… In which the romance of the (decade? century? all eternity?) begins its inevitable fizzle into lukewarm declarations of poorly-written passion. Or something. Lets rock.
Plot: Two chicks and a vampire walk into a cafeteria… No, really. That's what happens. I'm not making it up, promise. Basically, Bella walks into lunch and sees Edward sitting alone. He crooks a single alabaster finger, and they have a conversation I thought about recapping before realizing that I have better things to do with my life. Self-administered root canal, for example. Short version: Edward says they shouldn't be friends, Bella trembles with longing, Edward says they should be friends, Bella trembles with delight. Our fearless heroine goes to bio, nearly passes out at the sight of what is quite possibly the worst shoehorning of a plot-device I've ever seen (meaning blood), and goes outside to be rescued by her marble-skinned knight. He carries her to the nurse, charms that singularly spineless example of the medical industry into excusing Bella from class, and then insists on driving Bella home. Actually, he drags her to the car and threatens to more-or-less kidnap her home if she doesn't accept his help (more on this in a moment). Bella talks about her mother. Edward drops her at home. She slams the door and tries to stalk angrily away. And fails. Finis.
Rant: In On Writing, Stephen King spends a section discussing, with more detail and eloquence than I'll ever be able to use, exactly why the use of adverbs as dialogue qualifiers is a strong marker of bad writing. Essentially, anything in quotations should be followed by "said," the name/identifier of the speaker, and nothing else. Words that end in -ly (gruffly, warningly, menacingly, patiently, longingly) weaken prose and reveal that the author lacks confidence in her own ability to convey information/character/plot through the dialogue itself. In the same way, use of dialogue verbs other than "said" shows that the author does not trust her audience to get what they need from the dialogue, thus necessitating the addition of another verb (ex. warned, reminded, retorted, jeered, mocked, challenged etc) to convey more information. I mention this because I believe, and have for a long time, that great dialogue is the vital pulse of great writing. Stephanie Meyers' dialogue is pure deadweight. Part of this is her inability to write convincing characters, but mostly it is general incompetence as an author. Look through chapter 5 of Twilight, and find one single instance of speech ending with "Edward said." Go ahead, I'll wait.
Now, about the plot…. Ladies, if a guy ever tries to forcibly drag you into a car, scream as loud as you can, knee him in the crotch, then run far and fast. Gentlemen, I'm sure none of you have read this book anyways, but suffice it to say that acting like Edward Cullen will not get you a girlfriend. It may get you arrested. Seriously, this is what passes for romance now? I'm all for chivalry, for men opening doors and offering a supporting arm when girls have been rendered hilariously helpless by a drop of blood, but this entire thing is absurd. It's a fantasy, a modern respinning of the knight-in-shining-armor mystique (crossed with an inept Romeo and Juliet retelling) that robs Bella of anything resembling agency in determining her own fate. As I said, I don't have a problem with gender roles to a certain degree, but the fact remains that a real relationship is a meeting between equals and this is anything but. I find the entire thing more than slightly disturbing, and from what I know of the plot we're just getting started. So yeah, I'm going to be getting angry in this space pretty often for the next few months. Should be fun. See you tomorrow, boys and girls.
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