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lliiraCharlie has lived alone for 16-ish years. And he doesn't have a pet. No dog, no cat, no hamster, no goldfish, no boa constrictor, no ant farm. Nothing. It's an example of how arid and lacking in character development this book is.
Back to what's in the book, instead of what should be in it: Bella and Edward have finished their first battle. I think Edward won. Bella says her "thoughts were unmanageable" (51). Meyer doesn't write what those thoughts were, of course, because that would be showing rather than telling and doing that would go against Meyer's principles or something.
Edward rushed as swiftly and as gracefully from the room as he had last Monday.
And now I'm wishing they'd decided to make the Twilight movies musicals.*
Mike comes to talk to Bella, and reveals that he found the lab difficult and that Bella's "lucky [she] had Cullen for a partner" (51). She's annoyed that he assumes she found it as difficult as he did and says, "I didn't have any trouble with it." Um, yeah, that's the kind of thing I learned not to say before middle school. Mike's not being sexist here; he's simply not realizing that Bella is a lot better at science than he is. It's not exactly tactful, but Bella hasn't revealed any of her personality or past to any of the people trying to be her friends, so how would he know she's good at science?
Mike shows that he's unhappy about Edward being friendly to Bella. Here we see the beginning of the twisted "every man she meets wishes he could simply piss on Bella to mark her as his property". Yes, when people have crushes, they can get jealous. But unless there's something seriously wrong with them, they don't get pissy because someone else was nice to their crush! And Edward was seriously nasty to Bella before this. When I had crushes in high school and a girl was mean to my crush, I didn't think "good, she won't be competition"! And when guys had crushes on me, their reaction when a boy was mean to me tended to be ragey toward the boy.
This book hurts me in my thinky place.
Bella dismisses Mike's conversation as "chatter." Then they go to gym.
He chivalrously covered my position as well as his own, so my woolgathering was only interrupted when it was my turn to serve...
Don't expect anything from Bella, but do her work as well as your own. Also, "woolgathering"? Meyer is only three years older than me, and she just had a modern teenager use the word "woolgathering" casually. What on earth? We still don't know what Bella's thinking so hard about, by the way, just that she's thinking hard.
Anyway, Bella's team "duck[s] warily out of the way" when it's her turn to serve. Don't expect Bella to try to get better -- it's your fault if you're hurt by something she does.
And this paragraph has to be seen to be believed:
The rain was just a mist as I walked to the parking lot, but I was happier when I was in the dry cab. I got the heater running, for once not caring about the mind-numbing roar of the engine. I unzipped my jacket, put the hood down, and fluffed my damp hair out so the heater could dry it on the way home.
I don't expect perfection. But when you have your protagonist tell us, in detail, about drying her hair, after an entire page of telling us that she's thinking thoughts but not telling us what those thoughts are, you make me want to lecture you with rules for writing. And I don't even like rules for writing! Here's one that Meyer has violated over and over and over again:
Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
That's one of my least-disliked rules for writing.** I do think descriptions are important as well -- how important depends on what you're writing and what your strengths are as a writer. Vonnegut noted approvingly that Flannery O'Connor broke nearly all of his rules, but Meyer is no Flannery O'Connor. In this hair-drying description, Meyer is wasting the time of the reader. Did she have an editor?
Bella sees Edward leaning against his Volvo, is distracted, and almost hits "a rusty Toyota Corolla" (52) when she tries to pull out the first time. And this is where I notice that Bella sure knows a lot about car makes and models, and Meyer thinks it's important to tell us this information. I think Meyer likes cars. Nothing wrong with that, but it's weird coming from Bella.
Bella succeeds in pulling out, and thinks she sees Edward laughing at her. Ha-ha, how funny, his lab partner almost hit another car. So amusing. What a jackass. Of course, it's possible that Bella's imagining things; considering her self-hatred, it would be unsurprising if she imagined people laughing at her when they weren't. But laughing is entirely in-character for the Edward we've been shown so far, and Bella's never been shown to be an unreliable narrator.
And that is the end of Chapter 2. In it, we got to know Edward a little bit. I'd say he was as charming as an eel if that weren't an insult to eels. I would not touch him with a 39 1/2 foot pole. If my choice were between celibacy and Edward, I'd embrace celibacy and never look back.
*I chose that clip because it's the "he wants to but is resisting" stuff from Twilight done well. It has been done often and will be done again.
**The one writing rule I like is in that list: Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. Of course, it's also a somewhat meaningless rule: it serves to silence your internal critic when you're agonizing over what TVTropes will say about what you write, but I think Meyer followed it. And Twilight is terrible.
Back to what's in the book, instead of what should be in it: Bella and Edward have finished their first battle. I think Edward won. Bella says her "thoughts were unmanageable" (51). Meyer doesn't write what those thoughts were, of course, because that would be showing rather than telling and doing that would go against Meyer's principles or something.
Edward rushed as swiftly and as gracefully from the room as he had last Monday.
And now I'm wishing they'd decided to make the Twilight movies musicals.*
Mike comes to talk to Bella, and reveals that he found the lab difficult and that Bella's "lucky [she] had Cullen for a partner" (51). She's annoyed that he assumes she found it as difficult as he did and says, "I didn't have any trouble with it." Um, yeah, that's the kind of thing I learned not to say before middle school. Mike's not being sexist here; he's simply not realizing that Bella is a lot better at science than he is. It's not exactly tactful, but Bella hasn't revealed any of her personality or past to any of the people trying to be her friends, so how would he know she's good at science?
Mike shows that he's unhappy about Edward being friendly to Bella. Here we see the beginning of the twisted "every man she meets wishes he could simply piss on Bella to mark her as his property". Yes, when people have crushes, they can get jealous. But unless there's something seriously wrong with them, they don't get pissy because someone else was nice to their crush! And Edward was seriously nasty to Bella before this. When I had crushes in high school and a girl was mean to my crush, I didn't think "good, she won't be competition"! And when guys had crushes on me, their reaction when a boy was mean to me tended to be ragey toward the boy.
This book hurts me in my thinky place.
Bella dismisses Mike's conversation as "chatter." Then they go to gym.
He chivalrously covered my position as well as his own, so my woolgathering was only interrupted when it was my turn to serve...
Don't expect anything from Bella, but do her work as well as your own. Also, "woolgathering"? Meyer is only three years older than me, and she just had a modern teenager use the word "woolgathering" casually. What on earth? We still don't know what Bella's thinking so hard about, by the way, just that she's thinking hard.
Anyway, Bella's team "duck[s] warily out of the way" when it's her turn to serve. Don't expect Bella to try to get better -- it's your fault if you're hurt by something she does.
And this paragraph has to be seen to be believed:
The rain was just a mist as I walked to the parking lot, but I was happier when I was in the dry cab. I got the heater running, for once not caring about the mind-numbing roar of the engine. I unzipped my jacket, put the hood down, and fluffed my damp hair out so the heater could dry it on the way home.
I don't expect perfection. But when you have your protagonist tell us, in detail, about drying her hair, after an entire page of telling us that she's thinking thoughts but not telling us what those thoughts are, you make me want to lecture you with rules for writing. And I don't even like rules for writing! Here's one that Meyer has violated over and over and over again:
Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
That's one of my least-disliked rules for writing.** I do think descriptions are important as well -- how important depends on what you're writing and what your strengths are as a writer. Vonnegut noted approvingly that Flannery O'Connor broke nearly all of his rules, but Meyer is no Flannery O'Connor. In this hair-drying description, Meyer is wasting the time of the reader. Did she have an editor?
Bella sees Edward leaning against his Volvo, is distracted, and almost hits "a rusty Toyota Corolla" (52) when she tries to pull out the first time. And this is where I notice that Bella sure knows a lot about car makes and models, and Meyer thinks it's important to tell us this information. I think Meyer likes cars. Nothing wrong with that, but it's weird coming from Bella.
Bella succeeds in pulling out, and thinks she sees Edward laughing at her. Ha-ha, how funny, his lab partner almost hit another car. So amusing. What a jackass. Of course, it's possible that Bella's imagining things; considering her self-hatred, it would be unsurprising if she imagined people laughing at her when they weren't. But laughing is entirely in-character for the Edward we've been shown so far, and Bella's never been shown to be an unreliable narrator.
And that is the end of Chapter 2. In it, we got to know Edward a little bit. I'd say he was as charming as an eel if that weren't an insult to eels. I would not touch him with a 39 1/2 foot pole. If my choice were between celibacy and Edward, I'd embrace celibacy and never look back.
*I chose that clip because it's the "he wants to but is resisting" stuff from Twilight done well. It has been done often and will be done again.
**The one writing rule I like is in that list: Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. Of course, it's also a somewhat meaningless rule: it serves to silence your internal critic when you're agonizing over what TVTropes will say about what you write, but I think Meyer followed it. And Twilight is terrible.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-19 08:01 pm (UTC)Mike's not being sexist here; he's simply not realizing that Bella is a lot better at science than he is. It's not exactly tactful, but Bella hasn't revealed any of her personality or past to any of the people trying to be her friends, so how would he know she's good at science?
He is assuming is that she is sitting back and letting Edward do all the work. Regardless of whether or not she is good at science. It might not be sexist, but it is pretty insulting/demeaning to assume that she is being a slacker. I'd probably not say anything, but I'm timid like that IRL and I'd be frustrated with that. Most of my friends would not put up with that at all - it's almost as bad as accusing someone of cheating, to imply they didn't do their share of work in a group project.
But other than that, YES, ITA.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-20 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-11 02:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-14 04:49 am (UTC)The thing about Meyer and cars is that she only uses brand names for cars and literally nothing else, even when it would make sense. So far at least. (For instance, the infamous "favorite search engine" scene.) But cars -- somehow, those matter on some level and so she thinks we supposedly benefit from knowing some random car is a Toyota Corolla.
Tbh, I think that rule for writing is one of the more ridiculous ones I've ever heard. If the viewpoint character wouldn't know or care about the brand, plopping it in there is worse than pointless. I will admit that making the Cullens drive a Volvo is unintentionally (I assume) amusing, though.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-14 04:08 pm (UTC)Hmm, that's a good point. It definitely stands out to me, because I never know car makes just from looking at them.
I don't like the rule, either. Whenever I see writing that does it, all it does is send a message that someone maybe needs to do more writing and less listening to their instructor.