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50 Shades Of Grey: Mummy Porn Meets Rom Vom
Move over Twilight, the success of Fifty Shades Of Grey has raised the bar for nauseating romance "novels". Here's what's wrong with the year's bestseller:
Fifty Shades of Grey. The title alone caused thousands of Literature undergraduates to raise their eager heads, nostrils flared at the scent of blood. E.L. James’ “erotic novel”, sneering quotation marks my own, has been ridiculed as embarrassing ‘mommy porn’ written in ‘lamentable prose’; as ’vapid’ and ‘painful’; and, the cruelest of jibes for any serious writer, as a ‘bad photocopy of [Stephanie] Meyer’.
Having read the Twilight Saga in its entirety, from Bella’s clumsy entrance to the disturbing birth of her heinously-named daughter, I struggled to accept that any book – smutty or not – could achieve the harrowing lows of a novel in which the female protagonist spends a chapter describing the preparation of lasagne for her unappreciative and controlling father. Oh! how wrong I was.
Not unlike Twilight, the depiction of setting is detailed and drab. Such in-depth and tedious description is seemingly symptomatic of wet-dream writing. As James paints a painstakingly dull picture of Grey’s office – the ‘floor to ceiling windows, the ‘white leather buttoned L-shaped couch’,'a mosaic of small paintings’ – it is patently obvious that this is a room the author has thought ingreat detail about being fucked in, probably on the ‘huge modern dark-wood desk that six people could comfortably eat around’. Quelle surprise, 350 pages later, dreary protagonist Anastasia Steele is being banged like the back-end of a congested ketchup bottle over that very desk in a sequence in which she rather embarrassingly refers to romantic interest Christian Grey as ‘Mr Boy Scout’. Snore.
I wept with mirth when Ana described her subconscious as ‘loud, proud and pouty’ and Grey’s voice as ‘warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge.’ Warm and husky like corn on the cob, more like.
E.L. James’ “erotic” tale doesn’t just resemble Twilight, it reeks of it. Remnants of Fifty Shades’ previous status as Twilight fanfic fester in references to Grey being ‘courteous, formal, slightly stuffy… old before his time’. Courting scenes between Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele strictly follow the pattern of those between Bella Swan and and Edward Cullen in Meyer’s Twilight: the life-saving sequence, the warning from male romantic interest to female, the tedious proclamations from one to the other of an inability to stay away. Supporting characters, though sorely lacking in believability, lack it in a way disturbingly similar to those of Twilight. Both mothers are ’harebrained’ with ‘the attention span of a goldfish’. Both female leads are hounded by the amorous interests of possessive men in school and the work place, and neither appears to see this behaviour as either bizarre or unacceptable.
Furthermore I’m struck by the tendency of both writers to utilise the work and themes of classic British writers to attempt to elevate their grim novels beyond their current level of poor pornography. As Meyer used Bronte, Shakespeare and Frost, James now abuses and reduces the complexities of Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles to make superficial comparisons with her own text.
Continuing beyond obvious comparisons with Twilight, this book only frustrated and nauseated me. Does James know any adverb but ‘gracefully’? Narrative techniques in Fifty Shades are aggravatingly obvious: when the narrator ‘reminds [herself] that Kate has been to the best private schools in Washington’, we are not unaware that the only person being “reminded” is the reader. Description is at best stilted, at worst excruciating. I wept with mirth when Ana described her subconscious as ‘loud, proud and pouty’ and Grey’s voice as ‘warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge.’ Warm and husky like corn on the cob, more like.
The problem with this giddy rom-vom of a novel is that a far more sinister theme runs beneath the harmlessly poor prose.
All this without getting to the naughty parts. In my attempts to refrain from being judgemental about the sexual interests and preferences of others, it is tempting to claim that the erotic scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey simply failed to press the right buttons to capture my interest – but this just isn’t true. Like much else in this fetid, festering tale of ‘The One’, the portrayal of sex and sexuality seemed lacking in depth, honesty and eloquence. From the moment Ana referred to the ‘clenching’ of her ‘deepest darkest muscles’ to the frankly relieving end of the novel, I squirmed and choked with tortured disbelief at each and every reference to ‘ecstatic triumph’, ‘quivering insides’ and ’sweet, leisurely torment’. I did, however, laugh at the description of Grey’s cock ‘springing free’ from his pants, a reference to his penis as a ‘Christian Grey flavour popsicle’ and a comparison between ‘vanilla’ and ‘chocolate fudge brownie sex’. Would that the intention had been comedy.
The problem with this giddy rom-vom of a novel is that a far more sinister theme runs beneath the harmlessly poor prose. The protagonist’s journey from absolute virginity to erotic fulfilment doesn’t read like the prototypical tale of sexual exploration. On the contrary, Anastasia Steele is initially repulsed by the thought of S&M and reluctant to participate. A large part of the early text is given over to her grooming for her role as “Submissive”: Christian Grey gives Anastasia expensive and unwanted gifts, plies her with alcohol, and threatens her with abandonment should she not submit to the “relationship” he wants. In a passage in which she considers the “contract” presented to her by Christian Grey, she expresses the concern that failure to comply will result in her ‘alone with lots of cats’. While I concur that sexual exploration can be an important aspect of personal development, never shall I agree that fear of loneliness should motivate any individual to participate in any acts, sexual or not, for which they are not ready. Combine this icky sexual fear-mongering with the aggressive advances of male characters and minimal dialogue not focused primarily on men, and you’ve got a strong hint of sexist attitudes.
Fifty Shades has found great success and great abuse. Why? It struck that perfect, nauseating balance between gushing romance and seemingly explicit sex. Readers found in its pages all those myths which ought rightfully to be obsolete in this day and age, but aren’t: that casual sex will open the gates for romance; that you can change a man, or make him love you against his will; and, if all else fails, you can win affection by changing or stifling your own personality. Unrealistic ideas for an unbearable exercise in human creativity: simply put, this book was shit.
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COMMENTS
Shit the book may be, the ladies will lap it up by the bucket load!
Wow if this book was shit how come it sold so many. And if it was shit why was it published. I'd love to see the BORY titles you enjoy reading. You obviously read this thinking the worst of it and didn't see any more from it. And if you have heard EL James in interviews she said she was "In Love with twilight and read and reread the books and yes her books came to her with the twilight background, that why there are the simularities of character. But they are TOTALLY diff and the story itself as well. These characters learn to accept eachother a love each for who they are and all the "paperwork' is the past, uh did you read about Christians past,hmmm it might had to do something with his fetish. Did you read the book? I think think your comment was "shit"
"...banged like the back-end of a congested ketchup bottle.." - Brilliant.
Amazing that this kind of thing is what (a lot of) women fantasise over. Christian Gray? Edward Cullen? Horrendous characters with horrendous behaviour. I guess its OK for Gray because he is, after all, a billionaire - and we all know ladies like a rich man. The vampire is perfection - as the reader is told every other page. A billionaire wants to subjugate a virgin and a 300 year old vampire grooms a 17 year old girl. I'm guessing the future will be like you say; full of young women who long for overbearing over protective, creepy (and violent) men. Oh, and allowing any kind of behaviour just as long as the fella is rich. Hooray for popular literature!
Fifty shades of shit....
15 million shades of sheep
"Lisa"
Wow, you seem to have struck a nerve with a few fans. I haven't read the book yet, but I don't intend to spend my money on it when there are better books out there.
"Quelle surprise, 350 pages later, dreary protagonist Anastasia Steele is being banged like the back-end of a congested ketchup bottle over that very desk"<-Ha!
Re- educate us all then Write something you feel we should be reading. After 50 shades-it'll be a pushover & the easiest way to prove your point right?
fantastic books loved them all wd love a follow on
50 shades of turgid rubbish.
This review was worth reading. You should have read that instead of 50 Shades of Shit. And almost all of the other books. Except the ones by Dan Brown.
Not sure that's clear. Read all the other books, instead of 50 things of whatever. Also, don't read Dan Brown. Just got back from a fortnight's holiday at a beach resort. A good million or so people there reading 50 etc, interspersed with Heat magazine and Danielle Steele books. At other times, these people enjoyed Dancing on Ice, and the music of the late Michael Jackson.
@JonnyH, serves you right for going on holiday where cultural retards go. If you're going to do that, accept it and be prepared, like I did in Benidorm last year - "Day-glo l.c.d. music and racism disguised as comedy here we come.." As far as the book goes, big hit with the ladies only = not worth a wank. Or maybe that's the point. If only there was more honesty about in modern life...
Regardless of how 'shit' it is, the huge majority of people I know who have read it, never ever read usually. I think that ANYTHING regardless of quality, which a) gets people reading and b) gets people, as a result, talking about books, is a good thing. Not everyone is interested in literature and able to critically analyse characters and plot structures. I don't want to seem patronising to the readership, but give them a break!
I'm sure it's not "shit", Jen. I reckon it just speaks to many of us out there at the coalface of life. I don't want to seem patronising to those whose job it is to tell us what to think, either- but in condemning it as porn, or wanting it banned for crimes against linguistic standards or as anti feminist -they obviously are all hugely out of touch with many millions of everyday women
Kinky? It struck me as domestic abuse. The man hurting the woman, then fawning over her, telling her he loves her, and all the while rationalizing that she deserved it. I'm stunned that the books are so popular. Do most women want to be trussed up like a turkey during love making?
Hype it up enough and you can get people to buy/listen to/read virtually anything , the trick is to estimate the stupidity of your audience and you're there.
Follow 50 Shades of Andy Gray on Twitter. Here's a little taster... "She lay trembling, no one had ever screwed her like that. He lay over her panting body and looked at his throbbing sword. 'Take a bow, son'."
i have the utmost respect for ms james.i have tried writing a book. make no mistake it is bloody hard work. so all the haters and sneerers? out there, try writing a book that people actually want to read. you're gonna find it's hard work.
What really kills me is that 'Lisa' thinks that it's okay to imply that only those that are either abused or neglected as children are into BDSM. Wow. She's so forward thinking (!) That's fucking rude, which ever way you put it. If I was interested in BDSM, I'd be fucking hunting EL down and slapping some sense into that bitch. And on the off chance that 'Lisa' sees this comment, 50 Shades of Grey was published online where it became so well known. It became well known because people actually couldn't believe that something as poorly written as 50SoG had actual fans, that EL had books published on a 'made-to-order' basis. THIS BOOK DID NOT GO THROUGH A PUBLISHING HOUSE AND I'M UNSURE WHETHER IT HAS YET TO GO THROUGH A PUBLISHING COMPANY. That is why it's fucking out there, wasting space and contaminating our minds. And on a final note, in my personal opinion, I wouldn't give this book to a DOG to chew on.
I think the book is terribly written and the story pathetic and boring. However it is very interesting that it became so popular. The book's popularity is important, it shows us that (a) Most women have horrendously dull and sad lives, or otherwise this wouldn't seem interesting to them. Could this be because they feel unfulfilled? Could it be that the pressures of society have royally fucked most of them up emotionally? (I think so) (b) in reality (and I am speaking from my own experience only) women do like to be dominated, and sad as it may be, they bow down to dominating and controlling men. We can continue to pretend that women will prefer a man that is nice and honest to one who is mean and controlling, because this makes us feel better, but it is simply not true. And it is not the woman's role to defend herself as to why she has chosen a man more controlling/dominating. She is more attracted to this man, and that is because she is human, and in terms of survival, that man is more likely to be a better protector, and a rich man, a better provider. It is hard wired into women and our society is telling them they should behave differently because we don't like to face the hard truth about ourselves as a species. Anyway, I think the book is useful if it highlights the fact that women in our society don't feel represented in mainstream culture, and if it helps to change things for the better in this respect that's a good thing. Maybe the bad writing style was used to dumb down the book for mass consumption, maybe those behind the book are smarter than we think.
