Liveblogging Twilight: Chapter 11

So here's the deal: sometimes literature, actual literature, gets in the way of crap. Also, I don't like reading Twilight on the train where people can see me reading it. So I'm a tad behind.

Chapter 11 isn't much different than the chapters that come before it, in that it's more of Bella and Edward getting to know each other/deepening their mutual obsession with each other. While they continue to get closer to each other, Edward still wants to stay distant, and Bella would rather that everyone besides Edward just leave her alone. Like most of these middle chapters, it's light on plot.

There is one exception: Hottie McWerewolf himself, Jacob Black, reappears. Granted, at this point Jacob was just a normal teenager, and not the underage heartthrob he became in late 2009. Believe it or not, there was a time when he looked exactly like a young girl. Jacob's father is friend's with Bella's, and they all arrive at la casa Swan while Edward is still hanging out in the front yard, causing him to hightail it outta there. Apparently, Jacob really wasn't kidding when he said that vampires and werewolves didn't like each other.

I've learned, though, that the joys of Twilight have (thus far) little to do with its paper-thin plot and more to do with those moments where you can't believe the shit you're reading. For instance:

The science teacher shows a video during class instead of lecturing. "Mr. Banner shoved the tape into the reluctant VCR," Meyer writes, her use of personification not wrong, per se, but gratingly clumsy.

Bella is still a bitch to her friends. In gym class, good old Mike offers to be her partner for some sort of sport involving a racket - it's never specified what exactly they're playing - since Bella turns into Inspector Clouseau whenever sports are involved. Here, Bella learns the true meaning of friendship. "'Don't worry, I'll keep out of your way.' He grinned. Sometimes it was so easy to like Mike."

The anonymous CD that Bella listened to in chapter 7 reappears in all of its ambiguous glory. Wouldn't you know, Edward owns it too! That same, unnamed CD! Small world. Bands out there, if your songs have "a little too much bass and shrieking" and "complicated drum patterns," you've got a stake in Twilight. Once again, the popular theory that Bella is merely a cipher for the reader to project all of her (and yes, I do mean "her") characteristics upon gains ever more weight.