Of course it has not escaped my attention that this internationally best selling, female sex fantasy book, features at its core total alpha male dominance, with the male character possessing good looks money and a large...sex appeal. Strange that the lead character isn't instead, what was it, funny, intelligent and has nice eyes? Really strange seeing as this is what women really like? Supposedly...
*cough*issues*cough* Oh, excuse me.
__________________
"Personal note: When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun. So once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My pupils shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal."
-Pi
But that's just it, it's fantasy, not reality. You are comparing a mindless, trashy novel with real life.Originally Posted by Neely
Of course it has not escaped my attention that this internationally best selling, female sex fantasy book, features at its core total alpha male dominance, with the male character possessing good looks money and a large...sex appeal. Strange that the lead character isn't instead, what was it, funny, intelligent and has nice eyes? Really strange seeing as this is what women really like? Supposedly...
Hey! That is funny, isn't it?Of course it has not escaped my attention that this internationally best selling, female sex fantasy book, features at its core total alpha male dominance, with the male character possessing good looks money and a large...sex appeal. Strange that the lead character isn't instead, what was it, funny, intelligent and has nice eyes? Really strange seeing as this is what women really like? Supposedly...
As for the book, a buddy of mine absolutely loves it. He's never read a word of it, but his girlfriend has.
Perhaps it's not so bad after all?
I'm just saying...
If this is what millions and millions of women fantasise about that's fine.
In all seriousness though, I think that if I was a feminist I would be pretty appalled that this book had made it through into the Dan Brown sphere.
Humanity should be appalled that it has made its way into the Dan Brown sphere.
Has anybody read the other books in the trilogy?
So I found this book in .pdf form and...the horror... From the reviews and the excerpts I have read I knew it was going to be bad, but I hadn't expected this level of rot. I have written better grocery lists.
Apart from the terrible writing, in this book you get two main characters you care even less about than you did Bella and Edward. They are no longer the most insipid and annoying couple ever created, Anastasia and Christian win hands down.
Read the review Fifth Element posted on this thread. It's all you have to know about the book and it's way more entertaining.
And if you want to read it just because of the erotica element, find another book in the same genre, you can only do better.
So I went home for a few days last weekend to see my parents and catch up with my brother, who was in town. As usually happens, I asked everyone what they were reading at the moment - Mum shamefacedly confessed she was reading some trashy celebrity autobiography, but then said that she had a 'proper' book lined up for her next read that she had bought in the supermarket, and which she produced with a flourish on to the kitchen table.
It was, of course, Fifty Shades.
At first I thought she was joking, then realised she wasn't. When quizzed about it, I discovered that she had in fact heard nothing about the book, or the furore that it is causing - she had only seen the cover, read the blurb on the back, and decided to purchase it. When I expressed my shame, she told it to stop being ridiculous and announced that it couldn't possibly be as bad as I was describing.
By way of proof, I flicked it open to a random page and asked her to read aloud. After three sentences (which by happy chance were particularly mucky) she stopped, paused, and then announced she was going to take it back to the supermarket and get a refund.
Good old Mum.
"I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche
Awesome story. Lok.
So funny!
Still getting over fifty shades of grey, but lately I've been hooked on Kenyon's Dark Hunter series and Emma Rose's His Every Desire series. Something about those billionaires...
Jack of Hearts has never really considered the option of exploring sexuality through books- he'd rather do that by disappointing many a young lady- but lately he's been wondering a lot about the success of this book... and it's led to some interesting lines of interrogation.
Just looking at the first pages, this reader knew he'd never make it through, having historically put down many a greater book for lighter reasons (translation: Jack of Hearts is a reading snob). But as badly written as it is, there's something about the sexy parts that... erm, are effective. Here's a truth you already know: you can think something is both stupid and hot at the same time.
Now, this book is not literature. It's one of the ones we burn. But has sexuality been successfully explored in literature, in a meaningful way? If a crappy book can elicit a response like that, why can't genuine literature do the same and then explore the underlying concepts with care and nuance?
For example, here are two pieces of literature that feature sexuality as a main theme: the novel Histoire d'O and E. Annie Proulx's short story 'Brokeback Mountain.' In Histoire d'O, sexuality is explored through themes of power and submission, with an overarching theme of willful objectification. It doesn't seem to command the same (maybe pornographic) response as 50 Shades of Grey. Granted it's a much deeper book, and it's more emotionally resonant, but Histoire d'O doesn't quite get the blood running in the same way, and nor was it designed to (for one, it has actual messages).
'Brokeback Mountain' was just not sexy at all to Jack of Hearts on any visceral level. You could account that to his sexual preference (hetero) or oversocialization (in an intimate scene with Ennis' wife, the narrator describes the 'tangles of her armpit hair'). But the short story (novella?) has something poignant and beautiful to say about sexuality, and the sexuality in it makes sense as a reflection of the characters.
So maybe the question is why can't the visceral aspect that the masses seem to like coexist with literary values? The closest this reader think he's gotten to that is reading Bukowski (and not everyone agrees on the literary merit of his works).
And the second question is, why does this market of erotic novel even exist? The writing's crap. Aren't there more efficient ways to appease your sexuality?
J
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