Blogging Stephenie Meyer's New Moon, Part 2

Contains some spoilers

I finished New Moon last night, and I must say that I'm impressed with Stephenie Meyer's imagination. She constantly surprises the reader with plot twists, new characters, and seemingly irresolvable conflicts. I'm trying to avoid the hackneyed phrase "emotional rollercoaster," but I think Meyer's strongest appeal lies in her ability to involve the readers in the characters' intense and richly textured emotional lives.

I was also trying to avoid the terms "suicidal" and "self-destructive" when I wrote yesterday's post, but I've discovered a very striking parallel between Bella Swan and Harry Potter. Several times in the Harry Potter series, the orphaned hero finds that when he is in danger, he hears the voices of his parents just before they died, which distracts him from fighting for his life. Harry finds that he is slow to master the Expecto Patronum spell, for example, because he's eager for any contact with the parents he never knew. Similarly, Bella finds that when she's in danger, she hears Edward's warning voice in her head. Bella has been in a deep depression since he broke up with her (to keep her safe from himself and other vampires), but when she discovers this connection to her ex-boyfriend, Bella becomes a thrillseeker, deliberately putting herself in danger so that she can hear Edward again. Ironically, the angrier he sounds, the happier she is because this is proof that he still cares.

Eager to do something rebellious and risky, Bella buys a decrepit motorcycle and asks her friend Jacob to fix it up and teach her to ride. Despite her desire to endanger herself, Bella finds that her friendship with Jacob is a lifeline, and she hangs on desperately even after she realizes that Jacob is falling in love with her, while she sees him as a best friend. This romantic conflict is not the only plot complication; as anyone but Bella herself could have predicted long ago, Jacob is destined to become a werewolf, the ancient enemy of all vampires or "cold ones," as his Native American tribe calls them. (C'mon, this isn't really a spoiler, is it? I pegged Jacob as a werewolf from his first conversation with Bella in Twilight.)

I can tell from the readers' comments at Amazon.com and Stephenie Meyer's website that most readers see Jacob as a distraction or, at best, a placeholder in the plot until Bella's vampire lover comes back into the picture, so I know they're going to be aghast at what I say next. Sorry, guys, but I really prefer Jacob to Edward.

Take a minute to catch your breath. I'll wait.

Yes, I know that Edward is the great love of Bella's life, the Romeo to her Juliet, but he never seems quite real to me. This is not a disparagement but an acknowledgment of Meyer's characterization. Again and again, Bella describes embracing Edward as hugging a large piece of unyielding granite; whatever he looks like, his touch is cold and hard as stone. Edward can't stand in the sun because his skin catches the light and sparkles like a diamond, a sure tip-off that he's not human. Beautiful and desirable as he is, Edward is not alive; essentially, he's a statue. Certainly Bella responds to him as if he were a walking piece of precious art, which reminds me of the Pygmalion myth, in which a sculptor falls in love with a statue he has made. Could her love make Edward real, or is Bella really in love with her image of Edward, a product of her own romantic imagination?

Jacob, on the other hand, is definitely alive. Not only is he physically hot to the touch (werewolves have a higher temperature than regular humans), but his emotional warmth heals Bella from her frozen state of depression. He gives her a sense of fun, normalcy, and acceptance she hasn't had since she arrived in Forks. She feels safe and comfortable with Jacob; secure in his regard for her, Bella never feels inferior or wonders what he sees in her. She's tempted to see him as a child because he's two years younger (the distance between a high school senior and a sophomore is significant), but Bella has to change her ideas about Jacob's maturity even before his metamorphosis. They are equals in a way Bella and Edward have never been, and even in his wolf state, Jacob has more in common with Bella than Edward does. (Hey, a wolf and a human are both mammals, right?)

I know I'm probably alone on this, but I wish there had been a real love triangle instead of only the appearance of one. I hope Jacob becomes a real contender for Bella's heart in the next book, Eclipse, and gives Edward a run for his money. Jacob deserves better than to be cast as the forgettable Paris in Meyer's retelling of Romeo and Juliet.