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New Moon Rating: 6 on a scale of 10 Review Yes, I have read the second book in the Twilight series. It was a long book for me. What I mean is, it was hard to get interested in it. This is the kind of book where you have to read 200 pages before it seems to get a little intriguing. Still, it is a good book. She begins to plumb the depths of her character a little. For many readers, my observations may seem surprising. Staying with my Jungian orientation, let me explain how I see this story. In the first book, Twilight, she meets the vampire, her animus. This vampire is intensely energizing to her, she falls madly in love with Edward, her animus figure. Then he leaves her. Now she must recover from her lost love. In this book she encounters a group of werewolves. Gradually, slowly, she falls in love with a werewolf. Then she is forced to choose between involvement with the vampire or the werewolf (they turn out to be natural enemies). She chooses the vampire. It sounds like a simple story. The story is in reality more complex. She is an emotional wreck after Edward leaves. He seems to leave in order to save or preserve her soul. The eternal life of the vampire realm would leave her part of the "living dead". Edward seems to realize this is a bad choice for her, whether she wants it or not. Now, she is trying to recover from Edward leaving. She develops an inner voice from Edward, apparently from her own subconscious, but as time goes by it is harder and harder to hear without major stimulation, she begins "using" dangerous activities to bring the voice back to her conscious awareness. This is not really so unusual as it may sound. Clinically, we frequently find that people who have been traumatized have a hard time avoiding dissociation. Dissociation is a way to try and protect our ego from the traumatic event(s.) Sometimes people become so lost in the dissociation that they cannot tell what is real and what is not real. When they reach these points of severe dissociation sometimes they will do things to try and bring themselves back to reality. Unfortunately, these things can be quite dramatic. People do things like cut their wrists for example. In the case of Bella, she began doing dangerous activities. We see veterans who have been in combat using alcohol inappropriately, driving fast and taking on dangerous lifestyle and activities. Bella seems be acting out her tendency to dissociate under stress by doing these dangerous activities and trying to return to reality. She gets the broken motorcycles and develops a relationship with Jacob to try and get them fixed up, part of her desire to do dangerous stuff to try and recapture her connection to Edward in her subconscious. She is in reality trying to fix herself, not just the motorcycles, they are just a metaphor for fixing her relationships, she is trying to fix up a "pair" of motorcycles. But, what happens is something she did not plan, she develops a relationship with Jacob, her new animus figure. Jacob is nice, stable, and seemingly safe. He is able to do things she never imagined possible with tools and ingenuity. He is a different sort of character from Edward. He seems more grounded. He is a "guardian". He can be on the dangerous side, but still there is a connectedness he has with family, the earth, his hands, and he is concerned for her genuinely, but he still let's her have her space. He is physically very capable. He is attractive, but not so stunning like Edward. This is a fairly classic literary or movie love triangle. It is a psychological triangle. You can see this displayed in many movies from Casablanca to Batman the Dark Knight. Who can forget the heroine in Casablanca showing up in town with her wondrous European beau, her white knight. Then she meets him again, Rick, the dangerous, risky, flame from Paris, her black knight. Who does she pick? This is the exact same scenario in New Moon. Bella has fallen in love with the "bloodsucker" Edward. He is wondrous beyond belief, but he is gone and now life has presented a new option, Jacob, who turns out to be a werewolf. "Wolf" or "bloodsucker", this seems to be her choice? Ms. Meyer did a marvelous job setting up this scenario. Bella is faced with Jacob, dark skinned, dark haired, fiery warmth, a guardian, and maybe not quite as exciting as Edward, but he seems to be a "safe bet" He is about his little patch of the world, his family, and his work with his hands. To run with him though is to run with a "wolf". Then there is Edward, he is the golden one. His appearance is appealing beyond belief, he is pale and cold, yet he gives her a fire inside. He is a soul mate. He seems unknowable. They both seem a bit dangerous. Who should she pick? This is a common scenario for women or for men. It derives from our tendency to be split internally in a certain fashion. For a woman or a man, we are seeking something spiritual. I will contend that Bella's teenage "heart throbs" take on the character of something that seems to her bigger than life. In some fundamental way we are aware of our incompleteness. We are both incomplete in an earthly sense and we are incomplete in a spiritual sense. We begin to seek for what will complete us. We begin to seek for both the physical person who can complement us and we seek the spiritual reality that can complement and guide us. In the case of Bella, her relationship with Edward reaches toward this apogee of spirituality. Edward is an animus representation for her. An animus is a symbol from Jungian psychology. Carl Jung believed we all developed within us a highly energetic symbol for our spiritual connection to God, our need to find and have a relationship with God for spiritual completeness. The symbol in a woman will be a male who generally has the opposite personality type to the woman. For a male it will be a woman with the opposite personality type. These are very powerful and energetic symbols. Where would such a need come from. Well, some would argue that it comes straight from the "garden" experience of Adam. The story of the garden in the Old Testament book of Genesis is archetypal in character. By archetypal I mean it is a prototype or a "model" original story. It is a creation story. It is a mythic story. By mythic I mean that it represents the "dreams" of a people to understand their origin. In the story, first, Adam is created. God notices it is not good for Adam to be alone. Somehow, it is not enough for Adam to walk with God. Adam needs a mate, a helper. God creates wonderful help. God creates Eve from the flesh of Adam, from Adam's side, from his rib. Part of Adam has been taken to create Eve. Adam is now incomplete in some sense. The Woman is also created incomplete. They will need each other, and they will need their relationship with God. We have no idea how old Adam was at the time this happened. We project that they were adults, but we honestly do not know how old they were. I like a different projection from the usual, I believe they were children when this all happened. What we can tell is that Adam was incomplete without the woman. He needed a helper. We all need help. Now, here they were in the garden. They have never known anything about death yet. They are new life, along with everything else. Life is wonderful. They have been told not to eat from one tree, probably in reality a pomegranate tree, it matters not, if you like apple tree this is fine, it is culturally appropriate for us who live in temperate zones. Something will happen to them if they eat from the wrong tree. Well, the snake comes along and the young Eve is enticed by what the snake has to say. I believe she is enticed precisely because she is young, young and unaware. When I was young who did I want to be like? I wanted to be like "dad". I well remember my son's efforts to be like me. We view these kinds of actions as normal development. Of course sometimes such activities can go astray. What young boy wouldn't like to get out dad's rifle just to try and be a bit like dad? These are normal sorts of desires, but ones which must be dealt with with stern instructions and rules at times. Well, the snake is a clever creature, and the snake knew just how to entice Eve. He "tempts" her with the possibility that she could be like her Father. With the awareness of a child she goes and does what dad does not want her to do. The result is quite dramatic. She and Adam acquire a new level of awareness. Now, quite suddenly they realize they are naked. They have always been naked of course. But, now they too know they are naked. They have become aware of something new. They must leave the Garden. With this new awareness they must get out, they are now more on their own. They now need God even more. They are more aware of their incompleteness. This is how we all grow. We grow incomplete. And as we grow we strive to become complete. The adolescent's focus on friends and later on intimacy are part of this growth into recognizing our incompleteness and trying to deal with it. We begin to discover there is a fascinating "other" out there. We need both an earthly other and a heavenly other, or simply, we need something to complete us. The "other" we need is a reflection of all that we are not. We are incomplete as people and we are incomplete spiritually. We seek completeness in both realms. Our growth is all about this seeking, this growing, this desire for completeness. We long in a sense for the condition of the garden. But, we cannot return to the garden. We are now much more aware, we have grown. We find Bella, a teenager, growing and changing. She is experiencing the trials of adolescence. She has had one love, a vampire, and now she has a second, a werewolf. One can "suck" the life from her, the other is a wolf who lives a "wolf" life. Each of her loves represents a different part of her need for completeness. Edward is her white knight if you like. He is her soul mate. He is a tremendous source of energy to her soul. But, he knows his "life", his vampire qualities would destroy her. He leaves because he does not want her to become what he is. He wants her to have a "normal" life. Normal here is seen as good. How have we reached a point in our culture where normal is no longer "good enough"? Has it always been this way or is this new recently? Jacob is her black knight. He is a wolf. He is part of a pack. He lives in a territory which he guards and defends. He is conventional. He is connected to the earth, to his own two hands and what they can do. He is a guardian. He cares deeply about family and tradition. He is safe. He is constant. Women face just these kinds of choices. Should one opt for a soul mate or a guardian? A vampire or a werewolf? It's a "story as old as time". It's beauty and the beast, but which beast should she pick? Men are in a sense all beasts. And the greatest beast of all is God, the true "other" who is most known and most unknown. These are the wondrous choices we face in life. These are the experiences we have. This is why a book like this is so attractive and so powerful. Nearly any woman can identify with the choices in a vicarious and a real way. This is a story about the growth of our soul's. The story of the growth of our soul is ultimately about the story of our growth with and into God. I would like to quote one line from the book (page 293-4), "Could a world really exist where ancient legends went wandering around the borders of tiny insignificant towns, facing down mythical monsters? Did this mean every possible fairy tale was grounded in absolute truth? Was there anything sane or normal at all, or was everything just magic and ghost stories." All I can say from my experience is: the world exists, the towns are real, the monsters abound, the fairy tales are true, and there is very little out there that is sane or normal, it is all magic and holy. God would have it no other way. To those who can understand may this be a blessing. All opinions are those of Curtis Climer, MD Copyright 2011
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