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Tom M · 07-15-2012, 10:33 AM

Thought you folks across the pond might not see this review from the London Review of Books. Part of it anyway:

...Before we get to the designer labels – and in this, like so much else, James has learned a lot from the Jackies and the Judiths, to say nothing of the Harolds – we have a female protagonist who thinks like the scullery maid in a Victorian wank mag. To say the woman in this book is submissive won’t cover it. She likes to compare herself to the heroine of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, which is nice. But Tess has the whole of Victorian hypocrisy to contend with while Anastasia just has to worry – between delicious ‘humiliations’ – whether she’s got the right music on her iPod.

...He’s The Dominant. She’s The Submissive. But that’s not the end of it, because Fifty Shades of Grey has in store a further 300-page gala of repetitive sex, most of it – give or take a few smacks on the arse – completely conventional. I suspect the book has taken the world’s mums by storm because there’s no mess on the carpet and there are hot showers afterwards. Everybody is comfortable and everybody is clean: they travel ﬁrst-class, the rich give presents, the man uses condoms, and everything dark is resolved in a miasma of cuddles. In some quarters the publishing phenomenon of the year has been called ‘ﬁlthy’. But that must be a joke. It is a litany of swelling breasts and spent individuals, none of whom would be terriﬁcally out of place at the more modest end of Mills & Boon.

...In the absence of good comedy there is always the appeal of bad seriousness. Laughter arrives early here and it never stops coming – ‘in waves’, as the author might say. A great deal of fun can be had by noting the many comforts offered for a life of mild depravity: people in these novels don’t wear underpants they wear Calvin Kleins; they don’t wear sneakers they wear Converse; they don’t drink wine they have Pinot Grigio; nobody wears sunglasses they wear Ray-Bans; the girl doesn’t listen to music she listens to Snow Patrol. It’s not that having these things is at all unusual, but the speciﬁcity implies a desire much larger here than any desire people might have for kinky sex. They are buying the books because the books invite them to be submissive too, not to punishment, but to a 1980s-style dominance of money and power and products. (The word ‘ﬂog’ has more than one meaning.) Soft porn marries money very easily, a wish for diamonds especially. The conjunction would not have shocked Anita Loos, who liked a breathless girl, though the ceaseless gasping might have brought her up short:

07-15-2012, 10:33 AM	#3
Tom M Dreaming of Danielle Join Date: Jul 2011 Posts: 61	50 Shades Of Grey Thought you folks across the pond might not see this review from the London Review of Books. Part of it anyway: ...Before we get to the designer labels – and in this, like so much else, James has learned a lot from the Jackies and the Judiths, to say nothing of the Harolds – we have a female protagonist who thinks like the scullery maid in a Victorian wank mag. To say the woman in this book is submissive won’t cover it. She likes to compare herself to the heroine of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, which is nice. But Tess has the whole of Victorian hypocrisy to contend with while Anastasia just has to worry – between delicious ‘humiliations’ – whether she’s got the right music on her iPod. ...He’s The Dominant. She’s The Submissive. But that’s not the end of it, because Fifty Shades of Grey has in store a further 300-page gala of repetitive sex, most of it – give or take a few smacks on the arse – completely conventional. I suspect the book has taken the world’s mums by storm because there’s no mess on the carpet and there are hot showers afterwards. Everybody is comfortable and everybody is clean: they travel ﬁrst-class, the rich give presents, the man uses condoms, and everything dark is resolved in a miasma of cuddles. In some quarters the publishing phenomenon of the year has been called ‘ﬁlthy’. But that must be a joke. It is a litany of swelling breasts and spent individuals, none of whom would be terriﬁcally out of place at the more modest end of Mills & Boon. ...In the absence of good comedy there is always the appeal of bad seriousness. Laughter arrives early here and it never stops coming – ‘in waves’, as the author might say. A great deal of fun can be had by noting the many comforts offered for a life of mild depravity: people in these novels don’t wear underpants they wear Calvin Kleins; they don’t wear sneakers they wear Converse; they don’t drink wine they have Pinot Grigio; nobody wears sunglasses they wear Ray-Bans; the girl doesn’t listen to music she listens to Snow Patrol. It’s not that having these things is at all unusual, but the speciﬁcity implies a desire much larger here than any desire people might have for kinky sex. They are buying the books because the books invite them to be submissive too, not to punishment, but to a 1980s-style dominance of money and power and products. (The word ‘ﬂog’ has more than one meaning.) Soft porn marries money very easily, a wish for diamonds especially. The conjunction would not have shocked Anita Loos, who liked a breathless girl, though the ceaseless gasping might have brought her up short: