October seems like an ideal month to finish up Stephenie Meyer's Twilight
series, which involves an ordinary girl caught up in the conflicting
worlds of vampires and werewolves. If I can get to the library in the
next couple of days, I might manage to be done with the series by
Halloween. Though the final installment was not particularly
well-received - I recall a particularly derisive review in Entertainment Weekly - I've got the itch to read it, since I just finished Eclipse, the third book in the series, and liked it about twice as much as either of the previous books.
Eclipse
finds 18-year-old Bella Swann back to her relationship with Edward
Cullen, a drop-dead gorgeous, unfailingly courteous vampire. In the
previous book, he had abandoned her for about six months, intending to
stay out of her life entirely for her own good, but perilous
circumstances had brought them back together, resulting in Edward's
promise never to leave her again. As she has gotten increasingly
entangled in the vampires' world, Edward finally has agreed to turn her
into a vampire, though he has deep misgivings, and he refuses to
consider it before high school graduation.
Meanwhile, Bella's
dad Charlie, who despises Edward for the pain he caused Bella in his
absence, has his daughter under house arrest after finding out that she
spent much of her Edwardless time zooming around on a motorcycle trying
to get herself seriously injured. So her time with Edward is limited,
and there's an additional wrinkle in the form of Jacob Black, an old
family friend to whom Bella became especially close while Edward was out
of town. As the book begins, Jacob, stung by her return to Edward after
all that he did to her, is still refusing to speak to Bella, and she's
still not too happy with him for ratting her out about the motorcycle.
Moreover, Jacob is a werewolf, the natural enemy of the vampire, so
Edward doesn't want her going near him for any kind of reconciliation.
But soon, a sinister threat will force Edward and Jacob both to set
aside their prejudices and jealousies for the greater good.
Reading Eclipse,
I couldn't help but think that the first two books might have been
better if they'd been consolidated into one, cutting out a lot of
extraneous prose. New Moon's main purpose of developing Bella's friendship with Jacob probably could have been accomplished if Twilight had skipped a couple hundred pages of describing Edward's perfect features and if New Moon has skipped a couple hundred pages of Bella feeling sorry for herself. In any case, though, once I got to Eclipse, the first two volumes seemed mostly like set-up. Here, we really get to the meat of the story.
Bella
is still a rather annoying character, whiny and sulky. She gets huffy
with most of the other characters in this book, particularly Charlie and
Alice, Edward's "sister" and her best friend, because of their attempts
to "babysit" her, and Edward and Jacob, because of their disdain for
each other. Now that she has Edward back, it's rather refreshing to see
that her life doesn't completely revolve around him. She tries to make
the most of her few remaining months with Angela, a sweet, intuitive
girl at school, as she reasons that she will have to break off contact
once she makes the transformation - though I would think that she could
maybe manage an occasional e-mail... Additionally, once she and Jacob
get over their aggravation with one another, Bella spends as much time
with him as she can, even when it means defying Edward, because she
knows how deeply she has hurt him and yearns to somehow make things
right. Unfortunately, her show of fraternal affection only muddies the
waters, leaving smitten Jacob more reason to hope.
Some of
Jacob's actions in this novel are frustrating too, but understandable,
since he is so desperately in love with Bella and so afraid of losing
her, not just to Edward, but to vampirism. For how can they maintain any
sort of friendship when she has transformed into his mortal enemy?
Meyer gives us more background on each of the werewolves and, most
interestingly, lets us sit in on a pow-wow where the elders of the
Quileute tribe of which Jacob is a part recount the old legends
explaining the origins of their werewolf forms. Meanwhile, we're also
given insight into the backgrounds of a couple of the Cullens, with
Jasper's history particularly important to understanding the string of
deaths that has nearby Seattle terrorized.
Bubbly, affectionate
Alice is still my favorite character, and hers is a nearly constant
presence throughout the novel. While the obsessive quality of Bella's
relationship with Edward gives it an occasionally unhealthy flavor, her
friendship with innocent Alice is a breath of fresh air, despite Bella's
tendency to be a wet blanket. Though he doesn't trust Edward, Charlie
adores cheerful Alice, which is quite understandable; everyone who knows
her seems to regard her with the same unabashed affection lavished upon
Kaylee, the empathetic ship's mechanic in Firefly.
Like Edward, she seems to appreciate the value of the human experience
more than Bella does, and with no memories of her own human life, she
never misses an opportunity to live vicariously through her.
Additionally, her unique ability to see into a constantly changing
future makes her an indispensable resource as the Cullens strategize
about their upcoming ambush.
This book feels much more balanced
than the previous two, as Bella divides her time between Edward and
Jacob, and there's a slow build toward the book's final conflict; we see
it coming almost from the beginning, and Meyer heightens the tension
over several hundred pages. What I especially like is the way this
threat, from another group of vampires, forces the Cullens and the
werewolves into an alliance, particularly Edward and Jacob.
Additionally, while Carlisle, the Cullen patriarch, has a pretty small
role in this book, his compassionate nature manifests itself powerfully
on a couple of occasions. It's unfortunate that the happy event of these
feuding factions uniting must be precipitated by the threat of
violence; readers are treated to a fairly gruesome battle, though much
of it occurs "off-screen".
One of the oddest elements of the
book is Bella's revulsion when it comes to the subject of marriage. Her
life revolves around Edward. He is like air to her, like water and food.
There's really no way to exaggerate the heights of her devotion to him.
And she wants nothing more than for him to end her human life by
transforming her into a vampire, a permanent commitment if ever I heard
one. Yet when Edward tells her that he will only transform her himself
(as opposed to Carlisle, who has volunteered his services) if she agrees
to marry him first, she recoils. She's completely willing to give up
her human existence to spend the rest of eternity with Edward, but
marriage? Man, that's just asking too much! She has her reasons, but in
context, it's impossible for them not to sound pretty weak and silly.
The
pacing of this book is much better, the conflict more compelling,
whether it's the ever-present sense of danger from intruding vampires or
the tug Bella feels between Edward, who she knows she can't live
without, and Jacob, who dragged her out of the depths of despair during
her darkest moments. Meyer aptly opens the book with the Robert Frost
poem "Fire and Ice," and throughout the book, the metaphor is extended,
with warm, furry Jacob fire and stone-cold Edward ice. Given the extent
to which this series is all about Edward, I couldn't imagine that it
could end any other way than with Bella and Edward together, presumably
with her finally a vampire herself.
Whenever I read the passages
in which she and Jacob were together, I couldn't help thinking of Ryan
Kelly's angst-ridden rendition of Ride On,
with part of Bella, a part she can't quite always submerge, aching to
return Jacob's romantic devotion. The violence of the line "Run your
claw along my gut one last time" seems particularly appropriate for this
young man who is also a savage creature, as is the speaker's assertion,
"I could never go with you, no matter how I wanted to." Yet Meyer
manages to make the possibility of Bella choosing Jacob over Edward
actually seem plausible.
My understanding is that when Eclipse
came out, it was billed as a conclusion to the series, and if Meyer had
left it at this, I can imagine fans being disappointed. The ending does
have a ring of finality to it, but readers who waited for three books
to see certain things occur have to count on their imaginations to fill
in the blanks. However, since there is now a fourth installment, a true
conclusion, I think this book's ending is just right, a reflection of a
book that exceeded its predecessors considerably.
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