Fifty Shades of Grey weighs in at a daunting five hundred and six pages. The lettering is large and easily distinguishable even at an appropriately coy distance, yet the bombastic and inept prose style of author EL James will cause every reader, regardless of their obsession, to struggle their way through, questioning their commitment as often as the heroine flushes. The admittedly congruous pain of such an arduous slog could have been avoided had the novel any merits, but Fifty Shades of Grey is utterly without distinction. Now, there are numerous websites, newspapers, magazines and people standing by themselves at parties who are all too happy to discuss the book, and therefore Bewildered Heart, still grimly wading through turgidity with several hundred pages remaining, cannot simply regurgitate plot and glaring literary flaws, as it does with the majority of the Mills & Boon's it has reviewed. What little that can be added in way of explanation of James' enduring success seems worthless at this juncture also, and yet something must be written to account for the continued reading.
Therefore we shall attempt to highlight the positives in James' tome because, despite evidence to the contrary, there are strong ideas at the heart of the novel's concept, although James seems unaware of what they are. The tale of Ana and Christian rushes headily into the bashful glancing and blushing stage, with our aloof billionaire barely able to string a sentence together without grinning knowingly at the sexual connotations of something he didn't quite say. Our virginal, yet sexy, heroine seems equally incapable of performing tasks without deciphering the sexual connotations and reddening mercilessly, to the point where her ghostly complexion is replaced by a perpetual shade of crimson. Despite this, Mr. Grey is smitten. Even after several warnings from the man himself, her only friend Kate and assorted males Ana is too a prisoner to her carnal desires and soon, after a series of contrived meetings, a polite courtship begins. However, Christian is insistent that he be the only man to force himself on Ana and a drunken pass from token ethnic José only hurries the plot towards the losing of consciousness that inevitably leads to marriage. Before the reader can shout, 'Get on with it,' James has her characters in a helicopter on their way to Grey's luxurious bachelor pad, ensconced snugly inside a mountain carved into the form of his lop-sided smile.
Yet, as everyone already knows, Christian Grey isn't your average impossibly-beautiful twenty-seven year old self-made billionaire and with comical brevity his dark secrets are unravelled, inbetween lengthy bouts of plot-defying love-making. Christian asks Ana to become his submissive, the woman he keeps in a room at the top of his stairs, who dresses as he pleases, eats as he demands, shaves where he tells her and obeys unquestioningly his every whim. Ana's acquiescence is complicated by a mysterious locked door in Christian's luxurious duplex. Fortunately, any tension is immediately squandered as the door is opened shortly after Ana notices it. Inside what is aptly named the Red Room of Pain is an arsenal of torture devices, chains, hooks, ropes and a four-poster bed, because billionaire sadomasochism has decorum. As it transpires, Christian became a submissive to his adoptive mother's friend at the age of fifteen and after many years of corporal punishment has developed a taste for inflicting pain on others. Ana is horrified, yet naturally aroused, and tentatively agrees to read over one of the contracts Christian keeps permanently tucked into his jacket pocket.
Before soft and hard limits can be discussed there is the small matter of Ana's purity to deal with. Christian is unable to believe that Ana has amassed twenty-one years without a wealthy eccentric propositioning her, yet she is as untouched as he is perverse. Quickly he regains the icy demeanour he tends towards and breaks his two cardinal rules of never making love and never sharing a bed by gently making patient love and then sharing a bed of restful sleep. Ana has a man, somewhere to live, a car, a computer, a degree, a thriving sex-life and money, while Christian has been cured of his penchant for violence and has overcome his sleep disorder. Those assuming this to be a happy ending are best advised to gloss over the following three hundred pages. By that time nothing more has been resolved and no headway has been made into understanding Mr. Grey's enigma or Miss Steele's stupidity. Herein lies the inherent problems in James' story-telling. Fifty Shades of Grey is fantastical fairytale, ignoring reality and refusing to approach potentially compelling ideas, satisfied instead to trade on supposedly risqué sexual content for a gimmick.
The sex is poorly utilised, however, as James removes all darkness, brutality and threat in order to maintain the idealised fantasy of her world. She portrays Christian as impossible to love, due to his bedroom peccadilloes and aloof sensibility, but he is the finest slice of masculinity ever committed to page. He wants Ana, but only on his own terms and makes it clear he is unable to be the man she needs him to be. This core concept might have allowed for a searing morality tale, a powerful rite-of-passage or a emotionally-wrought love story, but the set-up is fallacious, as James cannot commit to unlikeable characters or even the slightest sense of danger. Christian is an intelligent, loving, sensitive, charming control freak who enjoys hurting women, even though he has never hurt a woman and does not like to. He says he cannot share a bed and yet does, sleeping better than when he's alone. His dysfunction is not debilitating, scary or painful, but rather a lively and worthwhile interest guaranteeing countless orgasms. Ana risks nothing by being with him and without knowing what she wants she stands to gain everything all women want which we assume she wants too, what with Ana being a woman.
Every romance begins with a couple arranging a compromise where both find mutual benefits from a relationship. Unlike the more honestly conventional Mills & Boon novels, Fifty Shades of Grey positions itself as the ultimate power struggle, involving sex as a visual metaphor for that confrontation. In this sense there is great promise in the novel's central conceit, but this is incompetently wasted, as has become custom in the romance genre. James strives for a powerful conflict that her plot is incapable of earning. The narrator is a morbidly embarrassed klutz who hates her appearance and seems to cope with the world by splitting herself into three distinct personalities, all of whom hate one another and indulge in a lifelong game of Schadenfreude. This is an obvious attempt to make her sympathetic, but instead results in a series of failed jokes. Nevertheless, these signs of deep psychological scarring remain the only indication that Ana has character.
All the reader is left with is what the reader came for in the first place, the sex. Christian's paraphilia for silk ties and riding crops is consistent with the flaws in his personality, creating the arc he must resolve for his happy ending. Yet due to the book's idealised wish-fulfillment the darker aspects of his sexuality turn out hugely gratifying for all involved, meaning the hero draws the heroine into his world rather than she draws him back to a satisfying equilibrium. Does James therefore make the argument that people should be more sexually adventurous, less inhibited and more honest with themselves about desire? If she does it appears to be a purely coincidental consequence of her predictable formula. Yet the impression is offered that Ana is empowered by what she is made to do and contented by the constant rushes of pleasure that crash over her like waves. This seems to be a delusional fantasy on the part of the author, as Ana's stereotypical depiction as an unworldly virgin allows for no insight into anything. Moving forward with dwindling optimism we note, with dismay, that there are many chapters remaining. Will we learn what secrets Christian hides behind his beautiful eyelashes and curly chest hair and more importantly, will they have any worthwhile effect on the story or Ana's philosophical musings?
Therefore we shall attempt to highlight the positives in James' tome because, despite evidence to the contrary, there are strong ideas at the heart of the novel's concept, although James seems unaware of what they are. The tale of Ana and Christian rushes headily into the bashful glancing and blushing stage, with our aloof billionaire barely able to string a sentence together without grinning knowingly at the sexual connotations of something he didn't quite say. Our virginal, yet sexy, heroine seems equally incapable of performing tasks without deciphering the sexual connotations and reddening mercilessly, to the point where her ghostly complexion is replaced by a perpetual shade of crimson. Despite this, Mr. Grey is smitten. Even after several warnings from the man himself, her only friend Kate and assorted males Ana is too a prisoner to her carnal desires and soon, after a series of contrived meetings, a polite courtship begins. However, Christian is insistent that he be the only man to force himself on Ana and a drunken pass from token ethnic José only hurries the plot towards the losing of consciousness that inevitably leads to marriage. Before the reader can shout, 'Get on with it,' James has her characters in a helicopter on their way to Grey's luxurious bachelor pad, ensconced snugly inside a mountain carved into the form of his lop-sided smile.
Yet, as everyone already knows, Christian Grey isn't your average impossibly-beautiful twenty-seven year old self-made billionaire and with comical brevity his dark secrets are unravelled, inbetween lengthy bouts of plot-defying love-making. Christian asks Ana to become his submissive, the woman he keeps in a room at the top of his stairs, who dresses as he pleases, eats as he demands, shaves where he tells her and obeys unquestioningly his every whim. Ana's acquiescence is complicated by a mysterious locked door in Christian's luxurious duplex. Fortunately, any tension is immediately squandered as the door is opened shortly after Ana notices it. Inside what is aptly named the Red Room of Pain is an arsenal of torture devices, chains, hooks, ropes and a four-poster bed, because billionaire sadomasochism has decorum. As it transpires, Christian became a submissive to his adoptive mother's friend at the age of fifteen and after many years of corporal punishment has developed a taste for inflicting pain on others. Ana is horrified, yet naturally aroused, and tentatively agrees to read over one of the contracts Christian keeps permanently tucked into his jacket pocket.
Before soft and hard limits can be discussed there is the small matter of Ana's purity to deal with. Christian is unable to believe that Ana has amassed twenty-one years without a wealthy eccentric propositioning her, yet she is as untouched as he is perverse. Quickly he regains the icy demeanour he tends towards and breaks his two cardinal rules of never making love and never sharing a bed by gently making patient love and then sharing a bed of restful sleep. Ana has a man, somewhere to live, a car, a computer, a degree, a thriving sex-life and money, while Christian has been cured of his penchant for violence and has overcome his sleep disorder. Those assuming this to be a happy ending are best advised to gloss over the following three hundred pages. By that time nothing more has been resolved and no headway has been made into understanding Mr. Grey's enigma or Miss Steele's stupidity. Herein lies the inherent problems in James' story-telling. Fifty Shades of Grey is fantastical fairytale, ignoring reality and refusing to approach potentially compelling ideas, satisfied instead to trade on supposedly risqué sexual content for a gimmick.
The sex is poorly utilised, however, as James removes all darkness, brutality and threat in order to maintain the idealised fantasy of her world. She portrays Christian as impossible to love, due to his bedroom peccadilloes and aloof sensibility, but he is the finest slice of masculinity ever committed to page. He wants Ana, but only on his own terms and makes it clear he is unable to be the man she needs him to be. This core concept might have allowed for a searing morality tale, a powerful rite-of-passage or a emotionally-wrought love story, but the set-up is fallacious, as James cannot commit to unlikeable characters or even the slightest sense of danger. Christian is an intelligent, loving, sensitive, charming control freak who enjoys hurting women, even though he has never hurt a woman and does not like to. He says he cannot share a bed and yet does, sleeping better than when he's alone. His dysfunction is not debilitating, scary or painful, but rather a lively and worthwhile interest guaranteeing countless orgasms. Ana risks nothing by being with him and without knowing what she wants she stands to gain everything all women want which we assume she wants too, what with Ana being a woman.
Every romance begins with a couple arranging a compromise where both find mutual benefits from a relationship. Unlike the more honestly conventional Mills & Boon novels, Fifty Shades of Grey positions itself as the ultimate power struggle, involving sex as a visual metaphor for that confrontation. In this sense there is great promise in the novel's central conceit, but this is incompetently wasted, as has become custom in the romance genre. James strives for a powerful conflict that her plot is incapable of earning. The narrator is a morbidly embarrassed klutz who hates her appearance and seems to cope with the world by splitting herself into three distinct personalities, all of whom hate one another and indulge in a lifelong game of Schadenfreude. This is an obvious attempt to make her sympathetic, but instead results in a series of failed jokes. Nevertheless, these signs of deep psychological scarring remain the only indication that Ana has character.
All the reader is left with is what the reader came for in the first place, the sex. Christian's paraphilia for silk ties and riding crops is consistent with the flaws in his personality, creating the arc he must resolve for his happy ending. Yet due to the book's idealised wish-fulfillment the darker aspects of his sexuality turn out hugely gratifying for all involved, meaning the hero draws the heroine into his world rather than she draws him back to a satisfying equilibrium. Does James therefore make the argument that people should be more sexually adventurous, less inhibited and more honest with themselves about desire? If she does it appears to be a purely coincidental consequence of her predictable formula. Yet the impression is offered that Ana is empowered by what she is made to do and contented by the constant rushes of pleasure that crash over her like waves. This seems to be a delusional fantasy on the part of the author, as Ana's stereotypical depiction as an unworldly virgin allows for no insight into anything. Moving forward with dwindling optimism we note, with dismay, that there are many chapters remaining. Will we learn what secrets Christian hides behind his beautiful eyelashes and curly chest hair and more importantly, will they have any worthwhile effect on the story or Ana's philosophical musings?
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