Fifty Shades of Snark, Part 2

Apparently, Ana's been gone for much longer than she was supposed to be, despite the fact that the interview as it was written can't have taken more than a half hour, at best. Kate meets her at the door and badgers her. Like Bella, her alter-ego, Ana is an amazing cook, so she asks if Kate has eaten her soup, like a good girl. Kate apologizes for leaving her hanging.

Ana goes to her job at a hardware store, even though she's "crap at any DIY" and leaves "all that to [her] dad." Remember: WIMMENS COOK, NOT BUILD. This is a pointless paragraph that serves only to reinforce the idea that Ana is perfect at everything womanly and not at anything non-womanly.

She goes home again. The Greatest Investigative Journalist Ever is on the couch, transcribing the interview. She asks Ana about Christian and Ana is clearly flustered. Kate is shocked. "You, fascinated by a man? That's a first," she tells her. Obviously, because remember, Ana has never felt this way about any man in all her, y'know, three or so years of dating experience.

Hilariously enough, Ana's working on an essay on Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Seriously, this chick is Bella Swan. Let's see if she has any pearls of wisdom about Wuthering Heights, while we're at it. And apparently her mother is flighty and gets married all the time, just like Bella's mom. I'm pretty sure the author of this book just used the Find and Replace feature in Word to change all the names from Bella to Ana and Edward to Christian, and didn't bother changing the characterization, like, at all.

And here comes the token Hispanic character, José, who is Kate and Ana's best friend but who, of course, is in love with Ana secretly, because just like Bella, all the boys are super in love with her and her freesia scent Japanamation eyes. Ana doesn't reciprocate this feeling, though, because although José is cute and funny, he's like a brother to her. And also he's not rich.

"Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Perhaps I’ve spent too long
in the company of my literary romantic heroes, and consequently my ideals and expectations are far too high." Ana, honey, I don't think it's that your expectations are too HIGH. I think it's that they are romance novel expectations. If you're taking relationship cues from eighteenth-century English novels, you're not ready for a real adult romance. Sorry.

Now we're back to Ana's day job. She's working the counter when Christian Grey shows up and gives her a massive coronary attack. Of course, he's looking pretty much like an Abercrombie model, only maybe even richer and more bourgie. Ana's heart is "pounding a frantic tattoo," to which I say, "editors, where the hell were you during the prepublication phase? WTF?"

Christian is the "epitome of male beauty," etc. He's looking for cable ties. And masking tape. And rope. All of which is supposed to be mysterious and sexy, I think, but it just creeps me out a little. Ana suddenly develops a split personality and begins arguing with herself about whether or not he came to Portland for her. No wonder she found his arrogance attractive.

He flirts. She blushes "the color of the communist manifesto," which, I would think, would be gray and paper-colored. Does the author realize that the Little Red Book and the Communist Manifesto are two completely different texts? You'd think someone who seems to be so interested in literature would be aware of this.

Ana gets him to agree to a photo shoot so her roommate can have a photo for her article. Then Ana's friend Paul comes over and gives her a hug, and this suddenly makes Christian cold and distant. Because, as we've learned from Twilight, WIMMENS CAN'T HAVE MALE FRIENDS.

Kate is thrilled about the photo shoot. She also seems to think Christian likes Ana. “The richest, most elusive, most enigmatic bachelor in Washington State, just gave you his cell phone number,” Kate tells Ana, disregarding the fact that what he actually did was give her a business card so she could contact him about taking a photo for a newspaper article, which is something that normal people do. They decide to make José do the photo shoot, because absolutely nothing could go wrong having the guy who loves Ana photograph the wealthy "Adonis" with whom she's become obsessed. NOTHING WHATSOEVER. Oh, and also, add Paul to the list of Guys Who Have A Crush On Mary Sue Ana Steele.

Ana calls Christian to set up the shoot. Naturally, she is "gushing and breathy – like a child, not a grown
woman who can vote and drink legally in the State of Washington." Methinks I detect a whiff of the classic "I'm soooooo mature for my age."

They all go to some Portland hotel to do the shoot, although really, I would have just asked him to send in a stock headshot and called it a day. And here we have an interesting little blip, as Kate meets Christian for the first time:

"She shakes his hand firmly without batting an eyelid. I remind myself that Kate has been to the best private schools in Washington. Her family has money, and she’s grown up confident and sure of her place in the world. She doesn’t take any crap. I am in awe of her."

Here I'm getting the sense that some, if not much, of what makes Christian so very--dare I say it?--dazzling to Ana is that he's wealthy. His well-groomed features, his intimidating confidence, his fancy clothes-- those are what make this small-town girl from Georgia feel so flustered. The poor boys who love her--José, the first-generation college student with an Army dad, and Paul, the son of hardware store owners-- don't have a chance, because what really makes Ana's head swim is wealth. Kate, who is born to this sort of existence--who doesn't have to worry about money any more than Christian does--isn't nearly as attracted to him.

The more I think about this, the more I see a strong undercurrent of conspicuous consumption and economic aspiration here. Part of the romance "fantasy" into which the reader steps involves wealth-- living in a sweet apartment with your rich best friend while paying "peanuts" for rent and borrowing her Mercedes at will? Being wooed by a man who has money to burn, who worked for it and earned it fair and square but conveniently isn't much older than you are, and oh, by the way, he wants to feed the poor? What struggling working class (or even middle class) woman wouldn't want to imagine that? And really, this strain is equally present in Twilight. Oh, my boyfriend is ridiculously wealthy and owns fourteen thousand luxury cars and, oh, did I mention we're honeymooning on his private island?

I wonder how these stories would be different without the money. I wonder if women would find Christian Grey as sexy without his billions of dollars. Or if they'd feel so swept-away by Edward if he drove a beat-up station wagon instead of a BWM.

ANYWAYS, the photo shoot wraps up, and Christian asks Ana out for coffee. She apparently has to switch vehicles with her roommate, which makes no sense b/c we've already established that Ana's car is SMALLER than Kate's, but...I dunno, I've stopped expecting this book to follow the rules of physics anymore.

Kate is suddenly very worried, because she thinks Christian is "dangerous" (Edward, is that you?), especially for an "innocent" like Bella Ana. But even though Ana hates coffee, she'll be damned if she's not going to suck down some of the awful stuff with Christian. They get into an elevator and he holds her hand and she freaks out about it, and now I'm gonna have "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" in my head all damn day. Gah.

They go to a coffee house, and Ana has tea, which she likes "black and weak." Seriously, she should have been like, "I like my tea like I like my men-- incredibly expensive and fairly bland." That would have been more truthful, anyway.

He asks her if she's dating either José or Paul, and observes that she's nervous around men, which he seems to like, creepily enough. He asks her about her family, and she rambles about her mother's flightiness. Apparently she thinks the fact that her mother has been married four times means she's an "incurable romantic," and not that she just has terrible taste in men.

Perhaps it's a genetic trait.