50 shades of grey by E.L. James....
Last edited Fri May 4, 2012, 11:31 AM - Edit history (2)
anyone read it? Is anyone reading it?
I really don't like romance. I don't mind it as a second/third storyline, but not as the main plot. And it's my understanding that this is erotic romance--which is something I don't read--except for Laurell K Hamilton..she didn't start out like that and now it's like crack to me. I have to read the next Anita Blake adventure--it's a sickness.
But people are going crazy over this. Anyone?
http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Shades-Grey-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B007J4T2G8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1336145419&sr=1-1
= new reply since forum marked as read
Not interested. No way. No how. 
Horrible, because the writing is, well horrible. Worse than horrible. I am a writer and I don't have words for how horrible this writing is. It is horrible because the writer is a horrible writer, and it is horrible because it has not been worked on by an editor, who may have made it slightly less horrible.
For those who don't know, this execrable series began its life as Twilight fan fiction. The books follow the Twilight story arc and character development (if you could call that vapidity any kind of "development."
As such, it is true to type. The protagonist is a vacuous young woman of indeterminate physical type--she could be anyone, and that is the point. She has no life, no interests of any kind. She is a cipher. All the better for the reader to project her own dimensions onto her.
By contrast, the male is hyperdeveloped to the point (and well beyond) of hyperbole.
So here we are with our non-story: a sexed-up version of Twilight.
And, why it is important: this is what book publishing is going to look like. Any idiot with an idea who can tap into a zeitgeist can make eleventy billion dollars just like that. This "book" started out as fan fiction, then moved to web page, then digital download, and finally got picked up by some tiny house in Australia. Now look. It's a goddamn empire.
This terrible, terrible writer, writes pornography (let's call a spade a fucking shovel, shall we?) that women want to read.
She's no Anais Nin, this E.L. James. But she has somehow figured out the right formula of vanilla kink from a female perspective, that women love. Men will not like this unless it causes their wives to request spanking or light bondage. The (bad) prose is all touchy-feely with our vapid heroine's confusion and hammering heartbeat (I wish I was kidding).
After the first two or three sex scenes (there are dozens), I started skipping them to find out whether there really was a story there. Um, there's not, unless you count the tired gender tropes lumbering across the pages.
But now we know: women will buy porn, even badly written porn, if it follows the right formula. And if they can discreetly read it on their Kindles.
2) What's the problem with exploiting that formula for writing (or success in general)?
Fiction is successful based on what people will buy. It's fine to mourn the passing of great or classical literature, but I can't say that I have a problem with someone getting rich on frivolity. (I wouldn't be surprised if the person who invented silly putty made more money than the guys who pioneered the internet. Which has had a greater impact on the world?)
I say that without having read even a sampler of the book, though... I may be singing your tune if it's as bad as everybody says! 