• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

E.L. James: Fifty Shades of Grey

:whistling:
Polly Parrot said:
Congratulations - now how does it compare to Ulysses?
Click to expand...

I thought the Ulysses court case had settled the questions of literature and legality a long time ago and, more recently the Lady Chatterly's Lover court case around the time of the publication of Lolita.

I've read all of them and enjoyed them in different ways at different ages. As far as comparing and ranking them, they (including Fifty Shades) are all easily and recognizably different and any comparison will depend on what criteria one uses, and that is a thicket I am staying away from.

But the dissenting opinion I like best is that it/they are:

“literary ‘jazz,’ intriguing for sophisticated half-morons,”​

That is a real hoot and says so much more about the holder of the opinion than it does about any book, Fifty Shades included.

It is too bad that opinion about Fifty Shades is so one-sided. Otherwise it might make for good BOTM discussion. :innocent:
 
PS: Upon rereading, I think I should clarify that I emphatically do not share that dissenting opinion. It is just that, among examples of mud-throwing, it really stands out.
 
Past midway in Volume 2. The plot thickens nicely, and character development too. And the negative din continues on other forums amid dead silence here. Seems to me suspension of disbelief helps a lot in the reading -- and checking one's moralising instinct at the door.
Continuing on.
 
I belong to three other book forums and there has been no mention at all about Fifty Shades of Grey - two of the forums are in the States and the other one is a UK forum -strange!
 
Interesting. Constant Reader is currently doing a number on it, i.e disparaging it with about five posts in a solid row and a couple of others. It seems to be beneath their dignity.
 
I guess I'm naive but I didn't know what BDSM stood for and looked it up on Google. I think that would be enough to put me off reading a book without all the hype about this particular book which has never attracted me since it first appeared on the scene. Glad I didn't spend any money on it. :rolleyes:
 
canuck said:
I guess I'm naive but I didn't know what BDSM stood for and looked it up on Google. I think that would be enough to put me off reading a book without all the hype about this particular book which has never attracted me since it first appeared on the scene. Glad I didn't spend any money on it. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The funny thing is that although the book is supposed to be about BDSM, and is.......but not in the way one might think. The reader starts out believing that will be the only theme of the book when in fact it is only a small part.

For me the real theme is redemption of the male protagonist. There is lots of talk about dom/sub and most would think from superficially reading the blurbs that the woman is the one submissive.

In reality, she bends him to her will, not the other way around.

I've only read the first two so far, and with the hook at the second ending, I'll read the third as well.

No, it isn't Nabokov, it's not even the best erotica I've seen, but it did make me want to know how it ends up, and is he in fact redeemable.
 
canuck said:
I guess I'm naive but I didn't know what BDSM stood for and looked it up on Google. I think that would be enough to put me off reading a book without all the hype about this particular book which has never attracted me since it first appeared on the scene. Glad I didn't spend any money on it. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well, that's what makes horse races. I was curious about the book as soon as I heard of it from all the surrounding uproar, and I am glad I spent the money on it (all three, in fact). :)
 
Thanks Pontalba and Peder for your responses. It's always interesting to hear the whys and wherefores of other folks' choices. What originally called my attention to the book was that all three books were running at the top of the new releases fiction choices for a number of weeks. That was why I read the reviews and also read the posts in this thread. Glad that you both got something from the book(s). :)
 
This thread does make it tempting for me to actually pick up the book, even if it's just to see what the fuss is about. :D
 
Peder said:
Be careful what you get tempted by, because there is an awful lot of it in the book(s). :D
Click to expand...

Yea, my wife read it, and then I gave it a shot. I enjoyed it, but I have a sick sense of humor so I laughed most of the time :innocent:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top