Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

Last night I rolled over in bed and accidentally elbowed my husband in the forehead.

“Ow.” He rubbed his head.

“Boom!” I said. “You’ve been 50 Shades of Greyed.”

And then I promptly fell back asleep.

 

I guess the book has been on my mind a lot, since it’s the selection for our new book club at UCR Palm Desert. (We meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 19, if you’re interested). I’m one of the facilitators for the group conversation, so I have to read the book carefully enough to pick up discussion points. I can’t just skim it for the sexy sex parts. And let’s be honest. If I wasn’t reading this for book club, I would only be skimming it for the sexy sex parts.

For those of you who don’t consume any kind of media whatsoever, here’s a quick summary of this international bestseller: This is the story of Anastasia, a boring virgin who meets businessman Christian Grey. He is instantly bewitched by her. She is beguiled by him. Those are direct quotes from the book.

“You beguile me, Christian.”

“Oh, Anastasia. You’ve bewitched me.”

Later, Christian finds Anastasia challenging. We know this because Christian says, “Oh, Anastasia. You challenge me.”

Christian also happens to make $100,000 per hour (seriously) and showers Anastasia with lavish gifts, like books that cost $14,000 and an Audi that costs however much Audis cost.

Periodically, Ana’s inner goddess — of course she has an inner goddess — rejoices and performs some kind of audition for “So You Think You Can Dance.” Direct quote: “My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves.” Later: “My inner goddess sits in the lotus position looking serene except for the sly, self-congratulatory smile on her face.”

Throughout the book, Anastasia remains hopelessly naive, even after getting trussed up and flogged in Christian’s Red Room of Pain. She refers to touching “his thing” and him reaching for “her sex.”

So far this all sounds like one of my childhood fantasies. I used to cut out photos of sparkly jewels from the Sears catalogue and glue them to my head. Then I would boast to my friends, “Someday I’ll meet a man who makes one billion-jillion dollars! And then we will kiss. And we will do it. With his thing.”

But whatever. Let’s just all accept that this is some terrible writing. Even the author, E.L. James, admitted this is bad writing. I started making hashmarks every time our protagonist bit her lip or said, “Damn!” — but then the margins of my book began to look like Andy Dufresne counting out the days of his jail term in “The Shawshank Redemption” and I got tired. (I say this as a person who reads and enjoys a lot of crap. I devoured nine “Pretty Little Liars” books in two days straight.)

 

I’m surprised this book has been at the center of such a media firestorm. These days you can’t swing a dead cat (or flog a naive virgin) without hitting a blog post or article about this book. Most of the pieces fall into the incredibly condescending “Whaaat? Women like erotic things?” category, while others are of the “Oh noes! They do the intercourse in ways in which I am not familiar!” variety. This essay by Roxane Gay is the best, smartest piece I’ve seen yet — perhaps the only smart piece I’ve seen.

Is “50 Shades of Grey” erotic? I don’t know. I personally didn’t find it arousing. Maybe I was just distracted by the fact that I dropped $15.95 on this book when there are naked people all over the internet for free. The book definitely contains a lot of explicit scenes, but it’s all hopelessly heteronormative and only serves to play up the old storyline of a broken man and the woman who gives up her own identity in an effort to fix him. And though I’m not intimately acquainted with the BDSM scene, I’m pretty sure this book paints an inaccurate portrait of the domination/submission world.

Beyond all that, I was truly confused by some of the things in “Fifty Shades.” For instance:

* How come Ana didn’t have an email address until she met Christian? I’ll give you the Red Room of Pain stuff, but a college student in the year 2011 with no email? Girl, please.

* Ana has a landline? No email, but she has a landline?

* How did Christian get an Apple product before its release date? Even Steve Freaking Wozniak has to wait in line for the new iPad.

* Why do these two email so much? Why aren’t they texting? The technology in this book is batshit crazy.

* I swear Ana has worn her roommate’s plum dress for about 10 days straight.

* Why would she get into a stranger’s helicopter? Stranger danger, Ana! That’s, like, the first rule of dating. Don’t get into aircraft with strange men.

The one redeeming thing about this whole book —  and trust me, I had to work hard to find this one redeeming thing — is that Christian encourages Ana to eat a lot. And I like that in a man. Even more than a Red Room of Pain or a billion-jillion dollars.