The beginning of a book, incredibly important; but humor me for a minute before we get here.
The Quote Page
It seems to be a tradition to put a quote at the beginning of a book. Or at least a Fad. Anyways, this baby has a jewel, no mistake:
"But of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that tough eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die."
Biblical reference and everything. Hm... fruit of the tree of knowledge? Could it be the...*Gasp* Lemon Apple? That's going to be symbolism eh? No problem in and of itself, I love a good bout of symbolic mish-mash. But there's one thing that bugs me.
I always assumed the Tree of Knowledge was, you know, a Fig tree. I'm pretty sure there's a mention of making clothes out of fig leaves after the whole "Eating the forbidden fruit" deal. And anyways, Apples don't grow near the sort of traditional holy land, (Maybe Eden was just really cold?) They weren't even traded near there as far as I can tell. Eh, I'm probably over analyzing. Onward.
Preface
That short passage was so corny that I have no comment on it. Who ponders philosophy while about to die? Philosophers don't count, they just went down working.
ON WITH IT!
All right non-existent readers! Now I'll give you a chance to follow along in your own copy of Twilight! When I reach a a new mini-rant I'll put a page number in parenthesis to let you look up the passage yourself and read it with commentary Annotation! Won't this be Fun?
(3) So, Phoenix, Arizona. Nice place, never'd want to live there myself. (I don't deal well with temperatures over 95 degrees, I always feel better when It 's below 80, and I'm not referring to Celsius here.) So our Heroine is from Phoenix? A nice sunny place. Goes to a rainy place. Boo-hoo, get over it. I like the rain personally. I'm one of those stupid people who loves to go walking in thunderstorms.
What is forcing this sunflower to move up north willingly but reluctantly? Divorced parents. Ah.
I know people with divorced Parents, though I'm personally lucky to have a very stable parentship I suppose. Ah well, it doesn't seem like our eyes suffers from too much exaggerated teen trama. Bella, I suppose. I don't see why she didn't cannibalize Isabella more attractively. (I've always preferred Iz, myself.) Let's see what this shows about her character, hm?
(5) She calls one Charlie and the other Mom. I sense no parent favoritism at all here. None.
Last name Swan. Isabella Swan. Hm, some how I start giggling whenever I think of "Police Chief Swan" Sounds like something out of Aesop. (Would you believe that nothing came up when I googled Police officer Swan? Nothing Bird related anyways.)
(6) Ah the Car, the most basic of all parental bribes. Bella's so thoughtful isn't she? No need to make every one else suffer because she decided to give up her own happiness. After all, that would just be silly; almost as silly as... oh.
( cool I live in one of those places where green in the background color wherever you go. I don't see why Bella thinks it's so alien and annoying. I mean, just look how hard people work in Phoenix work to get lawns that only look vaguely green. She should be thankful that it's not still all old growth forest. (It might be if they watered as much as the do in Phoenix.)
Also, is it just me or does Bella seem to like power? At least in her cars, anyway. I mean, Who really wants a car which can decimate its competition in an accident unless they plan on getting in one? I foresee this car saving her but later on. Just a hunch, really.
(9) What's wrong with a high school of only a few hundred students? I mean, I come on, it's not like size is proportional to how nice the people are. in fact, judging by my experience, it's usually inversely proportional. Stop whining. If your going to pretend to be a witty, sarcastic teen, don't try to pull of depressed too, kay? It doesn't suit you.
(10)Speaking of something completely different, She's from Phoenix, right? How does she maintain her really-pale-ness anyways? It's not like Tanning is a purely genetic issue. I mean, some people darken quickly or less because of genetics, but usually you either tan slightly or you freckle.
"Darkening of the skin is caused by an increased release of the pigment melanin into the skin's cells after exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Melanin is produced by cells called melanocytes and protects the body from absorbing an excess of solar radiation, which can be harmful."
Oh well, it's okay to ignore basic human biology, right? It's only fiction. An eye roll would be appropriate here, but There's no smilie alive that can do it like I want to right now.
Back to the "Won't fit in" Talk, eh Bella? I personally think she's obviously not trying if she doesn't think she can find a niche in 380 people. She new, exotic, people will want to get to know her and chances are, she'll get along okay with at least a few of them. Hey it worked for me when I went to Fifth Grade in California for a year. I was even, Le Gasp, Popular. I'm sure that not all of the People of Forks are sticks in mud.
I'm tired of Mini-rants, lets just get on with it shall we?
Bella is an interesting dilemma for me so far. She's depressed, that's not great for me, I'm too cheery to really like reading about depressed people. On the other hand, she doesn't act depressed, just cynical and antisocial. Sort of like me sometimes.
That's another thing, Bella and I share a similar inner sense of humor. I appreciate her comments on things and I think she'd like mine. But on the other end, she's obsessed with physical appearance and frequently classifies everything. Something which I don't do. On the other hand, that just makes her judgmental, not necessarily annoying. The Jury is out. It's only the first chapter.
Now for more pressing matters, What the Heck is a Volvo? Let's see.. this book was released 2005, right? My, that's a nice car.
Okay, Volvo is a company so that's just a guestimate, but since I already know who's it is and there's five of them I'm assuming it's a car with lots of leg room. Heh, I always imagined it silver though.
(16) And then Bella went to her Morning classes, met some people, and not much happened.
(19) And on this page, something strange happened. I got a Clear mental picture of Edward. And don't give me the "He's well described" crap. I never form mental pictures of even the most detailed characters. Or, sometimes I get decidedly wrong ones. (I pictured Snape as a Girl for three years........ but I was seven, okay?)
So why now? Why Edward? Maybe I've seen some one who looks like the description? Hm... Lanky with Untidy, bronze-colored hair. And there's of course the glare from later on. Maybe I crossed over, I mean I tend to connect things in unpredictable ways. Who could he remind me of?
And then it hit me.
My three recent story obsessions, (Or at least ones on the top layer of consciousness) are Phoenix Wright, Twilight of Course and.. Death...Note....
Edward Cullen Reminds me of Light. How could he not? I mean just look at him:
He's young, slim built and attractive with bronze hair. Edward incarnate. He even has the Glare down:
I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that for too long. It might bear a hole in my skull.
And to preempt the response from my non-existent fangirl readers, I don't really compute the "inhumanly beautiful" part of the description. It's just a piece of bad foreshadowing I'm sure. (Look, I didn't pick up the book completely in the dark as to the subject matter, okay?) Although I again find irony with the Reference to an "angel's" features. Good old Death Note, great for god references.
It's actually pretty creepy how easy it is for me to insert Light into all the "scenes" with Edward. Heck I can even imagine him demanding to be put in a different Biology Period. And Light never really demands anything. (He sort of "Compels" people to do stuff, lies and threats as a baseline, simply Charisma for others, he's a Damn good lier though)
Anyways, Edward is avoiding her. Bella walks in on that class change and, like her, I get the hunch it's her fault. I don't see why it's eating her. He's given her no reason to like him. It's the appearance thing coming up again isn't it?
(End chapter) You know, this whole beginning seems familiar to me, I'm not sure why. Let's break is down and see if it rings bells, okay?
Girl moves from warm climate to colder one, complains.
Girl goes to new school and meets a few friendly locals.
She meets Mysterious outsider whom she finds physically attractive.
Locals explain why Outsider is an outsider over lunch.
Additional encounter with Outsider leads to backwards step away from friendship.
Chapter ends with Outsider acting even more strangely
Holy Shiznit! That's, like, the first chapter of my story. (Well, I'm pretty sure Eli isn't a vampire so no danger of converging there.) But it's weird how Hannah reflects Bella's personality so well. Actually, Hannah is a bit more dramatic than Bella, though I hope her complaining is a bit more endearing than annoying. Hm... I have a feeling that their characters will diverge. Maybe.... maybe not.
I'll be interested to see if this goes some where new....
....Also That was insanely long. I may have to cut down a bit next time.
 Tesar Eshne · Fri Jan 25, 2008 @ 09:34pm · 26 Comments |
