Everyone knows by now that the book, Fifty Shades of Grey, and its two sequels have sold jillions of copies and inspired the film. The story is a variation on the traditional chick-lit model. The variation involves bondage and whips and other implements of torture.
So much for sexy underwear.
I am not a fan of the romance oeuvre, or at least any of the titles that came after Pride and Prejudice.
But there is fun to be had with Fifty Shades of Grey, and that is in reading reviews of the poorly written book and its apparently so-so movie version.
Literary and film critics love opportunities to review works like these, trotting out hilarious examples and silly riffs. Below are bits of a few articles that I enjoyed.
1) Dave Barry reviewed the first book in the April 4, 2014 issue of Time magazine.
"I think I might be the only man who read this book. I did it sneakily, hiding the cover, especially when I was on an airplane, which actually is a good place to read this book because you have access to a barf bag. I say this because of the writing style, which is . . . OK, here’s one tiny sample of the writing style:
"'Did you give him our address?'"'No, but stalking is one of his specialties,' I muse matter-of-factly.
Kate’s brow knits further."
"That’s right: This is the kind of a book where, instead of saying things, characters muse them, and they are somehow able to muse them matter-of-factly. And these matter-of-fact musings cause other characters’ brows—which of course were already knitted—to knit still further. The book is over five hundred pages long and the whole thing is written like that. If Jane Austen (another bestselling female British author) came back to life and read this book, she would kill herself."
2) Anthony Lane, a true champ, has read the book AND seen the movie. He dishes on both in the Feb. 25 New Yorker.
"On the other hand, the film, by dint of its simple competence—being largely well acted, not too long, and sombrely photographed, by Seamus McGarvey—has to be better than the novel. It could hardly be worse. No new reader, however charitable, could open “Fifty Shades of Grey,” browse a few paragraphs, and reasonably conclude that the author was writing in her first language, or even her fourth. There are poignant moments when the plainest of physical actions is left dangling beyond the reach of her prose: “I slice another piece of venison, holding it against my mouth.” The global appeal of the novel has led some fans to hallow it as a classic, but, with all due respect, it is not to be confused with 'Madame Bovary.' Rather, 'Fifty Shades of Grey' is the kind of book that Madame Bovary would read. Yet we should not begrudge E. L. James her triumph, for she has, in her lumbering fashion, tapped into a truth that often eludes more elegant writers—that eternal disappointment, deep in the human heart, at the failure of our loved ones to acquire their own helipad."
"I fear that what you think of Fifty Shades of Grey may say more about you than it says about the movie itself. Personally, I was preoccupied throughout by one question: who cleans the Red Room of Pain (Mr Grey’s in-house dungeon)? It is extremely tidy, well-ordered and hygienic. Someone is doing an excellent job there. Let’s celebrate that person.
"This was just one of many practical questions raised by this strange, sometimes beautifully filmed, but deeply unsatisfying movie. There are far too many non sequiturs and narrative cul-de-sacs. How can Christian Grey’s life be so controlled and yet his mother is able to enter his house without ringing the doorbell? How did he find out that Ana works in the hardware store? Why, when he is the big, all-controlling boss man, does he let the chignon-wearing grey-suited automaton secretary ladies barge in on his “business meeting” (about butt plugs) with Ana?"
4) Peter Travers of Rolling Stone started his book/film critique thusly in the Feb. 11 edition.
"I'm shocked — shocked, do you hear me?!? — that the film version of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey is such a dull, decorous affair, about as erotic as an ad for Pottery Barn. Yeah, the book attracted 100 million readers in 52 languages. But the book sucked. I know there are three novels (Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed), but I only made it through the first one. Literary torture isn't my thing. But at least James suggested there might be something to learn from what connects a dominant and a submissive. (Only amateurs say 'sadist' and 'masochist.')
"Onscreen, directed by a slumming Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Man) from a sanitized script by Kelly Marcel, we have the story of a poor, virginal English major — one Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson). She finds the perfect man: Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), a 27-year-old, techno-billionaire hottie out to stop world hunger. Christian has a single flaw — he gets off by blindfolding Ana, tying her up in his Red Room of Pain, cuffing her to the wall and flogging her. What's a girl to do?
"According to the romance-novel sympathies of this movie, the answer is: domesticate him into a normal guy who'll cuddle in the sack, charm her parents and do her bidding. Whoops! Now who's being the dominant?"
For more fun, check out the full reviews available on the publications' websites.
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