It’s a sad day for all when Stephanie Meyer (author of the ‘Twilight’ sagas)
has actually influenced another ‘writer’ to create an erotic version of
twilight. E.L James’ ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, whose title is supposed to
represent the complexity of the main character ‘Christian Grey’, is nothing
more than a book of filth aimed to arouse lonely middle aged woman. In my eyes
the title instead represents the book perfectly; fifty shades of tedious,
monotonous, repetitive shit.
James’ ‘fifty shades of grey’ was originally written as fan fiction to Meyer, and has even over taken the famous Harry Potter series as the fastest selling ebook. That’s right, ebook, so many people (middle aged woman) are ashamed to own such a thing that they go for the more discrete copy, or if you are brave enough to venture out and buy the paperback, you can always rip the cover off as a friend of mine did.
This book is nothing more than twilight with sex. I didn’t even think it possible for twilight to get any worse, and truly thought the sweet end of twilight was near, as the final film is hitting cinemas soon. I even thought I may be able to live with people’s blind and hideous obsession (including my mother’s) with a sparkling, possessive, stalking vampire and a jealous, paedophilic werewolf, but no. James’ has taken possessive, stalking boyfriends to a whole new level. Not only is ‘fifty shade of grey’ less arousing than, let’s say ‘The Human Centipede’ it also sets feminism back about 100 years, as does twilight.
The plot follows the first person narrative of ‘Anastasia Steele’ a beautiful and endearing young woman who naively falls for ‘Christian Grey’ the bondage obsessed billionaire, whom Steele describes as ‘the epitome of male beauty’. Obviously it strikes no resemblance to the ‘love at first sight’ story presented between Edward and Bella in ‘Twilight’ ‘the look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind’. I don’t know which makes me want to vomit more, Stephanie Meyer’s appalling clichés or James’ repetitive descriptions of BDSM, which is all that ‘Fifty Shades of Filth’ consists of.
Grey, then formulates a contract between him and Miss Steele, which consists of rules she must follow to remain his submissive. Steele agrees to the terms and then spends the rest of the books tied to a bed inside Grey’s ‘red room of pain’. That’s 2 days of my life I’ll never get back. ‘What makes this book so lovable is how relatable it is’ is what some critics are saying. Yes because I remember that time when I was a 22 year old virgin who became a submissive to a psychotic, dominating, bondage-loving billionaire; Seems like only yesterday. Oh wait…that never happened. Again like ‘Twilight’ this book offers nothing but a badly written, transparent plot, and 2D un-relatable characters.
And although this book has no originality, no heroines or heroes, and no depth whatsoever, it’s got the nation gripped. When I was on the plane to France, I was surrounded by women of all ages (I mean all, some as young as 13) reading that book. I even had the pleasure (discomfort) to be sitting next to a woman of about 30 years, whose body heat was actually radiating on to me. To make things worse, she went to the bathroom for about 20 minutes, and came back with the satisfaction, one can only presume, of having the achievement of joining the mile high club.
In 2011, Caitlin Moran won numerous book awards on her crude, truthful and ironically humorous book ‘How to be a Woman’ where she talks openly about her experiences as a woman. Caitlin Moran is known for being a feminist “What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men.” So it is disappointing to go from a best-selling book about feminism and the life of woman ‘How to be a Woman’ to go to ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ where the man dominates our ‘heroine’ in every way he can.
Although I must acknowledge that what sets this book apart from twilight is that some good has actually come from its existence. First of all as this was originally a piece of fan fiction, it means that more aspiring authors who write fan fiction are starting to get noticed. Secondly, due to this book being written by a woman, it’s influenced woman to have more of a say in the porn industry, allowing woman to gain more equality.
Sian Elisabeth Bowen
x
James’ ‘fifty shades of grey’ was originally written as fan fiction to Meyer, and has even over taken the famous Harry Potter series as the fastest selling ebook. That’s right, ebook, so many people (middle aged woman) are ashamed to own such a thing that they go for the more discrete copy, or if you are brave enough to venture out and buy the paperback, you can always rip the cover off as a friend of mine did.
This book is nothing more than twilight with sex. I didn’t even think it possible for twilight to get any worse, and truly thought the sweet end of twilight was near, as the final film is hitting cinemas soon. I even thought I may be able to live with people’s blind and hideous obsession (including my mother’s) with a sparkling, possessive, stalking vampire and a jealous, paedophilic werewolf, but no. James’ has taken possessive, stalking boyfriends to a whole new level. Not only is ‘fifty shade of grey’ less arousing than, let’s say ‘The Human Centipede’ it also sets feminism back about 100 years, as does twilight.
The plot follows the first person narrative of ‘Anastasia Steele’ a beautiful and endearing young woman who naively falls for ‘Christian Grey’ the bondage obsessed billionaire, whom Steele describes as ‘the epitome of male beauty’. Obviously it strikes no resemblance to the ‘love at first sight’ story presented between Edward and Bella in ‘Twilight’ ‘the look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind’. I don’t know which makes me want to vomit more, Stephanie Meyer’s appalling clichés or James’ repetitive descriptions of BDSM, which is all that ‘Fifty Shades of Filth’ consists of.
Grey, then formulates a contract between him and Miss Steele, which consists of rules she must follow to remain his submissive. Steele agrees to the terms and then spends the rest of the books tied to a bed inside Grey’s ‘red room of pain’. That’s 2 days of my life I’ll never get back. ‘What makes this book so lovable is how relatable it is’ is what some critics are saying. Yes because I remember that time when I was a 22 year old virgin who became a submissive to a psychotic, dominating, bondage-loving billionaire; Seems like only yesterday. Oh wait…that never happened. Again like ‘Twilight’ this book offers nothing but a badly written, transparent plot, and 2D un-relatable characters.
And although this book has no originality, no heroines or heroes, and no depth whatsoever, it’s got the nation gripped. When I was on the plane to France, I was surrounded by women of all ages (I mean all, some as young as 13) reading that book. I even had the pleasure (discomfort) to be sitting next to a woman of about 30 years, whose body heat was actually radiating on to me. To make things worse, she went to the bathroom for about 20 minutes, and came back with the satisfaction, one can only presume, of having the achievement of joining the mile high club.
In 2011, Caitlin Moran won numerous book awards on her crude, truthful and ironically humorous book ‘How to be a Woman’ where she talks openly about her experiences as a woman. Caitlin Moran is known for being a feminist “What is feminism? Simply the belief that women should be as free as men.” So it is disappointing to go from a best-selling book about feminism and the life of woman ‘How to be a Woman’ to go to ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ where the man dominates our ‘heroine’ in every way he can.
Although I must acknowledge that what sets this book apart from twilight is that some good has actually come from its existence. First of all as this was originally a piece of fan fiction, it means that more aspiring authors who write fan fiction are starting to get noticed. Secondly, due to this book being written by a woman, it’s influenced woman to have more of a say in the porn industry, allowing woman to gain more equality.
Sian Elisabeth Bowen
x
I bloody adore you Sian x
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