I must be
almost the last person on the planet to read Fifty Shades of Grey. EL James has become the
latest big-selling author to be maligned by readers and authors alike, as much
for her writing style as for the content, so I thought I'd take a look. Well,
okay, my wife got hold of a copy and I started to sneak off with it into dark
corners. Here's what I found (warning - contains mild spoilers, double entendres and spanking of writers, readers and most everyone).
The most
immediately noticeable thing about Fifty Shades is the first person, present
tense narration. This was originally written as Twilight fan fiction, a series
that uses the same intimate and claustrophobic narrative style. I'm no stranger
to first person (my own first two indie novels use that style) and well aware
of its limitations. A lot of readers immediately walk away from first person
and those who don't like the style but persevere in hopes of BDSM mommy porn are
already hard to please.
With first
person narrative the reader is obliged to stay within the narrator's mind and
only gets their take on things. Timelines tend to be linear, every day
accounted for with a strong sense of chronology that risks becoming mundane.
The first person narrator will observe, think and talk in a consistent style
with a vocabulary that might feel repetitive to the reader. Think about it; we
tend to use the same spoken words and thoughts on a day to day basis. Anastasia
is a young thing, innocent, educated, intelligent, low in self-esteem but not
isolated from the modern world. Her account of events is going to be from her
perspective: naive, humorous, inquisitive, infatuated, insecure, unrequited, confused
and, at times, clichéd. Despite her strong education and literary interests,
she isn't going to have the life knowledge and hindsight that will enable her
to eloquently describe her observations, experiences, physical feelings and
emotions. Having accepted that, the FSOG story can be examined further.
The
paperback copy that came into my hands was well-fingered. It had sweated in the
hands of numerous ladies as they took lengthy baths to ensure a private reading
away from interfering hubbies. When I had the chance to claim it for my own it
was already past its prime, all floppy and wrinkled. The first few pages
slipped from the spine onto the floor with a sigh. I held the remainder and
tried to picture all those readers. Would the book be an anti-climax? Or had
they all reached the self-gratification they had been searching for? (Compare
the FSOG mommy porn content with my poor efforts and you'll see it ain't easy
to avoid slipping into slapstick innuendo and double entendre!)
It was hard
going. (Okay, I'll stop with that now.) The first fifty or so pages were all
chick lit romance and I thought I'd made a mistake in trying FSOG. Then I
remembered the first words from my wife as she had reached the first raunchy
bits - "She has no gag reflex!" What could she possibly mean? I
persevered. Things started to get weird. Non-disclosure agreements and
contracts. Vanilla sex occurred, with a cherry on top. Things were looking bad
for Anastasia in her innocence. I couldn't imagine all the previous readers of
this copy (probably the entire female population of holy Catholic Ireland) had
read a novel containing stuff normally only found in the red light district and
live sex shows of Amsterdam.
Well, it
didn't go there. It went somewhere else, far more disturbing.
Most of us
are not natural leaders. We spend a lot of our work and personal lives looking
for people to tell us what to do. In the majority, I think we're submissive by
nature. The minority are dominant. When someone in authority directs us we, in
the majority, tend to comply. That's how society works.
Take the
concept into a personal relationship. If that dominant person is physically
attractive, and there's an irresistible chemistry, it can lead to a
relationship that appears unfair from the outside but satisfies the couple's
private needs. That's what happens in FSOG. Anastasia is surprised by her own
participation but justifies it with the rationale that she's really trying to
convert Christian to normality. That's one hook to keep the reader going - the
hope that Mr Gorgeous Perv will convert to a romantic. The other hook is a
promise of hard core misbehaviour, as specified in the dreaded BDSM contract.
I did enjoy
the touches of wry humour and the use of Anastasia's foxy inner goddess and insecure
subconscious to explain her thought processes. Unrequited love and lust has
always been a favourite topic for me. Anastasia wants Christian Control Freak
to behave in a more predictable fashion and there's some irony in that. She's
willing to endure physical and emotional debasement in an attempt to bring his
behaviour and moods into a spectrum she can cope with. At the end of the day
the subtle flaws in her character outweigh his overt perversity, as she is
ultimately bent on relationship self-destruction and predictably sabotages the
stairway to romance heaven every time it presents itself.
The ending
leaves a void as Anastasia pricks her own balloon. Annoying, yes. A set up for
the next book in the series, yes. EL James maintains the titillation and keeps
her readers on the cusp of release. Yes.
Ruby Barnes is the author of The New Author, The Crucible, The Baptist and Peril
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