The Sparklepire Adventures (part 1 of ?)

So, I took the plunge and read the first four chapters of New Moon today, violating my tender sensibilities on multiple levels, not the least of which is reading things out of order. (With no intentions to read the first, unless my options are reading it and hours of thumb twiddling. I feel so treacherous.) In this particular case, not reading the first is probably good for me? That way, I skip the part actually focused the most on the romance, reducing my chances of nausea.

As near as I can tell, Edward and Bella’s relationship is about like this:

BELLA: Edward! You are my sun and my moon and aging while you stay young and pretty is most devastating thing imaginable to me so you should make me a vampire!
EDWARD: Bella! You are my sun and my moon and a pure and perfect flower and I spend my every moment obsessively protecting you and pushing you away because I fear will destroy you! Living forever without you will be devastating, but I refuse to make you a vampire!
BELLA: I will ignore your making my existence and potential death all about your angst because I’m kinda guilty of similar things. We should at least have sex.
EDWARD: NOES! My virtue!
BELLA: Did I mention that I’m a klutz?
EDWARD: Yes, and I clearly view you as such a complete incompetent that I will blatantly prevent you from ever opening a door on your own because I am convinced that you would smash your thumb.
BELLA: Which is actually a bit annoying, but I won’t comment on it.
EDWARD: Also, I think you are too incompetent to drive from my house to yours, so I or one of my family must be with you at all times.
BELLA: It…means your family accepts me? A teeny bit?
EDWARD: I also clearly think you are too incompetent to carry your things so I will always carry everything for you.
BELLA: This, too, is a bit annoying, but I still won’t say anything.
EDWARD: In fact, I think you are so incompetent that I won’t even let you open your own birthday gifts, put CDs in your CD player, or anything else that I could take over for you!
BELLA: I’m kinda really, really annoyed now, but still putting up with it. But really, I’m surprised you actually let me shower alone. Not worried I’ll slip. Wait, that could lead to sex.. Maybe you sh-
EDWARD: MY VIRTUUUUUUUUUEE!

Keeping in mind that I have missed out on charming things like Edward breaking into Bella’s room while she sleeps, Edward training himself not to think of food when he smells her, and Edward disabling her truck so she can’t meet Jacob (unless that’s latter than I thought from reports?) a lot of what’s wrong in their relationship is actually fairly normal for fiction it’s just that Meyer, unlike most writers actually draws attention to it, repeatedly? And not only that, but she actually has Bella notice it. And then do nothing. I haven’t read nearly enough to know what to make of that.

Though, a couple things I had the impression of from discussions of Twilight seem to hold true from what little I’ve read:

1. The problem with Bella is not that she lacks agency, because she has it. She has goals that she seeks to achieve and she’s persistent in reaching those goals, and she knows her own mind. The problem is that she uses her agency to chase after something that actively seeks to deprive her of that agency in that most critics find creepy, distasteful, and sexist.
2. A lot of the appeal of the series, I think, is that, when you strip everything away (you know, silly things like plot and character) what you have is a woman who wants something, is told she can’t have it by a man, but keeps going after what she wants and gets it, no matter what the man puts in her way. Whatever our opinions may be about what she wants.

Neither of which means I like the book, the characters, or the relationship. (Naturally, I also reserve the right to change my opinion.)

Anyway, I understand this is the book where the triangle takes off, but Jacob hasn’t shown up yet. There may have been an offhand mention of him when his tribe was lighting “Yay! The vampires went away!” bonfires. Also, the most “WTF?” moment so far has been when Edward tells a he’s leaving and she’s so devastated that she runs into the forest, trips, and ends up catatonic and in a fetal position for hours resulting in half the town searching for her, and everyone thinks this is a totally normal reaction. And her being a living zombie over it (no, really, she goes to a zombie movie and realizes that she’s just like the zombie, except for the flesh eating part) for three months was apparently normal too. It was just the fourth month that was a problem.