Chapter 23 of Twilight is just a short, little thing—six pages, and I didn’t highlight anything there—and then the next chapter is the last one, and then comes the epilogue. So let’s just rip that band-aid off all at once, shall we? Then we can be all done, and go back to reading Jane Austen and Dostoevsky.

Bella had gotten herself bit by the bad vampire, and the only way to save her was for Edward to suck out the bad poison, but in order to do that, he had to teeter on the brink of taking a chomp out of her himself. He had to drink her blood and not actually be drinking her blood, get it? He had to go all the way and not be allowed to go all the way. In the aftermath of that close call, here is a bit of their conversation.

“Don’t I taste as good as I smell?” I smiled in response . . .
“Even better—better than I’d imagined.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized.
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Of all the things to apologize for” (p. 460).

This is what vampires call getting to vampire third base. This is like Clinton not inhaling. This is like New Englanders back in the day bundling through the long cold nights. This is called doing everything but, and calling it a wholesome abstinence message for today’s youth. A really weird abstinence message.

Edward had been so close to what he what he so desperately wanted . . . which was, of course, to kill Bella.

“No, the very worst was feeling . . . knowing that I couldn’t stop. Believing that I was going to kill you myself.”
“But you didn’t.”

“I could have. So easily” (p. 472).

So let’s hear it for Edward our hero! Hip, hip . . . what’s that you say? That someone ought not to be acclaimed as a hero for declining to murder somebody? That it takes far more than that to be good husband material? Well, perhaps you have a point. Maybe something to that.

But Bella wants to be murdered, but unfortunately she wants it a tad more than Edward does, and they both want it a lot. But still Edward hangs back, inexplicably. “I refuse to damn you to an eternity of night and that’s the end of it” (p. 476). But Bella is all pouty-like about it. Edward ignores her “furious expression” (p. 477). Please damn me to an eternity of night. That’s what I really want . . .

R&B singer Barbara Lynn summarizes this school of thought nicely—though even she draws some kind of line by the time we get to the chorus.

“I’m so sorry
You had to slap me
Cause you never done that before
But I’m so glad
That man made a pass at me
I used to wonder if you loved me
Now, daddy, I know
So don’t you hit me no more . . .”

So, what could be worse than evangelicals reading and being okay with this kind of dreckage? Oh, I don’t know . . . writing and publishing evangelical versions of it, I suppose. You don’t think we are up to that kind of challenge? Ha.

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