Fifty Shades of Snark, Part 3

They go outside, and somehow Christian saves Ana from being hit by a bike or something, which is just a pretext for her to end up in his arms trying to use mind-control to get him to kiss her. He doesn't. He's clearly all "I want you but I'm daaaaaangerous!" which Ana interprets to mean he doesn't want her. She leaves, she cries, she catalogues her "faults" in true Bella fashion. (Oh, no, she's too pale! Too skinny! How horrible it must be to be so thin and white! And with such large Japanamation eyes! How awful!)

She goes home, where Kate notices she's been crying. Ana chalks up the tears to the fact that she was "nearly knocked over by a cyclist," which everyone in this book seems to find appalling but which pretty much happens to me on a regular basis in Manhattan. They bicker about whether or not Christian likes her or whatever. Yawn. I feel like, by the time I'd reached college, I'd already gotten past the whole agonizing-over-whether-a-guy-likes-me-for-hours thing. Maybe it's just me.

We cut to Ana finishing her final exam, about which she's understandably very happy. She muses that she might get drunk in celebration, since apparently she's never been drunk before. Really? You're a senior in college and you've never been just a little drunk before? I'm just...highly skeptical, I guess. I was a goody-two-shoes English major, too, but I'd totally been drunk before my senior year ended.

She and Kate head back to their apartment to get a little crazy, but there's a package for Ana. It's three volumes of the first edition of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, from Christian Grey, duh. Ana figures out that he's trying to warn her away from him. She resolves to send them back with a cryptic, sarcastic note. Bet that doesn't happen, Ana, you drip.

They go to a bar and, lo and behold, actually do get drunk. Ana drunk-dials Christian, who is all, "Where are you? I NEED TO PROTECT YOU!" Okay, dad. She hangs up without telling him where she is. He calls back and claims he's coming to get her, even though she hasn't told him what bar she's visiting. She goes outside and José-- ahhhhh, José totally tries to date rape her, but Christian saves her! Just like when Edward saves Bella from the menacing gang-rape scenario in Port Angeles! THINGS ARE THE SAAAAAAME!

Christian holds her hair while she vomits, which is nice. Then he lectures her:

“We’ve all been here, perhaps not quite as dramatically as you,” he says dryly. “It’s
about knowing your limits, Anastasia. I mean, I’m all for pushing limits, but really this is
beyond the pale. Do you make a habit of this kind of behavior?”

Dude, aren't you only, like, six years older than her? Seriously, this whole father act is creeping me out. Also, apparently he tracked her phone to find out where she was. If it turns out he's been sneaking into her house and watching her sleep, he will officially be Edward Cullen.

He takes her inside and makes her drink some water. Then apparently he decides to dance with her? Because that's just what a girl wants to do after she's been vomiting for twenty minutes. But oh, wait, it's just so they can find Kate, who is pretty much openly salivating after Christian's brother, Elliot. Then Ana passes out.

She wakes up in a hotel room, in her tee shirt and underwear. Holy crap, how is she not freaking out about this? Christian comes in and asks her how she's feeling, and she answers "Better than I deserve," which makes me feel icky for reasons I don't quite understand. Apparently they didn't have sex, but he thought it was acceptable to take her pants off while she was unconscious. Again, I dunno exactly why this makes me so squirmy, but it totally does.

She's sort of like, "Dude, I didn't ask you to come and get me," and he's basically like, "Yeah, but you should be THANKING ME, because if I hadn't come along you'd have been totally RAPED, BITCH." Ugh. And then he refers to himself as a "Dark Knight." Sounds like someone's been reading a little too much Byron, if you ask me.

And then we have, so far, the most disturbing sentence in the book so far:

"Well, if you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday."

*shudder*

Followed almost immediately by this:

"He’s the only man who has ever set my blood racing around my body. Yet, he’s so antagonizing too; he’s difficult, complicated, and confusing. One minute he rebuffs me, the next he sends me fourteen-thousand-dollar books, then he tracks me like a stalker. And for all that, I have spent the night in his hotel suite, and I feel safe. Protected. He cares enough to come and rescue me from some mistakenly perceived danger. He’s not a dark knight at all, but a white knight in shining, dazzling armor – a classic romantic hero – Sir Gawain or Lancelot."

*eyeroll*

I think I must have been the only girl in the world who has never fantasized about a white knight coming to rescue me. Sure, I've been drawn to the dark and moody guys in my day, but I don't think I ever dreamed of someone coming to save me like in a fairy tale. Because, y'know, I like to save others, instead. I guess I'm the one with the savior complex.

And then, while she's in the shower, Ana has to go through the whole litany of "OMG, does he like me or not??" all over again. Gah. Really? Apparently the fact that he didn't violate her unconscious body means he couldn't really want her. What?

I kind of get the appeal of the "reluctant romantic" archetype, now that I really think about it. I think the reason this "gentlemanly" type-- the Edward, the Christian, the guy who wants you but doesn't make a move because he wants to protect you from himself-- is appealing to women precisely because we are so very used to being objectified. When I walk to work in the morning, I always wear headphones, even if I'm not even listening to anything on my iPod. Why? Because if I don't, I get cat-called, whistled at, propositioned. Women are constantly expected to be fending off advances from guys they don't want. So I totally understand the appeal of a guy who is sexy and who likes you and finds you attractive-- but who doesn't come on to you all the damn time, who hangs back, who isn't constantly coming forward. I can see the appeal there, actually.

Christian's dogsbody has brought Ana some new clothes, including, of course, ridiculous sexy underwear. Oh, geez. She goes out and has breakfast with him. He scolds her for having damp hair (???) and then admits that he totally wants to sex her up, but not romantically, just sexually. She's confused, and he says he'll "acquaint [her] with the facts" and obtain her "written consent" to sex her up tonight. She's like, "Yeah, totes, let's do it." He's all, "Hey, did you know I like to fly helicopters? Since I'm rich and all."

She brushes her teeth with his toothbrush in secret. And thinks it's hot. Okay, now Ana's the weirdo.

They get into the elevator and have a quick make-out sesh, and then Christian drives her home. Ana doesn't know who Thomas Tallis is, which means she obviously hasn't seen The Tudors yet. Talk about hot, debauched sex! They return to Ana's place to find Kate in a good mood, since she shagged Christian's seemingly nicer adopted brother the night before. The boys leave, the girls gossip. Ana goes to work and wonders--YET AGAIN--what he could possibly see in her, what with all that horrid thinness and paleness and all.

Y'know that friend you had in high school or college--the one who all the boys liked, who was skinny and lovely and flirtatious and shapely and totally cool, and knew it, but constantly complained about how her pores were huge or her eyes were too blue or some shit, because she loved to fish for compliments? That's who Ana reminds me of.

After work, Christian is waiting for her in an Audi. WTF is it with this book (and Twilight, for that matter) being so weirdly specific about car makes and models? Like, a car is never just a car-- it's a Mercedes, a BMW, an Audi, a Rolls Royce. Seriously? Who the hell cares? I don't know the difference. I feel like I get more complete descriptions of the cars than I do of the people. It's like, hey, Christian Grey drives a 2012 Audi A5 with leather interior and moon roof and heated massage seats, and oh, also, he has hair of some color or whatever. (By the way, I had to Google "Audi" just now to find out what the model names were. Because us priests' wives are not exactly experts on luxury anything vehicles.)

Christian has had a long day of hiking with his brother. How does someone who had built a multi-billion dollar corporation by the age of 27 have time for all this hiking and dancing and coffee and meeting with random college student newspaper journalists for interviews and photo shoots? I dunno, it's a mystery. They take off in his fancy helicopter, because of course he's a helicopter pilot, too, which I'm sure he learned to do in his inexplicably vast amounts of spare time. Ana compliments him by calling him "competent," which seems like a pretty tepid compliment to me. She keeps thinking about how she's in over her head, out of her depth, blah blah blah. They go to his gleaming white palatial apartment and have some wine. Ana asks him why he gave her Tess of the D'Urbervilles as a gift. He replies: "It seemed appropriate. I could hold you to some impossibly high ideal like Angel Clare or debase you completely like Alec D’Urberville." I don't really think Tess is a literary heroine whose relationships I'd like to echo in my own life. Talk about a Madonna/whore dichotomy here. Yuck.

Then he makes her sign a non-disclosure agreement before they have sex, which she doesn't even read before she signs it.

And with that, this book crosses way beyond creepy into outright alarming.

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.

Fifty Shades of Snark, Part 1

Okay, here goes.

After the dull-looking cover (hey, you know what makes interesting cover art? A picture of a gray tie. That'll reel 'em in!), we find an "About the Author" page that informs us that EL James is a "TV executive, wife, and mother of two" who "dreamt of writing stories that readers would fall in love with, but put those dreams on hold to focus on her family and her career." Apparently this novel represents her first attempt to "[pluck] up the courage to put pen to paper," which is confusing to me since I didn't think writing stories took a lot of courage. Sharing stories takes courage, of course. Letting other people read what you write can be gut-wrenching. But actually writing stories, ones that you can keep to yourself if they don't turn out well? I don't think that's particularly brave. I'm a writer, and I don't think I have to "pluck up the courage" to write-- I just have to do it. It can be hard work, of course, but it's not really that intimidating to write stuff for your own pleasure.

Anyways.

We meet our narrator and heroine, Ana, a college student who, in the grand tradition of Mary Sues, happens to be pale and have humungous Japanamation eyes and conform to all modern beauty standards and yet simultaneously thinks she's just a mess, a total mess. She's flustered because her roommate Kate is sick and now she has to take over Kate's interview with an "enigmatic CEO" and university donor for the school newspaper. I don't really get why this is her job-- shouldn't, I dunno, another student from the paper be doing this?-- but whatever.

Kate is, of course, "gamine and gorgeous," with strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes. Ooooh, threesome maybe?

Ana muses that Kate will make a wonderful journalist, as she is "articulate, strong, persuasive, argumentative, [and] beautiful." Because physical beauty is the key to being a newspaper reporter, obvs.

Ana "gather[s] her satchel," like a good British--I mean, American--girl, and borrows her roommate's Mercedes for the drive to Portland. (Side note: Why do all trashy romance novels seem to take place in the Pacific Northwest? Seriously.) Here the author actually uses the phrase "floor the pedal to the medal." I just read that phrase in an actual published novel. That just happened. My brain just exploded and I'm only on page 8.

Ana gets to this guy's office, which is made of steel and stone and is imposing and cold and blah blah blah. She's greeted by yet another attractive woman, and thank God, because what would literature be if we started writing about women who weren't attractive?

And OMG, Ana's full name is Anastasia Steele. I think I've just decided that she's Rayford Steele's long-lost sister.

Ana signs in at the front desk, blathers on about how she clearly doesn't belong there in her one brown skirt and messy hair, and refers to herself as looking "smart," which I'm pretty sure American college students wouldn't say. She is whisked upwards in an elevator at "terminal velocity," which makes me think, in an Inigo Montoya voice, "That phrase...I do not think it means what you think it means." She refers to herself as "Steele" in her inner monologue, which makes me wince a bit. Apparently the brilliant journalist roommate is such a brilliant journalist that she didn't even equip her randomly chosen replacement with a brief biography of the interview subject. Ana freaks out a little about her lack of basic preparation, as well she should.

Cue the next series of beautiful blonde women (Ana remarks that it's "like Stepford here," which makes me both laugh and involuntarily gag at the same time), who get her water and usher her in to see Mr. Grey. (Ha ha, get it? Fifty Shades of Grey? The guy's name is Grey? Oh, how very clever.)

Predictably, Mr. Grey is tall and attractive with--guess what?--gray eyes. His office is "way too big for just one man." (That's what she said!) She's awkward, he's handsome. She approves of his art, remarking that the paintings in the office are "raising the ordinary to the extraordinary." This proves that she indeed does not know what many words in the English language mean. Perhaps she should rethink this whole English Lit major thing. Mr. Grey "couldn't agree more" with her statement, which proves that he isn't actually paying attention to a damn thing that comes out of her mouth.

She refers to him as an "Adonis." How very Bella Swan of her.

She's still awkward, he's still cold and handsome and aloof. He uses the word "incentivize," which makes me want to strangle someone. She interviews him about his success, and he starts spouting arrogant bullcrap. She's understandably annoyed, and calls him a control freak, and he's pretty much like, Hellz yeah, bitch! She's disgusted by his arrogance, of course.

She does get him to admit that he invests in farming technologies because he wants to help feed starving people, or something. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless he's investing in farming technologies in East Africa, but okay, I'll just go with it. He goes off on a spiel about wanting to "possess things" and how he's the "ultimate consumer." Gee, can you tell a TV exec wrote this?

He figures out, using his super-duper investigative powers, that Ana is only there because she happens to be friends with the girl who was supposed to do the interview, not because she's an actual journalist or anything. As a result, he decides he gets to ask her questions about her personal life now. Suddenly, and for pretty much no reason at all, he's all offering her an internship at his company and shit. She's incredibly freaked out by this, which makes sense since he's basically offering her a job based on her appearance and not her actual qualifications. She hightails it out of there ASAP.

As soon as she's outside, she tries to figure out why "no man has ever affected [her] the way Christian Grey has." She wonders if it's his wealth, power, or "civility." I think it's probably because she's all of 21 years old, so really, how many men can have "affected" her at this point?

On the drive home, she muses endlessly about why she found him so uber-sexy. She seems to believe that he has a "right" to be arrogant because he's made a lot of money or whatever. Really? Bah.

Fifty Shades of Snark- Introduction

[From here on out, I'm gonna assume that every reader is familiar with Cleolinda's Twilight Recaps and the Slacktivist's witty and fascinating serial Left Behind critiques. If you're not...become so, posthaste. You'll thank me later.]

If you've never heard of the book Fifty Shades of Grey, you have been missing out, because, dude, this shit is ridiculous. What happened was that a woman wrote a Twilight fanfiction piece and posted it on the internet, and then somehow decided that she ought to change the names and publish this stuff as an e-book. Then all these New York stay-at-home-moms became obsessed with it and then other ladies also became obsessed with it and now it's, like, an actual bestselling series. Oh, and it's an erotic novel about a BDSM relationship between a college student and a businessman. Yes, that really happened. No, I am not making this up.

I've had some friends express curiosity, interested disgust, and mild amusement at the prospect of reading this book, but few of them have actually been brave enough to jump in, considering the terrible reviews and the mountains of violently purple prose into which they would have to wade. So you know what? I'm gonna take the bullet for us all. I will sacrifice myself so that you, dear reader, can take pleasure from the horribleness of pseudo-Twilight-fanfiction-masquerading-as-actual-fiction without being forced to support the twisted literary machine that decided this shit was acceptable in the first place.

In the grand tradition of reading terrible literature and making fun of it on the internet, I've decided that I will be reading Fifty Shades of Grey and recapping it here. This way you don't have to spend money buying the books, or waste time going to the library, or kill any more of your brain cells than you absolutely must. (Although, in all fairness, you'll still lose a few. I'm not a very good writer, either.)

Aren’t you glad I’m spending my summer reading trashy fiction and complaining about it to you instead of making money to support myself? You’re welcome.