. 'Look, he's really strange. I don't know what his problem is, but he acts like that sometimes. Don't let him get to you. Who knows what was going on in his head?'

Or something like that. Mike should be blaming Edward, since Edward is so clearly in the wrong here. Now, it might work if Edward was the small-town boy who had lived in Forks his whole life and Bella was the big-city newcomer that all the students resented for her contempt for their small-town customs. But in Twilight, it's already been established that Everybody Loves Bella and the Cullens are regarded as weirdos. So why is the nicest person Bella has met today immediately siding with Edward, accusing Bella of having done something to cause Edward to react as he did?

Bella comes upon Edward in the school's main office, trying, and failing, to get out of the class he shares with Bella. (How, oh my brothers, could this 'vampire' stand to attend high school every day for decades?)

Edward Cullen's back stiffened, and he turned slowly to glare at me--his face was absurdly handsome--with piercing, hate-filled eyes.

Makes a girl's heart melt, don't it?