http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/04/18/so-i-read-fifty-shades-of-grey Comments On: So I Read <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em> by Paul Constant en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 11:15:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by monsterstilettos]]> Fri, 16 Nov 2012 17:07:00 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Firespirit]]> Mon, 10 Sep 2012 19:43:13 -0700 The Stranger Posted by omrxb]]> Sat, 01 Sep 2012 12:26:06 -0700 The Stranger Posted by berns_yellow]]> Thu, 05 Jul 2012 12:12:31 -0700 The Stranger Posted by bobbilou]]> Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:04:46 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Certainly!]]> Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:26:03 -0700 The Stranger Posted by HORNS]]> Fri, 08 Jun 2012 07:14:58 -0700 The Stranger Posted by feindt]]> Fri, 08 Jun 2012 06:34:30 -0700 The Stranger
I recall an exchange from "Broadcast News" :

Aaron Altman: I know you care about him. I've never seen you like this about anyone, so please don't take it wrong when I tell you that I believe that Tom, while a very nice guy, is the Devil.
Jane Craig: This isn't friendship.
Aaron Altman: What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

This book, and all the dung out there like it, lowering our standards...you got it - The Devil
Posted by nikinou]]> Tue, 22 May 2012 08:31:36 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Henree Miller]]> Sat, 12 May 2012 15:21:54 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Lilian]]> Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:05:43 -0700 The Stranger http://www.foreveryoungadult.com/2012/04…

"Y’all. Y’ALL. Look, I knew this book was not going to be good, OBVIOUSLY, but I thought AT LEAST the sex scenes would be good! Or at least so shocking that I was a little bit prudishly appalled by them. BUT NO. THEY WERE SO FUCKING LAME, YOU GUYS. I literally mean that, as in, the fucking in this book is partially immobile! Ugh, I actually turned to my boyfriend this weekend...and told him that the sex in this book was turning me off sex entirely. It’s just so awful. First of all, James falls victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous of which is “never enter into a land war in Asia,” but only slightly less-well-known is this: Never write erotica if your main character can’t say the word ‘vagina!’”

Seriously. I made it though half this book. The main character only uses the words “down there.” It’s fucking pathetic."


Posted by virginia mason]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:45:08 -0700 The Stranger
I hope the readers who are shelling out money for this book are able to evolve and find some truly worthwhile erotica to read.
Posted by easternstar]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:50:35 -0700 The Stranger Posted by Allyn]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:26:25 -0700 The Stranger
I bought a couple of books by Lexi Harper and cringe every time I try to read one of her short stories. If I could laugh about how bad they are, maybe I wouldn't resent the ten bucks I spent on them.

Re: literotica - so much crap to weed through, but the good stories are usually rated highly.
Posted by Allyn]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:12:02 -0700 The Stranger I'm not dissing Twilight (and, by extension, Fifty Shades of Grey) because they're written for teenagers. Ever heard of Judy Blume? She writes for teens and does it well. I loved all the Harry Potter books; the last one had me up reading until 3:00 a.m. because I couldn't put it down.

But Meyers? Bleh. And I'll take Paul Constant's word that E.L. James is worse; I'm not subjecting myself to a pale imitation of books I already can't stand.
Posted by Clayton]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:01:21 -0700 The Stranger
An example of a fanfic author who successfully transitioned to pro writing is Naomi Novik and her Temeraire series.
Posted by starsandgarters]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:29:38 -0700 The Stranger "when you sell a million records/just means a million people are dumb as fuck". Immortal Technique.
Posted by Cat Brother]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:08:43 -0700 The Stranger
[Except book 4, which is really two books squashed together and it shows--the editor and publisher dropped the ball on this one.]

Second, people, you can criticize Romance novels, Harlequin or not, but most of them are at least written to an acceptable level. It comes as a shock for all the people who scorn them that most romance novels are written very well. If you don't like romance, don't read them. I don't care for mysteries, myself, but I don't make fun of the entire genre.

Lastly, Paul is so right: "Fifty Shades of Gray" is pretty awful. At the bookstore where I work, I tried reading it on my lunch break and was unimpressed. The sex scenes aren't even that good.

I cringe every five minutes when I have to hand one to a customer. I have to resist the urge to say, wait, I can show you much better sex writing than this. Alas, I'm in the business to sell books, and they are selling, so I keep quiet.


Posted by Bugnroolet]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:50:37 -0700 The Stranger Posted by coswin]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:45:39 -0700 The Stranger
Seriously, I'm not surprised. Middle America seems to need to read their weakly transgressive books of titillation and feel a little warmer. Anybody remember "The Sheik"? Big book sensation of 1919. The big thrill there was a proper Englishwoman being captured, "ravished", and then falling in love with a desert bandit -- who, at the end of the book turned out to be a Englishman in mufti, for some reason -- I read it once and the writing is not smooth or able.
Posted by --MC]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:45:36 -0700 The Stranger
How about "I scowl in the mirror"? Whom else would the narrator see but herself?

@ Paul,
You're a better man than I am. I could never do more than get 300 pages into the first book in the Twilight series. In that 300 pages, precisely two things had happened: Edward had saved Bella from a skidding van, and Edward had saved Bella from an assault/robbery/potential rape. The other 298 pages were nothing more than meditations on how good-looking Edward was. I have nothing against good-looking guys (I'm married to one), but I just wanted the story to move on already.

I did manage to watch the second twilight movie, at the end of which Edward proposes to Bella. At the end of that movie, the question in my mind wasn't whether I was "Team Edward" or "Team Jacob." It was why either Edward or Jacob wanted to spend eternity with Bella; I could barely stand to spend two hours with her! She struck me as a whiny, angsty, self-absorbed boring little twit.
Posted by Clayton]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 06:47:04 -0700 The Stranger Hmm. Nope. It's no better.
Posted by Dr_Awesome]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 06:06:09 -0700 The Stranger
There really isn't a whole lot of difference between Harlequin romances, which are perfectly mainstream and widely read by women including fairly conservative grandmothers in their 80s (like mine, she's addicted to them), and erotica. About the only real difference is the level of detail describing the sex so I'm not surprised an erotic novel is selling so well. What surprises me is that it's a novel about BDSM that is doing so well and I don't know if that is a good thing or not. Getting people to accept that it's sexy and fairly normal is good but I'm dreading all the innocent housewives who start showing up at events or find Fetlife and have heart attacks when they see some of the play people do (though my sadistic streak also wants to see the looks on their faces).
Posted by Noadi]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:40:36 -0700 The Stranger Best seller just means the publisher has printed and sent a ton of the books to bookstores, hoping to sell them.
Posted by Fire Chief]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:35:04 -0700 The Stranger