Blog 3- Fifty shades of Grey / E. L. James.

For my next blog entry I fully intended to copy paste an earlier review I posted as a Facebook status, add a little more commentary, and open by saying- ‘Here’s one I prepared earlier…’ like it was a cooking show, or some shit. But Facebook has other ideas, and chooses not to play the game and let me access it. Facebook knows I can’t cook, and Facebook is evil, I just haven’t figured out its agenda yet: - World domination is a little too broad a theory, and not quite specific enough as to how its insidious plot will affect me personally.

It’s been a while since I read this, so dredging it all up again is painful, and counterproductive to all the work I’ve done to bury it in a deep dark hole where it can no longer hurt me- but a blog must be blogged, and the pain must be revisited for the sake of my art… And besides; I realised that right now I could be either blogging about this- or reading Persuasion… It’s really hard to choose.

What can I say about 50 shades of Grey, other than it represents all that is wrong with the world today… But that’s a bit rich considering I just reviewed two books about two wars… So perhaps the 1^st thing wrong with the world is war, and the 2^nd thing is 50 shades?... But I suppose it’s not so much that the book exists, as it is that it gets on all the ‘most popular’ lists, and THAT’S what’s wrong with the world… But then I have to admit that I helped it get on the lists, because I bought it. I paid money for it. I have perpetuated the evil, and contributed to the devolution of humanity for which I am eternally sorry.

So why is this steaming pile of word excrement the second worst thing in the world today? Well it’s not the fact that that it’s ‘mummy porn’… I bought it because it is ‘mummy porn’, and I thought it might be fun. It was not fun; it was awful (not intentionally sounding like Grumpy Cat here). It gave me new wrinkles I didn’t need. I had a perpetual involuntary scowl on my face the entire time I was reading it, and all through the subsequent readings of the equally abominable sequels (yes I read them too, I meant to do a thorough job of it, so that when I criticised them, it came from a place of knowledge, rather than hearsay); which meant I had that screwed up, frowny look on my face for pretty much a solid week; it refused to go away in between readings, and took some coaxing to go away long after, as my delicate psyche was deeply affected. I am still horrified that women are actually enjoying this insidious, offensive, self-hating, badly written BULLS#!T, and am embarrassed to claim kinship with these people.

… and I still haven’t managed to say why.

Perhaps I should try harder to structure this?

 1)   It began as Twilight fan-fic. Ok, that isn’t necessarily the kiss of death, as other things have started out with less than illustrious beginnings, and some fan fic is actually quite good. But this isn’t. I think her editor was ‘Mr Spellcheck’, and his associate ‘Mr That’ldo’. I’ve read better fan fic, but I haven’t read much worse. She uses entirely inappropriate analogies about smug hamsters… and other things that I have successfully blocked from my mind, so I won’t be dredging them back up thank you very much (shudders). InnerGodessInnerGoddessInnerGoddess… OhMyOhMyOhMy… She actually refers to her lady parts as ‘down there’… Oh there is just too much wrong with this.

2)      ‘TWILIGHT’ fan fic… I mean really; consider the source material.

3)      It is SOOoooooo repetitive! Someone did a word count in a review on Goodreads, and came up with-

      "Oh My" - 79
"Crap" - 101
"Jeez" - 82
"Holy (shit/fuck/crap/hell/cow/moses)" - 172
"Whoa" - 13
"Gasp" - 34
"Gasps" - 11
"Sharp Intake of Breath" - 4
"Murmur" - 68
"Murmurs" - 139
"Whisper" - 96
"Whispers" - 103
"Mutter" - 28
"Mutters" - 23
"Fifty" - 16
"Lip" - 71
"Inner goddess" - 58
"Subconscious" – 82

4)      There is no plot- Forgive me for thinking a book should have one.

5)      If you’re going to write about sex, and glorify it, you should at least write about GOOD sex. Don’t write about bad sex and pretend it’s good. You’re not fooling me. I mean, there’s a scene in here with a wash cloth, that’s just cringeworthy; and the first sex scene… wow, This 21 year old virgin, who’s never had sex OR ever masturbated before manages multiple orgasms without this ‘sex God’ even touching the usual bits that tend to facilitate this- Which prompted me to question whether the author had ever had actual sex, or had any knowledge of how the female body actually works. They say ‘write what you know’, she clearly doesn’t know much.

6)      This is not a book about BDSM. If you expect it to be, you will be disappointed. If after reading it you still think it’s about BDSM, you are misinformed, and could potentially cause a lot of damage to yourself, or others. Not that I am the world’s leading expert in all things BDSM of course, but I have discussed it with others a little more… au fait with such things, and there does seem to be a grain of contention. BDSM versus Abuse. I stand clearly in the ‘abuse’ camp; and say to that person who described Anastasia as the perfect sub, and very like one of his/her (online, gender non-specific conversation) current subs: I say I’m awfully glad you’re not MY dom sweetheart.

7)      I hated both protagonists. Nothing relatable whatsoever about them. Christian Grey is a broken, damaged, ‘50 shades of fucked-up’ man who was serially abused by a friend of his mother since he was 15. This has left him incapable of having a relationship of any kind other than as an abuser to a weaker individual. Anastasia Steele is a weaker individual. There is nothing to like, or relate to here.

8)      It frightens the living f@#k out of me that women, and impressionable girls are reading this excrement, and holding up this relationship as an ideal… something to be aspired to… When I grow up I want to be an abuse victim to a broken man… as long as he is excruciatingly good looking, and insanely rich; and THAT’S what is wrong with the world!

EXCREMENTAL!

This has become way to long for my blog, and I could go on and on about how offensive I find this whole thing… actually it’s quite difficult to stop myself. I don’t have the book anymore; my daughter ran away with it. I told her ‘No, no don’t read that shite! It’ll destroy your brain cells, and undermine your individuality and self-worth!’. Of course this only enticed her further, because that’s what happens when you say ‘No’ to teenagers. She didn’t read MUCH of it though. She realised she was reading word vomit. The book never came back to the house though, which is fine by me. There have been dog turds laid under the desk in the back room that I would rather cherish than this book.