"A moppet-haired kid who likes impossibly sad music"

Any weblog on the internet that has ever thrown a blog party will be aware that Bewildered Heart has a tendency to arrive late, if at all, to such parties. Therefore it feels nothing short of appropriate to offer an in-depth critique of the opening three chapters of Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, the cultural juggernaut that has radically and momentarily altered how people view sex, literature, book sales and traumatized tycoons. The novel begins on the rain-soaked highways leading to Seattle, Washington. Anastasia (Ana to her friends. Hi, Ana!) Steele is on her way to interview the enigmatic billionaire Christian Grey, founder and CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc, multinational conglomerate and maker of things. Ana is a bright, ambitious English major, studying the romantic classics James would be better off not bringing to the reader's mind. Her flatmate and best friend, Kate, was supposed to conduct the meeting herself, but has fallen foul of a narratively expedient sickness. Ana should be studying for finals, but how could she refuse this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sit down with a successful businessman who never grants audiences, only making the occasional exception for anyone who asks. Even though she has not asked, here she is anyhow, armed only with a Dictaphone, some notes, a tatty outfit and an endearingly feminine clumsiness. Ana is unschooled in cynicism and constantly berates herself for being unattractive, awkward and foolish. Despite this she remains irresistible to all men, with a smattering of fellow students yearning to review her dissertation, as it were, and several colleagues at the hardware store desperate to hammer some nails into her sideboard, again as it were.

Written in a more informal and conversational style than its template Ana's narration still shows glimpses of a disparate home-life that closely resembles that of Bella Swan, including an irresponsible and oft-married mother. Mostly, however, Ana frets about not fitting in and embarrassing herself in front of those with a firm understanding of their own identity. Without an image-conscious, insular high school setting Fifty Shades settles for extravagant wealth. Thus Ana finds herself intimidated by metallic architecture and women able to walk. She mentally prepares for the interview, going over Kate's questions in an incongruous scene when considered against what happens next. Shown into his provocatively enormous office Ana trips over her feet and hits the floor, but who is there to help her up but our novel's hero. Ana is instantly struck by Mr. Grey's youth, less than thirty, his physical beauty, physically beautiful, and his copper-coloured hair, coppery. Much like her spiritual predecessor detailed description proves too much for E.L. James, but the reader is left in no doubt that Grey is very gorgeous. Perpetually blushing, Ana begins to probe her subject, revealing that beneath the well-groomed surface lies a smug and arrogant control freak. Nevertheless, his personality does little to sway her strong attraction for him, suggesting Ana was paying attention when reading the novels of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters.

Christian Grey is the embodiment of the modern Byronic hero, wealthy and powerful, dismissive and sexist, dark and good-looking, brooding and intense, mysterious and seemingly always running out of duct tape. Ana can do nothing in the force of raw masculinity but fall down, ask over-familiar questions and somehow beguile and unwittingly seduce, as she does with every man she meets. The next day Christian happens to be passing Ana's workplace and stops in to purchase some rope. They get to talking while shopping for questionable items and a photoshoot is arranged to accompany Kate's profile. The gang of possibly significant student characters descend on the most decadent hotel in the local area to snap some portraits and leap to some conclusions, before Christian invites Ana to drink hot beverages and swap biographical information at the most decadent café in the local area. At the coffee house we learn that Ana's favourite tea is Twining's English Breakfast, and logic dictates that this must surely become an important plot point later. Ana does not drink coffee and does not eat in front of men, but Christian enjoys coffee and is fond of blueberry muffins, yet despite their indubitably different lifestyles the pair seem smitten and determined to gaze longingly at one other whilst speaking in euphemisms. Briefly, Christian finds time to save Ana's life after another glaring moment of ungainliness and there the third chapter ends leaving the reader to hope something worthwhile will happen in the remaining three hundred pages.

After fifty pages of navel-gazing we have witnessed a relatively docile and old-fashioned courtship between an unworldly virgin and a ruthless tycoon who will stop at nothing to possess her, as politely as he is able to. The writing is clichéd, the characters are bland archetypes, the plot is predictable and had Mills & Boon been the publisher Ana would have accidentally stumbled upon an iron maiden locked inside a wardrobe by now. Naturally, Ana's infatuation with Christian Grey is purely physical, as the conflicts thrown in the way of their relationship are either emotional or cerebral. James handles this attraction with amateurish concision, making her leading man the embodiment of masculine perfection, yet she fails to properly foreshadow his dark side with satisfying menace. His haunted back-story and misogynistic need for dominance are portrayed with a slight, knowing curling of the lips. What little light this sheds on the hero it offers less on the heroine, as her decision-making is unthinking and trouble-free. This does not conjure a great deal of optimism for the moral dilemmas she will soon face, but it is safe to assume E.L. James will force as much inevitability into the forthcoming crux of the book's concept as she does in the opening scenes of mutual admiration.

Ana's naïvety and impassivity appear to be her defining characteristics and are surely appealing to experienced perfectionists with mother issues like Christian Grey, but this creates an uncomfortable confection combining romantic fairytale with erotic psychological drama. Modern Harlequin Romances such as The Billionaire's Housekeeper Mistress, Bedded at the Billionaire's Convenience and The Millionaire's Indecent Proposal each tread a similar line to Fifty Shades of Grey, suggesting the formula has its followers, but anyone paying even the remotest attention will have already understood that Christian Grey's desires run deeper than those of the idealised husband material found in the aforementioned novels. Thus the Fifty Shades trilogy is a heightened version of Solicititilation, with the heroine using her womanly patience and empathy to help a billionaire overcome his behaviour problems and teach him to stop treating her like a live-in prostitute.

Christian Grey is an exaggerated alpha male, still arrogant and obsessive, but now bringing his flaws into the bedroom for additional complications. James sets out to interlace her conventional Cinderella-style love story with elements of mystery-thrillers and Bildungsroman, exploring notions of conformity and female empowerment. At this early stage character motivation is undetermined, which gives the drama the illusion of compulsion, but what makes the novel a page-turner is symptomatic of poor writing. What does Christian Grey want with Anastasia, besides the obvious things, and why does he want those obvious things from her, besides the obvious reasons? Does he represent a threat to Ana's well-being, her morality and long-term life-goals? Furthermore, does Ana have objectives of her own, for a career, a family or a remote cabin in the woods to scrawl Neo-Luddist rhetoric? How much does she risk from entering into a relationship with this charismatic tyrant? Will she lose her friends, her degree, her sense of self or her sanity due to her love for a man, and how will she reconcile this against the lessons of her literary heroines? If she can have everything she wants without losing anything in return why would an author bother to tell her story?

"His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel... or something"

Perhaps in response to those who have complained that the internet is a ceaseless chasm of nonsense with not nearly enough within it USA Today's Serena Chase gathered several authors to discuss romance fiction for their website. During their conversations, separated into five parts, they touched upon such obvious issues as the prejudices casual observers hold against romance, what it means to be a feminist, why men should read their novels, how the latest trends don't affect them, why hardcore erotica isn't for everyone and how the advent of virtual dating may twist their stories into cautionary tales of sensationalist horror. While nothing more than a shameless opportunity to mention their work, the discussion was steered into potentially interesting areas on occasion, and perhaps in response to those who have complained that the internet is a ceaseless chasm of nonsense with not nearly enough within it Bewildered Heart has chosen to analyse a few of the comments for the sake of a few cheap laughs.

Where better to begin than with romance itself, and furthermore how it applies to the modern woman, for whom romance is as dead as chivalry and quality literature. Rachel Hauck gets us off to an uncertain start by failing to understand the meaning of definition, 'Everyone wants true love. How I define romance is the person with whom you are most comfortable.' This statement might seem entirely meaningless, but it soon loses its anaemia once studied alongside the other replies. Sharon Cameron and Kathy Tyers agree that the most romantic books are their own. 'My favorite stories are about the tension and the draw, about emotion and a dawning respect where little or no physical contact takes place,' Cameron says. This is only natural a point of view. After all, love, as scientists understand it, is a chemical reaction of the brain and brains are traditionally where emotions occur. Whereas modern love stories have placed special emphasis on sordid lust there will always be room for feelings in romance fiction, in order for the characters and stories to offer the impression of credibility. The authoress' pronouncements lead to predictable criticisms of enviable tales of success, as the Fifty Shades trilogy fails to satisfy the conventions of classical romance by trading emotion and dawning respect for little else but physical contact.

Choosing a route less travelled Chase also chatted to four male authors of Inspirational Romance. First of all, what are Inspys? Harlequin's Love Inspired Range offers, 'Strong contemporary romances with a Christian worldview and wholesome values.' In an attempt to broaden the appeal of this venture even further, two offshoots were created, Love Inspired Suspense and Love Inspired Historical. The attention of each line tends towards emotional connection, community and family in small-town America or close-knit urban sprawl America. In contrast to other strong contemporary romances Inspys prefer to avoid premarital sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, profanity and secular gambling. Once the hero and heroine marry, of course, all proverbial hell presumably breaks loose. The publishers specifically ask that prospective novels do not contain, 'A didactic, preachy tone or doctrinal language.' This does not leave an aspiring author much to fill their books with, besides casual praise to the Lord for inventing clouds. Away from Mills & Boon, however, and the freedoms of Inspirational Romance are greater, with the exploration of darker themes and the potential for requited desire combining to leave the subgenre indiscernible from the rest.

For more we turn to the insights of Dan Walsh, Murray Pura, M.K. Gilroy and John Campbell Clark, all men who write powerful romantic literature that finds time to give every due credit to God. Walsh is a former Pastor with a goatee beard who writes love stories and family-life dramas featuring a definite article followed by a thing, such as The Dance, The Homecoming, The Discovery and The Reunion. Fellow Pastor Pura has a Degree in Divinity and has written several books with possibly enigmatic titles, including The Wings of Morning and The Face of Heaven. Gilroy writes mystery suspense novels with subtle religious undertones, with titles borrowed from song lyrics by some of the world's most bland recording artists, for example Cuts Like a Knife and Every Breath You Take. Finally, Clark co-authored Echoes of Titanic with wife Mindy Starns Clark. The dual-narrative thriller deals with a heroine battling to save her company with the man she once loved as new allegations surface about her great-grandmother, a Titanic survivor turned business owner.

Chase asks the question every Bewildered Heart would surely ask given the opportunity to talk with the very men who write the books they have never heard of and have little interest in reading. Fellas, what is the point? Dan Walsh goes big with his response, 'Perhaps (what I write will) provide a voice — in my case a male voice — for how God views this important topic. To me, there's a terrible distortion of God's nature and design for love and romance.' There is no more noble an aspiration than writing the kinds of love stories the Almighty would write if He were available and needed the money. Considering the success of His early work Mills & Boon would be fools to reject a long-awaited follow-up. Murray Pura has more modest objectives, and takes a similar view to his female counterparts, 'Love is the hope of the world, whether it is the love of God, the love of friendship, the love of family, or the love of romance.' There are few more important subjects to write about than human relationships, and therefore, Chase wonders, why is this genre critically and culturally dismissed as emotional porn or poorly-written?

In order to explain such a reaction to Christian Romance M.K. Gilroy elucidates, 'Sometimes romance is defined too closely to a highly emotive expressiveness.' Now, there are words in that sentence, but possibly not all of them are correct. Be that as it may, Gilroy might have made a perceptive comment. Are the perimeters used to measure romance fiction too narrow? Are the characters in their novels processing emotions in a way their readers do not in their own lives? Who is ultimately to blame for the flaws of the genre, the authors or the people who find flaws? Gilroy's point, however, is that besides comparing themselves to romantic heroes in terms of physical beauty, career, wealth and love-making ability, there is also a danger regular men will be made to feel inferior by the hero's ability to speak openly and honestly about his feelings, even though such protagonists are consistently portrayed as arrogance and cruel. The author's advice to those unable to articulate their emotions? 'Inspirational romance reminds all of us that there comes a time when we have to say it loud and with real words: "I love you," "I'm sorry," "I'm glad you're mine."' So there you are. Problem solved. Thanks, professional writers.

For Murray Pura, 'Writing about love — falling in love, the ecstasy of the kisses and touches and feelings — is beautiful; one of the most beautiful gifts humans have been given.' Of course, he would say that, but Inspirational Romance is so named because it celebrates and glorifies God's most precious hand-me-down. Yet conscientious of dismissive critical attitudes Pura goes onto temper his enthusiasm with a rational warning. 'The more we write and talk about love the better. But the writing needs to be as good as it possibly can be for such an important theme, not overly sentimental or badly described or lacking strength and passion.' Pura's genre has seen grand statements like this one before, but their noble intentions are rarely bolstered by books containing what they want to achieve. Venerable rhetoric may attract inquisitive tenderfoots, but Inspirational Romance novelists will need more than words to secure a dedicated readership.