amatyultare (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amatyultare) wrote2008-09-07 09:55 pm
amatyultare) wrote2008-09-07 09:55 pm
am i the poster girl for some suburban sickness?
My last day at Microdyne was uneventful, almost (gasp!) enjoyable. My manager called in sick, which amused me, so I spent all day working on our gigantic pile of emails. I jumped off the phones entirely, in fact, and spent the day writing responses while listening to my iPod--particularly the excellent mix made for me by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deliriumdriver. By the time I left, there were only about a dozen unread emails left, more than manageable if they choose my replacement quickly.
Haven’t done much on the job-search end this weekend because Mom’s been online a lot doing schoolwork. Instead, I’ve been reading a lot. Among others, I picked up and read New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series (from the library this time). I’m still asking myself why I care so much about the books, and I really don’t know. But there you go; my thoughts are below. For those who haven’t read the book and plan to, there are spoilers.
1. The writing didn’t bug me as much as Twilight’s did, mostly because Edward is gone for most of the book and therefore SMeyer doesn’t have a reason to abuse the thesaurus for new combinations of words that mean ‘stunningly gorgeous’ and ‘dazzling’ and also ‘sparkly’.
2. I had read a recap of the book that summarized Bella’s post-Italy conversation with Edward as "Shh, hold on a second. I think I'm having an epiphany here." (Give her a moment, Edward, she doesn't have a lot of these.) "Oh! Okay! You love me!" And I thought it was meant facetiously. Silly me. That’s almost a direct quote from the book. As the same reviewer said, “Twilight means never having to say you’re kidding.”
3. I agree with many reviewers that Jacob and Alice are probably the best and most engaging characters in the whole series (which makes me kind of dread Eclipse). Once I got past the nonsense of Alice’s walk being described as ‘dance-like’ (seriously, what does that ACTUALLY MEAN? Does she go around doing a little ballet waltz-step all the time? Answer: it is SMeyer’s lazy attempt to describe extremely graceful movement.) I really enjoyed her as a character, not least because she is one of the few people in the books you’d actually like to know in real life. Actually, that applies to Jacob as well.
4. One of the few characteristics that Bella showed in Twilight besides her adoraklutzability was being a bookworm. And you know, I can relate to that. So all through New Moon, I was waiting for her to drown her sorrows in reading. And it never happened. Finally, this is ‘explained’ by Charlie telling Alice that Bella stopped reading along with listening to music because it ‘reminded her of Edward’.
I’m sorry, WHAT?
As a bookworm myself, I can assure you that one of the easiest and most satisfying ways to mentally ‘escape’ is to read. I will grant that perhaps her usual fare of romantic 19th century novels and Shakespeare plays would be too painful to read. But geez, that still leaves a pretty wide field. Fantasy and sci-fi. Biographies, history, economics, sociology and psychology. Science books written for non-scientists. Epic poetry. Even self-help books, for goodness sake (I suddenly want to see a story in which Bella reads It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken). I do not find it credible that the simple process of looking at and comprehending words and sentences somehow inescapably reminded Bella of Edward. It comes off, again, as a lazy way to keep the heroine in a perpetual state of suffering that nothing! nothing! (besides illicit motorcycles, cliff-diving, and werewolves) can alleviate--contrary to the heroine’s previous characterization.
5. I have a Big Theory regarding New Moon (okay, not that big, but bear with me):
SMeyers makes it quite clear that New Moon is supposed to be a retelling of Romeo and Juliet; she practically hits us over the head with it, in fact. But I don’t really buy it.
All of a sudden, I realized that New Moon is an adolescent girl’s version of Peter Pan. The Cullens become Bella’s version of Neverland, and Jacob is (in an interesting gender reversal) Wendy, doing his best to help Bella grow up. He also falls in love with her, something she realizes but cannot deal with. She does mature somewhat after spending time around him--one huge indication is that she realizes how immature and selfish she has been--but in the end, she returns to the Cullens and her fantasy world, and Jacob cannot stay with her.
(Does this make Alice Tinker Bell?)
6. One last thing. Even more so than in Twilight, Bella shows her incredible self-absorption in New Moon. The entirety of her concern for any negative possibility, up to and including Jacob dying, occurs to her in terms of how it will affect HER. How does anyone read this series without wanting to slap her?
Next up on my self-flagellating reading spree: Eldest, the sequel to Eragon. Just out of pure sadistic curiosity. Wish me luck? On the bright side, the thing is so huge that if it gets too painful, I can use the book to clonk myself over the head; it’s easily heavy enough to knock me out.
deliriumdriver. By the time I left, there were only about a dozen unread emails left, more than manageable if they choose my replacement quickly.Haven’t done much on the job-search end this weekend because Mom’s been online a lot doing schoolwork. Instead, I’ve been reading a lot. Among others, I picked up and read New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series (from the library this time). I’m still asking myself why I care so much about the books, and I really don’t know. But there you go; my thoughts are below. For those who haven’t read the book and plan to, there are spoilers.
1. The writing didn’t bug me as much as Twilight’s did, mostly because Edward is gone for most of the book and therefore SMeyer doesn’t have a reason to abuse the thesaurus for new combinations of words that mean ‘stunningly gorgeous’ and ‘dazzling’ and also ‘sparkly’.
2. I had read a recap of the book that summarized Bella’s post-Italy conversation with Edward as "Shh, hold on a second. I think I'm having an epiphany here." (Give her a moment, Edward, she doesn't have a lot of these.) "Oh! Okay! You love me!" And I thought it was meant facetiously. Silly me. That’s almost a direct quote from the book. As the same reviewer said, “Twilight means never having to say you’re kidding.”
3. I agree with many reviewers that Jacob and Alice are probably the best and most engaging characters in the whole series (which makes me kind of dread Eclipse). Once I got past the nonsense of Alice’s walk being described as ‘dance-like’ (seriously, what does that ACTUALLY MEAN? Does she go around doing a little ballet waltz-step all the time? Answer: it is SMeyer’s lazy attempt to describe extremely graceful movement.) I really enjoyed her as a character, not least because she is one of the few people in the books you’d actually like to know in real life. Actually, that applies to Jacob as well.
4. One of the few characteristics that Bella showed in Twilight besides her adoraklutzability was being a bookworm. And you know, I can relate to that. So all through New Moon, I was waiting for her to drown her sorrows in reading. And it never happened. Finally, this is ‘explained’ by Charlie telling Alice that Bella stopped reading along with listening to music because it ‘reminded her of Edward’.
I’m sorry, WHAT?
As a bookworm myself, I can assure you that one of the easiest and most satisfying ways to mentally ‘escape’ is to read. I will grant that perhaps her usual fare of romantic 19th century novels and Shakespeare plays would be too painful to read. But geez, that still leaves a pretty wide field. Fantasy and sci-fi. Biographies, history, economics, sociology and psychology. Science books written for non-scientists. Epic poetry. Even self-help books, for goodness sake (I suddenly want to see a story in which Bella reads It’s Called A Breakup Because It’s Broken). I do not find it credible that the simple process of looking at and comprehending words and sentences somehow inescapably reminded Bella of Edward. It comes off, again, as a lazy way to keep the heroine in a perpetual state of suffering that nothing! nothing! (besides illicit motorcycles, cliff-diving, and werewolves) can alleviate--contrary to the heroine’s previous characterization.
5. I have a Big Theory regarding New Moon (okay, not that big, but bear with me):
SMeyers makes it quite clear that New Moon is supposed to be a retelling of Romeo and Juliet; she practically hits us over the head with it, in fact. But I don’t really buy it.
All of a sudden, I realized that New Moon is an adolescent girl’s version of Peter Pan. The Cullens become Bella’s version of Neverland, and Jacob is (in an interesting gender reversal) Wendy, doing his best to help Bella grow up. He also falls in love with her, something she realizes but cannot deal with. She does mature somewhat after spending time around him--one huge indication is that she realizes how immature and selfish she has been--but in the end, she returns to the Cullens and her fantasy world, and Jacob cannot stay with her.
(Does this make Alice Tinker Bell?)
6. One last thing. Even more so than in Twilight, Bella shows her incredible self-absorption in New Moon. The entirety of her concern for any negative possibility, up to and including Jacob dying, occurs to her in terms of how it will affect HER. How does anyone read this series without wanting to slap her?
Next up on my self-flagellating reading spree: Eldest, the sequel to Eragon. Just out of pure sadistic curiosity. Wish me luck? On the bright side, the thing is so huge that if it gets too painful, I can use the book to clonk myself over the head; it’s easily heavy enough to knock me out.
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*points to 'Peter Pan' analogy* Because, hon, while Jacob makes her feel alive, he also make her feel guilty and immature (which she is) and basically makes her feel like she needs to grow up. And we can't have *that*.
The entire series is a glorification of some bizarre teenage girl fantasy, where you get to stay 18 forever, and you have a perfect, hot boyfriend (who isn't perfect, but let's not even get started on that) and you never have to go to school or work because he's so rich that you get whatever you want, and you are beautiful and graceful and PERFECT and everyone loves you and your life is AWESOME, FOREVER.
And hon, I know you've gone through some periods of serious depression, but were you comatose for four months? No, you were not. Did you never pick up a book or put on a CD? I doubt it. Did you never freaking TALK to a single person? Absolutely not.
Also, and this is a point that I keep meaning to make, I love how Bella never has normal negative reactions besides huge amounts of self-pitying angst. In this instance, she's going through some serious grieving. And what is one important stage of grieving? ANGER. I've felt it. You've felt it. It happens. Bella, well, she just doesn't get there. Which, since she's believing for months that her One True Love ditched her because it's just so tiresome aping these humans, and never mind how I kept telling you that you were the light of my life and the only thing of any importance in my universe, I changed my mind....it's frankly unbelievable that she never, ever gets mad at The Dazzling One.
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I'm not saying that I walked around like a zombie for months at a time, but the feeling of it--that things are happening around you, but you can't muster the energy to join them--was very similar. It's like one emotional thing so fried your emotional sensors that it takes a while to get feeling back in them. I just thought the whole plot device with the blank pages was well done. Did Bella overreact to a high school love interest leaving because he's a self-centered ass? Oh, sure, totally. I also just plain don't believe that she didn't read ANYTHING or listen to ANYTHING in four months. That would just be ridiculous, and her father would have done something about it if she really behaved the way Meyer wants us to think she did. But, the basic description of the type of depression (aside from the ridiculous overreacting) resounded with me.
Oh, yes, I completely agree that Bella's lack of anger is unbelievable. Well, first, I don't get how she can HONESTLY BELIEVE the words that come out of his mouth when he leaves. They're so at odds with everything else she knows that she should be like, "WTF?" But she already has this insane inferiority complex, so instead she accepts his leaving as the natural outcome of their relationship. And then, second, when he tells her the rather obvious truth, she doesn't even get angry at all? He lied to her, and should have know it would make her upset, and he was presumptuous enough to do it "for her own good?" Really? That's when I was finally done with Bella. I took her total lack of self-esteem with a grain of salt through Twilight and most of New Moon, but when she didn't get furious at Edward for making decisions about her life that hurt her, that was my limit.
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Tell her to answer the god damn emails!
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When I went into my manager's manager's office to return my badge, etc, she looked at me and asked, "So who can we use to take over your position?" and I'm going "You're asking me this NOW, as I am literally walking out the door for the last time?" That place...*shakes head*
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I need the newest one O.O!
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Bella gets back into literature in Book 3, but only Wuthering Heights, because she thinks it is the GREATEST LOVE STORY EVER (which I think tells you a lot about her). Even EDWARD of all people is like, "that is a hate story, not a love story." But, no, suddently Twilight is Wuthering Heights, because Meyer is trying to ape better novels. And failing.