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Book Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

I still play World of Warcraft. (The reason for this admission will become relevant. Stay with me.)

One of my favorite things to do in WoW is to take one of my high-level, geared healers and go along on low-level dungeons. There's something great about when a tank realizes that unless he does something catastrophically stupid, he can't die. I think of it as a public service.

And that's why I've read Fifty Shades of Grey. As a public service. And so you don't have to.

Fifty Shades of Grey, otherwise known, in some circles, as "mommy porn", started its life as Twilight fan fiction. That's right, boys and girls, it was originally Bella and Edward doing the nasty with duct tape and belt straps. The story goes that the mods of the fan fiction site the stories were posted on took the material down because it wasn't in line with the good ol' fashioned no biting, er, sex until marriage as prescribed by the Mormon church. All the better for author E.L. James, who took her sex fantasies, packaged them into three books, and is now a multi-millionaire.

Fifty Shades of Grey is the first book in the series. It's about a naive recent college grad named Anastasia Steele and her affair with Christian Grey, a slightly older, incredibly wealthy businessman with mommy issues. Steele is a repressed virgin; Grey has a room in his house devoted to bondage and S&M play. Oh, we have to get these crazy kids together!

And together they come. Wait, that didn't...I...you see.... Moving on.

Nothing much happens during the first quarter of the book. He moves between being an jackass and a gentleman. She's conflicted about taking up with a man that she finds rude and repulsive, yet makes her, erm, loins pulse? He takes her on a helicopter ride and gets jealous over her only male friend. Her friends think he's an ass but push her towards him. Yadda, yadda.

When sex finally shows up, it's with the tittering of junior high schoolers talking about "doing it." That is, it feels disconnected from anything resembling reality. Anastasia loses her virginity (something she has held onto until her early 20s so it must have been kinda important to her, right?) to Grey, a man whose idea of foreplay is to present Anastasia with a multi-page contract outlining what she can eat and wear as well as what sexual acts will define their relationship. About that contract: despite his assertions that the rules are for both of them, it defines her role as his sexual slave (he's the dominant). By signing, she becomes a toy he can take out of its box to tie up in private and dress up for the public. While Anastasia takes a kind of lethargic offense to the idea of the contract, that doesn't stop her from spending the majority of her time outside Grey's so-called "Red Room of Pain" (it is what it sounds like) thinking about signing it just so she and Grey can be together.

Let me repeat that: this 21st century, college educated woman spends her waking moments so consumed with the idea of bagging a rich, good-looking guy that she doesn't really balk at the idea of signing a contract in which she is reduced to a commodity. A contract that would give him control because, according to him, that's the way things need to be. Add to that, it's clear early on that this guy has serious mommy issues and might even possibly be a sociopath. Not only does Anastasia not hop on the first train/plane/mule out of town, she plays the submissive at every turn, letting him be the white knight to her proverbial damsel-in-distress, while not thinking it strange that he has a way of showing up unannounced at the most opportune times. Apparently, it's not stalking if he's rich enough.

All that aside, a book like this is supposed to be all about the carnal interludes. Bad news: they aren't particularly sexy or dangerous. I won't lie, there are moments where the book felt like a honest piece of erotica and not the mad ravings of a repressed housewife, but Fifty Shades being sold as erotica is disingenuous: this book isn't about sex; it's about the idea of snagging a rich, powerful, good-looking guy who puts his woman on a pedestal. Like Stephanie Meyer--who destroyed vampire lore and feminism in her series--Jones clearly believes that all a woman really wants is a man who makes all the other ladies swoon and has a bank account big enough to make sure she's well taken care of.

Some may say books like Fifty Shades and Twilight, these forays romantic debauchery, are harmless. Are they? We now have an entire generation of teens who think that there's something romantic about what is essentially stalking and that love is defined not by compromise, but by being willing to give up everything and everyone that defines you.  Oh, and that a perfectly healthy response to being jilted by "true love" is curling into the fetal position and considering suicide. How is any of that harmless? I'm not saying there isn't room in erotic fiction for very soft books like Fifty Shades, but does it deserve to have a place at the front of the genre with millions of fans who use it to define their romantic lives? I would say no.

I've written a lot so far and haven't even touched on the writing, which is atrocious. The books began their life as self-published digital downloads and I don't think Vintage Books did much in the way of editing when they picked the series up for print. A good editor might have really made a difference here. I don't think I would've liked the story any better, but it certainly would have made the whole thing more readable. As it was, I found myself editing through James' syntax issues and poor word choices (those of you who have read it will understand when I say that I don't think she knows what the word 'murmur' means....) as I read. Plus, it's too long with rambling passages that do nothing to further the characters or the story. I think it might be possible to read just every other page and feel like you've missed nothing.

Fifty Shades of Grey is not a good book: it's overwritten and its notions about male/female dynamics are just silly. With that said, there are moments of tantalizing eroticism with a hint at their psychological underpinnings that tease at a much more interesting story; a story I kept hoping would rise above all of James' anti-feminist babble. The book ends with the possibility of Anastasia coming into her own self, her independence. I'm betting that doesn't last though--there are two more books in the series.

The Greatest Show on Earth?

Tomorrow Water for Elephants--the life-under-the-Big-Top depression-era movie with Reese Witherspoon and Edward Cullen--will be released on DVD. 

As a real life primer to the animal cruelty depicted in the film and book, check out this this investigation from Mother Jones about the disturbing practices that are still rampant at Ringling Brothers and the USDA's inability to charge the company with any violations.

Book Review: The Abbey (2011)

The Abbey, by first-time author Chris Culver, is one of those less-than-a-buck-from-Amazon-ebooks. I wasn't expecting much. What I got was a taut thriller that, despite a few missteps in the third act, could give Michael Connelly or Jeffrey Deaver a run for their money.

The book opens with Detective Sergeant Ash Rashid heading to the family home of a recent murder victim to deliver the bad news. He's gone through this scene dozens of times before. It never gets any easier--especially now that the victim is his 16-year-old niece, whose body was found in the guest house of one of the city's most wealthy families.

Ash, who happens to be Muslim, left homicide some time before (his back story is hinted at and would make an interesting story on its own) but is fed information about his niece's case from an old partner. When the head of the homicide division closes the case with a resolution that's a bit too neat for Ash to stomach, he opens his own off-the-books investigation revealing crooked cops, a vampire club that may be a front for a drug den, and a crazed doctor who takes a personal interest in Ash.

Culver does a good job of fleshing out Ash as more than just a cop, but as a devoted husband and father and a semi-devout, but trying, Muslim. Ash is constantly at odds trying to balance his faith with what he must sometimes so to get through his days on the job. He's a person with real flaws that don't hinder his work and home life, but do hint at a darker future.

The book moves at a fairly brisk and believable pace for the first two acts. In the third, things falter as the story begins to fold under the weight of its subplots becoming a bit convoluted and wrapping up the main action a little too neatly.

The main selling point of The Abbey is the writing. The Abbey, like the best books in the genre, isn't lyrical--the writing is crisp and efficient, making it easy to fall into and travel with the story.

The Abbey is an impressive debut novel. It's proof that, perhaps, some of the more interesting new writers are eschewing the traditional publishing model for self-distribution.

I'm looking forward to Cullver's follow-up (supposedly featuring the same characters), which is due out later this year.

Buy The Abbey for the Kindle

New to Theaters: 9/16/2011

Major releases this week include:

Drive
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston

Although, at first glance, it looks like a movie that might star Nicholas Cage in his post-Oscar action picture cash grab or as a soon-to-be cancelled series on Fox, Drive--starring Ryan Gosling as the Driver--is getting great reviews.

Gosling stars as an stuntman who spends his evenings as a getaway driver for armed heists. When his boss (played by Bryan Cranston of "Breaking Bad") gets in over his head to the local tough guys, the Driver gets involved with one of those "big score" jobs that define movies like this.

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: Very Fresh (sitting at 93%)

I Don't Know How She Does It
Directed by Douglas McGrath
Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer

I read this book! I didn't care for the story much, but the writing was great so.... That doesn't help us here, does it?

Sarah Jessica Parker takes time off from looking disappointed with Matthew Broderick and lobbying for Sex in the City 3: Nudist Colony to star as Kate, a 30-something (who's SJP kidding?) wife, mother, and financial analyst. To the rest of the world, Kate looks like the perfect everything, but she's drowning in a sea of her own stress. It's supposed to be a comedy. I think.

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: Really Rotten (20% as of this writing)

Straw Dogs 
Directed by Rod Lurie
Starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgard

The original Straw Dogs (1971; directed by Sam Peckinpah) is one of the more challenging movies I've ever seen. Love it or hate it, it uses violence deliberately to challenge the viewer's ideas on morality and vengeance. It's a film that every burgeoning movie buff should seek out.

That's why this remake puzzles me. There's absolutely no need for it. I'll acquiesce that there's little need for most remakes, but this one befuddles me. Peckinpah's film is near perfect and Dustin Hoffman, in the main role as a timid man pushed over the edge, is absolutely brilliant. I just don't buy that this version, from the director/writer of the short-lived TV series "Commander in Chief" (remember? Geena Davis as the first female President?) and starring the hot vampire from "True Blood", will be much to remember. I sort of hope I'm wrong. The premise alone deserves a storyteller's respect and I would hate for a younger generation to know it only through a deflated remake.

Rotten Tomatoes Rating: Rotten (Turns out I'm not wrong. Rent the original.)