Fifty Shades of Grey

Most of my mom friends (pretty much everyone who's read "Twilight") have read it.

Their consensus -- badly-written porn.

Some of 'em love it anyway though.

My neighbor, S, her mouth set in a firm line and her eyes blazing asked me if I'd read them and when I said "No" her jaw dropped.

Oh my!

She pressed them upon me, her mouth quirking up and her eyes getting dark. I tried to resist. What would the Christians think? My mind was wild. What should I do?

I'm reading them with a smirk and an eye roll. A guilty pleasure, to be sure.

I thought they were going to be really perverted but Oh my!, they're really much tamer than I thought. But kind of fun.

I understand the author is making about a million dollars a week. Oh my! Good for her.

Could you give me one reason why hould read this tripe? Just one.

I can't answer for Crazielady but for me it was simply that they are a huge piece of popular culture and I love pop culture.

A good parody of the writing style, there, boomerang.

"Soccer Mom Porn," now there's a wonderful tag.

I came across this article in the Guardian today.
Posting it here for anyone who's interested.
Haven't read the book myself & know next to nothing about it, but it sounds like the author is in the process of becoming very, very rich!



Why women love Fifty Shades of Grey:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/06/why-women-love-fifty-shades-grey

I'll wait for the movie

Haha Soccer Mom Porn it is!

I enjoyed the book, it was a nice escape for the everyday lull... then again I did enjoy twilight but I don't think the two are alike.

I hear she is now considering writing the book from Christian Grey's point of view.... I don't understand the logic here, I know how the story goes, I know he is fifty shades of f*cked up... why do I need to re-read it in another form? It's not going to change it!!

Evidently it started as Twilight fan fiction -- the girl and guy were Bella and Edward, then someone objected, and it evolved into its present form.

I don't think they're that much alike but among my friends, the pro and con camps seem to fall along Twilight lines. (People who liked Twilight like "50 Shades," people who didn't like Twilight don't like "50 Shades.")

And people do tend to have opinions about it!!! It was the topic of a rather animated conversation at a recent large outing.

A Guardian columnist reported that she asked her friend about Fifty Shades Of Grey and he replied "Oh you mean the wank book". (They aren't prudish at the Guardian). It is widely being said to be very, very badly written indeed. Apparently these days publishers understand there is a demographic of female readers who want something which is at the same time erotic enough to get them in the mood for masturbation or sex, and also respectable.

Honestly, I am not sure if I even noticed how poorly written the book was, my aunt recommended the book to me and I couldn't put it down.

I mean in reality, who would really want such a complicated man, there is absolutely no logic and any girl in her right mind would run.... but throw some hot crazy sex into the mix and I guess it must be worth it!!! Who woulda thunk it :-D

I remember reading a hilarious book years ago called "The Boyfriend School".

In the book a journalist is sent to cover a convention of romance writers. One of the writers fills her in on the "pink ghetto" and wonders why the only books directed specifically to woman are so often ridiculed.

I thought that was a legitimate question and it has always stuck with me, especially in comparison to gory murder novels that sell like hotcakes and don't get made fun of. The formula is really very similar.

I think one of the reasons this book has done so well is that they didn't put a swooning damsel and a hunky man on the cover. I think that might have got it placement outside the romance section of stores. When I worked in a very upscale bookshop in Chicago romance novels flew off the shelves but women were often embarrassed to be buying them.

I agreed with the cover, if it had indeed had one of those hunky covers, I would have never given it the time of day.

I know several people that have read the book and loved it. I also know a few that attempted to read it and just couldn't get into it at all.

There is a male equivalent to this. Bernard Cornwell is a very successful writer of "historical fiction." All of his books are buckets of blood, and the writing is very formulaic. Men who are wounded "scream like a pig being gelded" or they make "a mewing noise." The killers usually express contempt for those who make "a mewing noise." Those who do the killing, in the novels set in Saxon times or the Hundred Years War, are "sheeted with blood" from the wounds they inflict. For the Sharpe series (about 20 or so novels), there other formulae to show the effects of black powder weapons.

That writing is meant to appeal to (a rather immature) male audience eager for tales of dering-do, the bloodier the better. His historical research is pretty thorough, and the best of them, such as Azincourt, rank as good historical novels. However, he did a series on the American civil war, the "Starbuck" novels. I read the first one, and found it very unconvincing. He completely missed the speech mannerisms of Southerners in general and Virginians in particular. He also had a glaring error of historical fact: he described Beauregard as commanding the Army of Northern Virginia, in June, 1861, before the first battle of Manassas, a.k.a. Bull Run. The Army of Northern Virginia did not exist at that time. After that battle, a "Department of Northern Virginia" was created, but Lee, in June, 1862, was the first commander to issue orders from "Headquarters, Army of Northern Virginia." The army Beauregard commanded was known, informally, as the Army of the Potomac.

No big deal, right? Well, not exactly. If he can't render the speech idioms of Southerners, and he fails in such a basic part of his historical research as the name of the Confederate army which fought at Bull Run, what else has he gotten wrong? I know English history pretty well, but i do wonder about the accuracy of his books. I think he must have been criticized somewhat, because over the last everal years, his product is better, from an historical perspective, and his "Historical Notes" section at the end of his novels is much better. He still makes terrible gaffs. In 866-67, a Danish fleet landed near what is now York, and eventually defeated the Saxons and overran Northunbria. The leaders of that invasion force were Ivar "the Boneless" (he was very skinny, this is historically accurate) and Ubbe Ragnarson. He calls them Ivar and Ubba Lothbrokson. Their father was Ragnar Lothbrokson. But they were not the sons of Lothbrok, they were his grandsons. Cornwell never accounts for this in his historical notes. So, once again, i think there may have been a certain amount of quiet criticism which has lead him to clean up his act. If he wishes to aspire to a higher literary reputation as a writer of historical novels, he needs to meet a higher standard. That greater effort can be seen in the novel Azincourt.

However, my main point is that this is someone who is writing, or at least started out writing, for men what would be the equivalent of "romance novels" for women. Keep that in mind the next time some joker scoffs at romance novels. Many historical novels and most "Westerns" are just the male equivalent of romance novels.

I don't think my neighbor would have bought it if it had a hunky cover either. She's in her 70s and is most definitely not the romance novel type. She reads an amazing amount of books -- easily 5 or 6 a week -- from every genera. Her enthusiasm is what convinced me to give them a whirl.

I think this book might be a game changer for the mega-million dollar romance novel sector.

Exactly!

I don't see the harm. It does not drive readers to commit murder or suicide. Just a harmless diversion. It does not seem to make pretensions, like The Story of O. I give it a five, because one can apparently dance to it.

In my opinion Cornwell's a pretty good and competent writer. I haven't read any of the Starbuck novels so I can't comment on that. I hought the trilogy set during the Hundred Years' War and featuring the English bowman in search of the Holy Grail (subtle allegory there?) was outstanding. Cornwell can describe a bloody action scene better than anyone else I can think of offhand. I've read a couple or three of the Sharpe series and didn't think they came anywhere near in quality to the Hundred Years' War stuff. But when an author starts an extended series like that, a certain amount of predictable formulaism is inevitable.