Book Review
Fifty Shades of Grey, from a Writer's Perspective
Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James (NY: Random House, 2012; orig. pub. in UK, 2011)
Review by Martin A. Line (Gold Coast, Australia)
Until recently, a book such as this would have been sold in plastic covers in a specialist shop, or bought on-line and posted in brown-paper wrapping. Instead, and for the first time, a book dealing with sexual deviancy is the talk of offices everywhere, and probably on every continent. We see reports in magazines, on TV (nudge, wink), we hear of it on radio, even on Australian Classical ABC, which has dutifully played some of the music favoured during encounters of a different kind. Both the book and the author have been excoriated by the feminist movement, an attack which has been rather dulled in impact by the purchase of millions of copies – by women. It is now the fastest selling book ever, beating even those of the Potter series.
It’s a book of eroticism, about a sexually innocent female graduate from Washington State University, Anastasia, who meets Christian, a messed-up young billionaire CEO of a large corporation (which he owns), who is heavily into BDSM. Where Anastasia thinks of "love-making," Christian thinks of "fornicating."
So, why should this book attract women readers? Despite agreeing to take on the role of a Submissive (the cause of feminist outrage), Anastasia remains her own woman with strong notions of equality and equity. She also hangs onto her concept of normal sexual behaviour between a man and a woman. The rest is rather explicit erotica, and probably novel to many of us.
The reader has full access to Anastasia’s inner thoughts, cleverly arranged in three tiers. The "stream of thought" consciousness familiar to all is responsible for one-liners such as "Oh my!" (thankfully, not OMG), and "Holy crap!." Then there is a back-seat consciousness (mislabelled as her "subconscious"), which is cynical, moralistic and acerbic; and finally, an "inner goddess," which is playful, liberationist and sexually-adventurous. The interplay of these three provides much of the humour of the book. Where her "subconscious" might be contributing pithy asides relating to some novel experience (or otherwise hiding under the furniture), Anastasia’s "inner goddess" will be pirouetting around the room.
This book has been described as "rubbish," without literary merit. My suspicion is that this is from aforementioned feminists or writers having an envious hissy fit. Some of us would kill for the free publicity given this book. Sure, it isn’t Austen, but then we are seeing the conversations and events unfolding through the mind of a twenty-one-year old woman. There is a considerable degree of repetitive dialogue, but this is understandable given the rather repetitive encounters.
From the writer’s perspective, there is good balance between dialogue and narrative and pacing is great; the reader has an inkling of what’s ahead for Anastasia at the outset, yet is kept in excruciating anticipation (her first sexual encounter doesn’t happen until page 117). My one disappointment relates to the ending; we know this is a trilogy, the author teases us with Christian’s hidden dark secret in this first book, yet from the information given relating to the other two books, it appears we are not to find out what this is until book three. It is claimed the trilogy is addictive; I’m afraid just the one book will suffice for me, thank you.
Review by Martin A. Line (Gold Coast, Australia)
Until recently, a book such as this would have been sold in plastic covers in a specialist shop, or bought on-line and posted in brown-paper wrapping. Instead, and for the first time, a book dealing with sexual deviancy is the talk of offices everywhere, and probably on every continent. We see reports in magazines, on TV (nudge, wink), we hear of it on radio, even on Australian Classical ABC, which has dutifully played some of the music favoured during encounters of a different kind. Both the book and the author have been excoriated by the feminist movement, an attack which has been rather dulled in impact by the purchase of millions of copies – by women. It is now the fastest selling book ever, beating even those of the Potter series.
It’s a book of eroticism, about a sexually innocent female graduate from Washington State University, Anastasia, who meets Christian, a messed-up young billionaire CEO of a large corporation (which he owns), who is heavily into BDSM. Where Anastasia thinks of "love-making," Christian thinks of "fornicating."
So, why should this book attract women readers? Despite agreeing to take on the role of a Submissive (the cause of feminist outrage), Anastasia remains her own woman with strong notions of equality and equity. She also hangs onto her concept of normal sexual behaviour between a man and a woman. The rest is rather explicit erotica, and probably novel to many of us.
The reader has full access to Anastasia’s inner thoughts, cleverly arranged in three tiers. The "stream of thought" consciousness familiar to all is responsible for one-liners such as "Oh my!" (thankfully, not OMG), and "Holy crap!." Then there is a back-seat consciousness (mislabelled as her "subconscious"), which is cynical, moralistic and acerbic; and finally, an "inner goddess," which is playful, liberationist and sexually-adventurous. The interplay of these three provides much of the humour of the book. Where her "subconscious" might be contributing pithy asides relating to some novel experience (or otherwise hiding under the furniture), Anastasia’s "inner goddess" will be pirouetting around the room.
This book has been described as "rubbish," without literary merit. My suspicion is that this is from aforementioned feminists or writers having an envious hissy fit. Some of us would kill for the free publicity given this book. Sure, it isn’t Austen, but then we are seeing the conversations and events unfolding through the mind of a twenty-one-year old woman. There is a considerable degree of repetitive dialogue, but this is understandable given the rather repetitive encounters.
From the writer’s perspective, there is good balance between dialogue and narrative and pacing is great; the reader has an inkling of what’s ahead for Anastasia at the outset, yet is kept in excruciating anticipation (her first sexual encounter doesn’t happen until page 117). My one disappointment relates to the ending; we know this is a trilogy, the author teases us with Christian’s hidden dark secret in this first book, yet from the information given relating to the other two books, it appears we are not to find out what this is until book three. It is claimed the trilogy is addictive; I’m afraid just the one book will suffice for me, thank you.
Ruth Tarlo (Sydney, Australia): This is a thoughtful and interesting review. I have not read the book, only the publicity. It is amazing that someone can make so much money out of this apparently untrodden theme. Just shows there's nothing new under the sun. Perhaps I'll read the book, but only when I can borrow it. I'm reluctant to add to James's profits.
