Fiction - "Fifty Shades of Grey"

Awesome story. Lok.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lokasenna

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.

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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