Bella Unites the Werewolves and Vampires in Eclipse

“Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice. / From what I've tasted of desire / I hold with those who favor fire. / But if it had to perish twice, / I think I know enough of hate / To say that for destruction ice / Is also great / And would suffice.”

This short Robert Frost poem, Fire and Ice, accompanies our first glimpse of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her chivalrous boyfriend, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), in Eclipse, the third movie in the Twilight saga. The poem appeared in the book as an epigraph; here, it seems to be part of a homework assignment. The contrast between fire and ice fits the story, as Bella finds herself sandwiched between virile Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a werewolf, and rigid Edward, a vampire.

Undead Edward is icy to the touch, while Jacob is so overheated that he spends all his time shirtless. The destructive edge of the poem fits Bella’s situation too, as we are left to contemplate which has caused her more distress: the apparent chilly indifference of Edward, her one true love, in the second installment, or the fiery passion of Jacob when she sees him as a valued friend who can never be anything more. It sets the tone well for the conflict-laden film to follow, making it an appropriate movie for me to watch during the first weekend of National Poetry Month.

In Eclipse, Edward is back, and Bella is content, though she recoils whenever he mentions marriage, even as she pushes for him to transform her into a vampire. Her protective father Charlie (Billy Burke), who provides most of the film’s funniest moments, doesn’t think much of Edward, since he witnessed the depths of despair to which Bella sank after her dream boy left her. He’d much rather see her pal around with her old chum Jacob.

Bella, who has decided that she will become a vampire immediately after graduation, wants to repair their friendship and spend some time with him before they are parted forever. That’s one nice thing about Bella here. She spends a lot of time thinking about how her disappearance will affect those who care about her, which makes her seem less self-absorbed. There’s also her role as a sort of intermediary between the Cullens and the werewolves. “I’m Switzerland,” she declares, and because of her, these natural enemies are able to work together and strengthen the truce between their two groups.

When I read the books, I liked Eclipse much better than the two that preceded it. In this case, I liked it about as much as the two previous movies, so I guess that means I preferred the movie versions of the first two but not the third. I did generally find it to be a pretty decent adaptation, though parts seem rushed, and some of the side characters show up so briefly that it almost seems silly to have them there.

Werewolves Leah and Seth Clearwater particularly suffer, as do Bella’s school friends. As prominent as her role is in the book, I was disappointed not to see more of Alice (Ashley Greene), Edward’s “sister” and my favorite character in the series. Still, she makes a big impression when she shows up. Jodele Ferland has a small but memorable role as Bree, a sweet young girl who becomes a vampire but never really participates in the violence for which she was transformed. She’s not on screen much and she barely speaks, but she has a great emotional impact, and the conclusion of her arc gives us important information about other characters. I also thought the backstories of Jasper and Rosalie, two of the Cullen siblings, were handled quite well.

Generally, I enjoyed the scenes involving Bella, which constituted most of the movie, and the three leads work well together. Of the three, I think Lautner’s performance was probably the strongest, but Pattinson and Stewart are fine. We also periodically cut to Seattle, where a young vampire named Riley (Xavier Samuel) is busy attempting to control a horde of newborn vampires wreaking havoc on the city. These scenes are disorienting and disturbing, and it takes most of the movie to figure out how it really fits in, at least if you haven’t read the books, which is the case with my parents.

Despite a general lack of blood, this movie is quite violent in its own way as the vampires find uniquely unpleasant ways of destroying each other. The grotesque nature of these moments is enough to encourage me to warn parents with young children to avoid it. On the other hand, there’s no profanity to speak of, and while there is some lip-locking that goes on, the physical intimacy never goes beyond that, and it’s refreshing to hear old-fashioned Edward talk about how important it is to him to remain chaste before marriage.

Two more installments remain in the series. I’m not so sure that Breaking Dawn really merits the two-movie treatment, especially since there are such long stretches of the time in which not much happens. Still, I’ll be very curious to see how it all comes together. If they’re as good as Eclipse, then I won’t mind spending three or four hours watching the Twilight saga come to a close.

Stephenie Meyer Hits Her Stride With Eclipse

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.

The Baudelaires Struggle Along the Road Less Traveled By in The Slippery Slope

When I was in college, I took an advanced poetry class during which the professor, with the aid of another Creative Writing professor, sought to explain how the poem The Road Not Taken has been misused by the vast majority of its readers since the time it was published. What is generally heralded as an inspirational ode to individuality is instead a cynical and depressing commentary stating that we may forge out a path for ourselves in hopes of achieving a life of greatness and nobility, but in the end none of it really matters. It has, in fact, not made all the difference, and Robert Frost was a bitter old coot. I don't know which of these readings is closer to the truth, but I suspect Lemony Snicket would fall into the camp of those who prefer the latter interpretation. Then again, the orphans he so dutifully chronicles are well-defined individuals, and it seems that the path they decide to take will make a great deal of difference. How far will they be willing to go in order to preserve their lives? To the point of not preserving their integrity? These are some of the difficult questions served up in The Slippery Slope, tenth in the Series of Unfortunate Events.

I must say, these books almost invariably have brilliant beginnings. Each one is so masterfully executed, so memorable and entertaining, that it winds up a contender for my list of all-time favorite literary openings. As a student of poetry and a particular fan of Robert Frost, I was especially drawn into the opening paragraph of this tenth tome, and I might venture to say it is my favorite grand entrance thus far: "A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called 'The Road Less Traveled,' describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is now dead."

And so with the image of a frost-laced headstone with Frost's name on it, we are drawn into the ever more perilous journey of the Baudelaire orphans. This book signals a major departure, because for the first time, the siblings are separated for the vast majority of the book. In the fourth book, Klaus was hypnotized for a portion of the time, and in the eighth, Violet was abducted and readied for a cranioectemy. But the focus remained on the capacitated siblings. Here, the reader must switch back and forth between adventures, spending more time with Violet and Klaus but also checking in occasionally with the dreadfully isolated young Sunny. At first, it isn't clear whether we are going to get to witness her portion of the story at all, but once we do, she shows herself to be surprisingly self-reliant.

Several characters re-emerge here in surprising places, and the Baudelaires find new enemies to conquer but also new allies to depend upon. Additionally, we finally begin to crack the secrets of V. F. D., those mysterious initials that seem to pop up everywhere and that are linked to a secret organization of which most of the Baudelaires' acquaintances, it seems, were a part. The orphans also must deal with one of the most horrific menaces they've yet faced: a large community of snow gnats, which sting people for no reason whatsoever. Snicket finds another set of absurd people to poke fun at, and they are even more ludicrous than the incessantly singing Volunteers Fighting Disease. They are the Snow Scouts, an intrepid group of kids containing one person the orphans had hoped never to meet again and two who seem vaguely familiar. Just as those hospital visitors had a theme song, these folks have a pledge consisting of one word for every letter of the alphabet, each ostensibly detailing a desirable quality in a scout. But several of the adjectives are pointless or contradict one another, and the presence of one of them is inexcusable, as the word is a noun, not an adjective, and is inappropriate for describing anyone. The Scouts add a lot of amusement to the book and evidently are an indication that the author often finds pledges - and perhaps scouts - rather silly.

The parts of the book I most enjoyed, however, were those dealing with Sunny's exploits. For one, this meant more of Count Olaf and his troupe, and the lines between good guys and bad blur once again as certain characters who seemed wicked and unscrupulous begin to display shades of compassion and decency. We also meet two sinister figures who are known only as "the man with a beard but no hair" and "the woman with hair but no beard." It seems odd that no mention was made of them before, as they appear to be instrumental to Olaf's plans, rather to his displeasure, it seems. Even he is intimidated by these villains.

But what really distinguishes this section of the story is the way Sunny flourishes apart from her siblings. She is beginning to develop a distinct personality; there's more to this kid than a passion for biting things. Turns out she is also an accomplished cook, and it seems she somehow, at her young age, already possesses a vast knowledge of academic subjects ranging from history to literature to cinema. In the early books, while the translations for her comments seemed intelligent, her words were almost exclusively gobbledygook. But increasingly, she has peppered her speech with actual words. Usually there is a very logical link between what comes out of her mouth and what she means, though the connection is often abstract. I found her remarks consistently amusing and indicative of a great intellect. Examples:

"Godoti??" - "We don't know where to go, and we don't know how to get there."
"Sakesushi" - "I don't think you'll enjoy salmon if it's not cooked."
"Bicuspid?" - "Should I drag my teeth across the ice too?"
What really got me, though, was the author's sneaking a sly bit of political commentary into the book via Sunny's innocent mouth. Coincidence? Perhaps. But if the word Sunny chooses sounds remarkably like two men in high positions of power in our country, well, I suspect it was intentional.
"Busheney" - "You're an evil man with no concern whatsoever for other people."

When we leave the orphans, the useless Mr. Poe is nowhere to be found, and the children are hurtling down a slippery slope toward a predicament that will probably be even more treacherous than their last. But with their sister's newfound skills and a new friend out there waiting for them somewhere, they may just have a few more resources at their disposal, and that can be enough to make a very significant difference when you are spending your life fleeing from despicable people who want to kill you. The Baudelaires' road of misfortune is not one many have had to tread, but we are privileged to traverse it from a distance in order to discover whether the difference it has made for the orphans is indeed as deadly as the author would have us believe.