Originally published on The Neon Manifesto.
See the simple yet effective artwork! See the easy-to-remember titles! This is some clever publishing design right here. Hats (and clothes) off.
Oh yes, it’s yet another article from yet another blogger giving their two pennies worth about the literary phenomenon of 2012, Fifty Shades of Grey. I didn’t want to write this, I didn’t mean to dispense yet another article into the sea of criticism that surrounds this book, but once I finished the first book, I knew I would have to pen my thoughts sooner or later. Turns out, ‘later’ means ‘after I finished the third book in the trilogy.’ Yes, reader, I devoted a good few hours of my life to E. L. James’ ‘mummy porn.’ These are hours that I will never retrieve, hours that I will one day look back and think to myself ‘gee, I could have been doing anything, I could have been working on the cure to AIDS, working in a soup kitchen, or perfecting new hairstyles, yes, really, I could have been doing anything in those few hours, but instead I read a insubstantial text that really gave me no personal or intellectual benefit whatsoever.’ Don’t think I’m a prude though, I love a bit of sexy literature as much as the next re-blooded female, however….this….this…*screws up face in incomprehension*
Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.
For those of you who have been hiding in a cave for the past six months, Fifty Shades of Grey is about Ana, a university student in Washington who loses her virginity, her inhibitions and her mind to Christian, the billionaire businessman who has a thing for brunettes, whips and, ironically, not being touched. Being a student around Ana’s age, you would think I would have more sympathy than most for the girl who has her first sexual experience at university and ‘accidentally’ falls in love with a powerful, rich and dominating older man. It’s not the principle I have the problem with – who doesn’t love a story of lost innocence? – it’s James’ style, her characterisation and how the plot develops over the three books that really annoys me. Let’s pick some bones.
Everyone loves an easy read for the beach, for after the long day at work, for the bedtime read. However, James takes the summer read to a whole new level, insulting those who make a living from those light paperbacks we pick up at the airport. It’s almost as if she meant it to be terrible, the way she blatantly flaunts the horrific sentence structure, narrative style and ‘cliff hangers’ at the end of every chapter. Additionally, she insults reader by treating them like idiots; whenever a character refers to a past event, the reader is treated to a recap that should last about three words, but ends up recounting said event in a paragraph full of emotional detail that the reader already knows about, having read about it five pages earlier. If there’s one thing the reader doesn’t appreciate, it’s being treated like a fool.
These supposed ‘cliff hangers’ are also a complete farce, as the story is perhaps the most predictable, apart from Disney, that I have ever read. The characters of both Christian and Ana are completely unoriginal; the successful businessman driven by his non-existent childhood who finds sex and BDSM his only escape from his tormented past, who ends up falling in love with the innocent, virginal yet headstrong undergraduate whose first sexual experience ends up being with a millionaire in a thousand-dollar hotel room. But we’ve all been there. The character of Christian and his previously mentioned ‘dark past’ is only really fleshed out in the second book, where he opens up after Ana leaves him. She does, however, come rushing back like she’s forgotten to operate her lungs. (Whoops, did I ruin the plot for you? Sorry.) The reader is encouraged to feel sympathy for Christian upon the painfully slow revelation of his dark past (well, I wouldn’t want to ruin all the surprises), however I found it difficult to pull the uncomfortable frown from my face. It’s incredibly hard to do anything but sneer whenever a description of the allegedly irresistible Christian appears on the page. The panning out of the story, from the initiation of their relationship, should you call it that, up until the happy ending James paints for them (whoops, ruined the ending. Darn.) is painfully obvious. Not only is it wholly unrealistic, it makes a sceptic like me practically gag. Even thinking about it I’m feeling that uncomfortable frown creep back onto my face. This trilogy gave me a fresh trilogy of wrinkles.
Apparently I’m the only one losing their lunch to this book, the rest of the country is lapping it up; the trilogy has been at the top of the UK bestseller’s list for what seems like forever, and is by far the best-selling book of the year, if not the century. Sales of whips, anal plugs and various other sex toys have skyrocketed and sex has catapulted to the top of the national list of conversation starters. It has made ‘mummy porn’ somewhat acceptable in the public eye and has spawned other books such as ‘Bared to You’, a new offering from Sylvia Day that I have yet to pick up. No doubt I will though, as will thousands of other intelligent women who have caught the bug and are enjoying a shade or two of Grey over their working lunch or on the tube.
However, a warning to women of the working world, beware where you indulge in your favourite shade of Grey, as you will be judged by every person around you. I don’t like to admit it, but humans, especially women, are programmed to judge someone within the first few seconds of seeing them, perhaps not consciously, but we do it anyway. I found myself consciously doing it the other day on the tube, when a woman walked on, sat down and walked off all whilst reading Fifty Shades. I judged the hell out of her. I haven’t been that engrossed in a book since Room by Emma Donoghue, an emotional tour de force, but it’s evident that Fifty Shades is, in fact, akin to a drug. A dirty, legal one that sneaks into your system without you really noticing then suddenly grips you and doesn’t let you go until long after the last page. All good books are, but let’s not forget, all really bad books are too. I don’t have to tell you which category Fifty Shades falls in to.
The world was greeted with the news recently that the film rights to Fifty Shades had been sold and a production of the trilogy is in the pipeline. Cue heated debate on the actors chosen to portray Christian and Ana. Unless the screenwriter changes the majority of the content and certainly the ending, the film will end the careers of the two actors chosen to take part. Sure, it’ll make them millions of pounds, but will the complete loss of integrity and professional dignity be worth it? We shall see. In the meantime, however, Fifty Shades is the cash cow of the year, and we definitely haven’t seen the back end (see what I did there?) of Christian just yet. My recommendation? Get used to the ‘faint citrus scent’^ of mahogany polish.
^Fifty Shades of Grey, p. 98
The Beehive Speaks 