My Thoughts on Fifty Shades.
In all my life, I have only thrown 2 books out of sheer frustration. The last one was the first Twilight book that I tried to read to see what all the fuss was about, but ended up getting pissed off at crybaby Bella, and I never picked it up again after that. There was one particular scene in the second book of this series that almost ended with my Playbook hurtling through the living room, but thankfully, I resisted the urge.
So where to start? The writing. Lots has already been said about her style, so I’ll leave it at that.
While I will admit to enjoying Christian’s perfectly flawed character, Ana left me frustrated. They are both adults, yet have the emotional capacity of adolescents. In fact, Ana calls Christian just that during one of their many, many fights, when in fact, she’s not much better herself.
Biggest Beef right here: If you’re writing an erotica trilogy, could you please use proper names for those parts? Aside from clitoris, no other genitalia is actually mentioned other than using rehashed, worn out cliched Romantica terms. You’d think a novel that broached such a heated topic as BDSM would actually use words like penis and vagina. As a friend of mine would say, if you’re going to dive in to this realm, you’ve got to OWN it. Please. We are all (hopefully) adults reading this book. We can handle real anatomical terms, we can even handle slang terms. What we can’t handle is Ana’s persistence at calling her womanly parts ‘down there’ complete with emphasis. Ugh.
I found that the BDSM lifestyle was really only a cover, an attention-getting little sister, if you will, to much darker themes. Possession is the underlying theme throughout this entire trilogy, not in fact, kinky fuckery. Initially, what starts off as a dominant/submissive relationship, turns into a possessive infantile kind of love we haven’t seen the likes of since, oh, that vampire novel. Give me a freaking break. I think this is the issue that irritated me the most; Ana’s absolute refusal for most of the series to accept Christian’s past lovers (yes, my dear, he did have a life, however sordid, before he met you) and Christian’s absolute refusal to allow Ana any freedom whatsoever. He might as well wrap her in a burqa and employ a physicist to create a force field around her so that no other man can ever look at her. Shudder.
I also have a VERY HARD TIME believing that a 21 year old university graduate has never masturbated, ever. This is the 21st century, people, and further perpetuates the attitude that Christian Grey is the centre of her universe and that she is not complete without him. If you can’t learn to love yourself first, how can you learn to love another? And I’d like to be first in line to flog her inner goddess, good grief. But, thankfully, Ana is one of those lucky women who apparently have NO PROBLEM reaching orgasm (even though she’s never had one before) and even during her first time. Wow....he’s that good, eh?!
The question I’ve noticed a lot is, if these books are as bad as reviewers say they are, then why are so many copies flying off the shelves? Some will take the “if it gets people reading, then all the power to them” approach. But people should know good writing, no, people should know GREAT writing and FSOG, shock horrors, is not great writing. Yes, it has that dreaded ‘mommyporn’ draw to it (seriously, whoever coined this term needs to have some reality beaten into them) and even reviewers who slash the novel to pieces still admit to getting hooked into reading to the bitter end. I know I did, purely from a ‘research’ point of view, (hey, if E.L. White can make millions writing mediocre erotica.....) but I also had this morbid curiosity to see how things panned out for Christian and Ana. Things fizzled out for me pretty early on as things became more and more...vanilla.
What does this series and its popularity say about the 21st century woman?
Do we all harbour dark Bluebeard fantasies within our psyche? (Please tell me you know the Bluebeard story, if not, go google it right now!) Do we all secretly yearn for the Disneyfied saccharine happy ending where Prince Charming will carry us away to his castle in the sky brimming with designer clothes, fast cars, and our own security team? Do we not deserve better than to be defined purely by our relationship with an albeit physically dazzling man, but ultimately a control freak with mommy issues? A few weeks ago I asked via Facebook if this series would be as popular as it is if the female protagonist was the Dom and not the Sub. I don’t think it would be. I think this is the saddest part of what FSOG is doing to us women. In today’s world, where women still have to fight for the right to ownership over their own bodies even in the developed world, we are lauding a book that ultimately condones ownership and control over us.
And I don’t mean in the guise of restraints and handcuffs.
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