Thoughts on the first four chapters/64 pages of Fifty Shades of Grey

[bironic]

After mortifying National Poetry Month by spending it reading the Twilight series* (worst sentence from the fourth book: "Beyond words, I shrieked a growl at him"; best part: the last third, when Bella had agency and confidence and action happened), I thought it would be appropriate to continue now with Fifty Shades of Grey, since it is another extremely popular book that has been panned by fandom and about which I'd like to form my own opinions, and since it began life as a Twilight fic. A Twilight AU, I'd assume, in which Isabella "Bella" Swan-->Anastasia "Ana" Steele meets vampire student Edward-->dom businessman Christian and instantly falls for his godly beauty and inexplicable sexy power, feelings are returned much to the consternation of Native American werewolf Jacob Black-->Hispanic photographer José Rodriguez**, and readers are left to insert themselves into one of the lead roles, possibly while wondering what the foundation is for the characters' mutual obsession. (I'm pretty sure Bella would have felt way more secure about Edward's love for her if their relationship had been based on anything more than love at first sight.)

My expectations are basically that Fifty Shades will be shoddily written, the relationship will be unhealthy in that it borders on abuse instead of consent (and therefore it will make me itch to point those mainstream readers to dozens of fics and Kink Bingo metas and whatnot that show and/or explain what safe and hot dom/sub relationships can look like), the sex will eventually be constant and the prose flowery... and that there will be something appealing about some aspect of it, because it has appealed to thousands of women.

.

So, okay, I'm four chapters in and the text hasn't thrust me out yet. So to speak. The prose is best read at a skim, the dialogue's often as vapid as watching kids put on an ad libbed play, and there are whole scenes that should have been cut, but it's interesting to study the signs of transition from fanfic to novel.

My biggest issues so far are that the relationship took off way too quickly and again with no foundation or reality to it, and that the hero is already flashing danger signs that the heroine alternately misses or chooses to ignore.

Christian has far more money and power than Ana; he's a world-class businessman and she's a college senior; he is, to hear her tell it, obscenely attractive, while she's ordinary; and he's older (although this reader wishes he were middle-aged rather than 26 or 29 or whatever). Her attraction to him is understandable enough, although as with Twilight it would be nice if the initial rush of a crush were later substantiated with the guy's actual personality traits etc. But what does he see that's special in Mary Sue? Now, the story could absolutely have been written wherein she piques his interest, especially as it is a fantasy of a day-to-day woman getting a dream guy. Maybe she can hold up her end of the conversation. Maybe she's one of the only people who stands up to him amid a sea of lackeys. Maybe she reminds him of someone. Maybe he wants to "slum it" for a lark. Many more options. But no. We get only a few hints of a reason during their introductory conversation—she asks more interesting questions than the script she's given—and then, poof, he's smitten and following her places. You know, while telling her he's too dangerous and the wrong man for her because he's a vampire.

It's disappointing. Like many, I know what it's like to want to be found interesting by someone I find interesting. Like many, I know what it's like to feel the push-pull of attraction and fear/naïveté that Ana feels. Like many, I know what it's like to nurse a powerful crush and wonder if or why the object of it will return the sentiment. But to make the realization of that fantasy satisfying—for me, at least—you have to take your time in the setup. And EL James blew it.

(Plotwise, I also stalled on the first few pages. Ana meets Christian because her newspaper editor roommate gets the flu and needs someone to interview him for her because he's so hard to schedule. The hell? You send your English major roommate instead of one of your fellow reporters? And you don't give her any background on the guy or advise her on how to conduct an interview? And you don't contact him to alert him of the change? Ugh ugh ugh, the way the interview "concluded" makes my head hurt.)

But okay, anyway, since we don't get enough insight into what this man sees in this girl, we are left mostly to conclude that he likes how vulnerable she is. His behavior screams predator. He sees her blush, stammer, and trip around him; says she seems nervous around men; takes advantage of the fact that she's out of her element; follows her to her home city and finds out where she works; asks her probing questions about her (lack of) connections nearby, the fact that none of the guys in her life are her boyfriend, and her lack of plans after graduation; and traces her cell phone when she calls him because he apparently thinks she needs to be rescued from being drunk. We've at least gone a step up from Twilight in that the roommate says he's creepy and too much for her and because one time Ana thinks, "Stalker"... but then she says she doesn't mind because it's him. So.

Or rather, her subconscious thinks, "Stalker." If you ask me, if you're thinking something clearly while you're awake, you are thinking it consciously, not subconsciously. But I didn't raise the red flag until the next page, when "My subconscious is figuratively tutting and glaring at me over her half-moon specs."

If that happens much more, I am quitting.

I suspect that it will happen much more. I hear there is also an inner goddess.

As a reward when I'm done, maybe I will make a print of the cover of Fifty Shades of Chicken for the kitchen.

(For what it's worth, the scene in the hardware store where he buys kinky supplies and she thinks he's doing home reno DIY was funny.)

.

*and by watching The Raven, in which, following the recent Hollywood trend of transforming 19th century literary and political figures into action heroes, Edward Norton John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe helps a Baltimore constable catch a serial killer whose murders mimic Poe's short stories. Ugh, it was even worse than I was braced for. Especially after the opening few shots promised beautiful cinematography. I was all set to request it for festivids and invite the vidder to trick everyone into thinking the movie was good.

**For facepalming on that last name choice and for general amusement, see http://sabinetzin.dreamwidth.org/tag/fifty_shades_of_drinking, earliest post


ETA: part two of the review here

Comments

[alizarin-nyc.livejournal.com]

Do you mean John Cusack in the Raven? If Edward Norton was in it, it might have been better, but not by much.

I'm sorry you're reading "50 Shades". I am all in favor of reading things to form your own opinion, however I found that reading 2 1/2 books of Twilight only made me sad/annoyed rather than enlightened, and it was exactly as people said it was, only worse, and I wish I'd thrown out the books sooner.

It's wrong of me to get upset over 50 Shades, right? When friends tell me how much they love/are obsessed with Twilight or that I should read 50 Shades I get all bent out of shape. The argument about female agency/good writing goes absolutely nowhere, and these are my peers.

But I loved your review! So there is that. :)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Heh, thanks. But yes, I know what you mean. I think we are coming at the book(s) from opposite reactionary angles - you've been hearing friends praise them, which naturally makes you want to point out the books' (major!) faults, and I've been hearing friends blast them, which makes me want to know if there's anything in them to recommend. Because the reality (actual text) tends to be more nuanced than Internet arguments, right? :) But either way, whoa, would not hold up 50 Shades as an example of how to write. As for Ana's agency, I am now halfway through the book and CONFUSED. Sometimes she's helpless but then sometimes she reacts completely appropriately to Christian's attempts to control her and pressure her into an arrangement she's not sure she wants. I don't know that I'll be able to make a judgement about it until the whole book is over, the characterizations can be so incoherent from one page or chapter to the next.

Do you mean John Cusack

Oh, whoops. I'll take "People I Confuse" for $200, Alex.

[bitter-crimson.livejournal.com]

i liked the first ...idk quarter? third? mayyyybe half? or so of 50 shades as a cracktastic twilight au. like i had fun figuring out which all background characters were which, and the various ways the author really obviously translated the canon relationships and fanon tropes btwn characters into their au version haha. it's amuse when you know that her roommate and ...christian's friend or brother or whoever it was, will ttly get 2gether b/c they're rosalie and what's his face from twilight, ha. ALSO I LOL'D 4 DAYS AT THE SCENE WHERE HE SAVES HER FROM BEING HIT BY A BICYCLE and that's the replacement for the truck scene in twilight hahahaha. it's so random and if i weren't reading the book from a twilight fan's perspective i'd have been like, "...what?? huh? WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM??" probably ditto about their attraction, yeah. tho overall, aside from the twilight aspect, the rest of the book felt much like every other generic smutty romance paperback i've read, where generally there isn't much ~reason~ the characters want 2 bone each other, b/c the point is just 2 have them bone each other haha.

sadly once the sexing starts in 50 shades, imo, it rapidly loses the bits that made it enjoyable to me. not b/c the sex bits were horrendous, they're just SO BORING AND SAMEY. every sex scene is a repeat with slight variations of every previous one. and the supposed bdsm bits are just boring too. boring boring boring boring. and by the end of the book it's apparent that the overarching plot is going 2 be ana ~healing/taming~ christian so that he will stop being into all that dangerous perverted bdsm, maybe only keeping the parts that are tame enough that they can occasionally slightly spice up their 4ever boring samey sex life. so instead of reading the subsequent books i looked up the plot summary and YUP THAT'S HOW IT GOES. which is also nothing new. the plot with a dangerous/wild guy who sweeps a woman off her feet or overpowers her or w/e but then she tames/domesticates him in the end with her love is a classic romance plot, like, it doesn't upset me that 50 shades is just yet another rehash of the same plot tropes that've been used over and over and over, but definitely in the absence of anything else about it to make me want to read it (like sex scenes that actually remain interesting/hot), why would i waste my time reading the other novels? #nope

ANYWAY THOSE ARE MY FEELS haha

[bironic.livejournal.com]

it's amuse when you know that her roommate and ...christian's friend or brother or whoever it was, will ttly get 2gether b/c they're rosalie and what's his face from twilight, ha

Ah, as soon as you said that I realized you were totally right about Emmett. I didn't get much of a personality read off Rosalie but that'd be the likely parallel, yeah. And the little sister was absolutely Alice, just find-replace "bounced" with "danced." And LOL OMG could the author not have come up with a better replacement name for Carlisle than CARRICK? I had to look it up to see if it's a popular name somewhere other than here, and all I came up with at first Google glance is that it's a kind of nautical knot, so am going to assume it was meant to be a bondage joke.

the rest of the book felt much like every other generic smutty romance paperback i've read, where generally there isn't much ~reason~ the characters want 2 bone each other

Sigh, yeah. I don't have much experience with romance novels but I, uh, obviously have read a ton of fic that models itself often on or in reaction to that stuff... but fic assumes a shared background in established canon characterization. Either way, still didn't prevent me from hoping for more in the book. Oh, well.

it's apparent that the overarching plot is going 2 be ana ~healing/taming~ christian so that he will stop being into all that dangerous perverted bdsm, maybe only keeping the parts that are tame enough that they can occasionally slightly spice up their 4ever boring samey sex life

That is just so disappointing. *disappointed face*

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

*eagerly follows your review*

[bironic.livejournal.com]

It is now complete! For what that's worth. :)

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Heh, I had no idea there were this many bad movies "loosely inspired by" Edgar Allen Poe short stories. The Raven (1934) wound me up in a similar way -- I really want someone to vid it (possibly with outside sources) in a way that suggests the rest of the movie is anything like the beginning promised. IMDb summarizes the plot as, "A brilliant surgeon obsessed with Poe saves the life of a beautiful dancer and goes mad when he can't have her," but it's the movie itself that goes completely off the rails, starting out as the story of a mad doctor who saves a girl's life and through his influence draws her into a dark obsession with Poe, continuing into an unrelated story involving plastic surgery for escaped criminal Boris Karloff -- which also had psychological tension and some nice shots involving mirrors -- and then abruptly dropping both plots in favor of horror house hijinks!!1 As a whole, it felt like a dumping ground of half-finished ideas for Béla Lugosi movies, and that first movie idea, in which Béla Lugosi seduces the ingenue into darkness, is one I wanted to see. ...And that is how I ended up watching 50 horror movies from the period with the reluctant intent to make a massive multifandom vid.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

By the way, do you still remember what those thoughts about Trek were that you were too tired to write out the other day? I'm six episodes from the end of DS9 and dying to discuss it.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ah, I meant to come back for that after those two crazy work weeks! Thank you for the reminder.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Netflix needs to beef up its content from that era because you keep piquing my interest on Boris Karloff and/or Bela Lugosi films that it doesn't have and I have been feeling too lazy to search out alternative sources, sigh. That one sounds like a hoot. Or a caw. /groan

Last year the American Film Institute over here did something that was either Vincent Price- or Roger Corman-related on Halloween, and I saw that The Raven (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057449/) (a quirky cheesy delight!) as well as a draaaaaagging Masque of the Red Death.

[alpheratz.livejournal.com]

I sort of formed my own opinion on Twilight by reading the first book in an afternoon and being extremely mildly entertained by it. Not enough to keep going. I've also leafed through one of the sequels to 50 Shades in a bookstore and the prose made my eyes bleed. Oh man. I hope you get something out of it, though!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Bleeding eyes like you but also a better sense of what picture it's painting of BDSM and kink negotiation to poor tame mainstream America/UK/etc. :) So, worth it for the few evenings it took to read.