Den of Wolves

By now, if you haven’t heard something about Twilight then you are either a monk or severly out of touch with pop culture.  Like many ‘of my kind’ I have long anticipated the movie version of the story I could not put down.  Now, I can’t seem to put the movie ‘down’ either.  I have Netflixed it twice, watched it, in whole and/or part, nine times and am resigned to the fact that I am going to have to just go out and buy it. 

Now let me say that I am not one of the those people.  I rarely read a book more than once (although I did have to read book six of Harry Potter before book seven came out but only because it had been so dang long, I couldn’t remember what happened at the end of book six).  I own many movies that I have never watched a second time, the Matrix, Meet Joe Black and for reasons I can’t quite explain, Never Been Kissed–the exceptions.

So to all of you men and some women out there who have seen the movie, but not read the book, and are left wondering how some “suburban white kid movie” (I love that quote, Chammie–I plan to use it a lot) has left their wife…girlfriend…mother?….panting after a crazy haired, pasty looking, dead boy:  you have to read the book to truly understand…and even then, you probably won’t get it.  So I am here to enlighten you….or at least shine a flashlight into the abyss so you can try to find your way out.

Here’s what you don’t know.  The thing that gets me, grabs me, keeps me coming back over and over and over…

You know that scene in the movie where Edward is sitting at the piano playing a song for Bella?  What the movie doesn’t show you is that Edward hadn’t played the piano for a long time before Bella came into his life and the song he is playing for her is a song she inspired him to write.

What girl doesn’t want to be an object of desire so inspiring, so beautiful, so sexy that her man is moved to write music beautiful enough to make angels weep?

Another painfully inadequate scene in the movie is the restaurant in Port Angeles.  What you don’t see, is that Edward tips the very attractive hostess to seat them somewhere more private (much to her chagrin) after she has dismissed Bella as a platonic friend of Edward’s and then proceeded to obviously flirt with him.  In the novel, their waitress is also an extremely attractive woman who flirts shamelessly with Edward while doing her best to be dismissive of Bella.  How does Edward handle this?  (Take note here men.)  He does not fawn and preen and flirt back.  No!  Instead, he does what we all hope and wish for out of our own men.  He is completely oblivious to all other women but Bella.  He never takes his eyes off her, he ignores the hostess and the waitresses’  advances as if they never occurred.  They might as well be ugly monkey men as far as he acknowledges. 

There isn’t anything sexier in a man than his utter devotion.  If you want to win your girl’s heart and soul, the ability to refrain from a double take when you walk past a supermodelish female at the mall is a really great place to start.

My favorite scene in the movie is the scene where Edward drives Bella to school the first time.  While he’s looking like the cat that ate the canary and she is looking exceedingly uncomfortable with being the center of attention everyone else stares in shock and disbelief. 

I think even most guys can understand the emotions behind this one.  What person hasn’t fantasized about the guy or girl who is so clearly out of their league?  What better fantasy than to have that person so smitten with you, that they are proud and delighted to parade in front of God and everyone with you on their arm?  I can’t think of anything more intoxicating:  that level of devotion from someone you are so taken with yourself, not to mention the massive self-esteem boost.

To someone who hasn’t read the novel, heck even someone who has, the speed and ease with which Bella accepts not only that her crush is a vampire, but one who has killed people, before she knows that he currently hunts only animals is something quite unbelieveable.  I mean, I know most of us have had a thing for a bad boy at one time or another and Lord knows most of us think we love a project–but this is just ridiculous!

Maybe it would help you to understand (probably not), if you knew that the “revelation” of how his skin sparkles in sunlight, his ability to read minds and the fact that he can run like lightening through the woods doesn’t happen as immediately in the novel as it does in the movie.  He doesn’t profess his love to her on the first date.  In the novel she has quite a bit more time to develop trust in him.  All of the revelations about what he is and what he can do, aren’t made in that one quick encounter in the woods.

Regardless of how anyone else feels about it, it’s going to be a favorite for me for a long time to come.  If you still don’t understand, that’s o.k.  We barely understand you most of the time, so we’re even.