Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James: review – Telegraph
Well, yes, sometimes it occurs that mass enthusiasm convinces me that something’s worth reading or simply I just give in to my curiousity. It was a little of both this time and my feelings are quite ambivalent.
Most of all, I was sort of prepared that the language doesn’t reach literary quality, but it was way below my expectations even this way. I know it’s pulp fiction and I shouldn’t expect it to be like quality literature, but for me it was like one of those teenager hit stories, written for teenagers, and almost sounding like they were written by teenagers. I even thought that maybe the original might be better (I read the Hungarian translation), but then I was told it was even worse. I find this style annoying and never really liked those teens’ favourite novels in the first place (perhaps when I used to be a teenager but I am having a bit of a hard time recalling it now).
Because of this, I find it even harder to understand the “mummy porn” thing. Why would people ever say that? I mean it is about young people, written in this “Twilight”-ish style. Yes, it was written by a mature lady, but still, I don’t get it. Do they say it because all the older ladies are its biggest fans?
Even the character of Mr. Grey reminded me of a vampire or one of those fictional creatures, who appears in the guise of a human, but he is not one. For the book’s alleged psychological effect though, I don’t think so. Anyone who thinks it’s going to have any negative effect on people, is just considering us all dumb. Sure there may be people who shouldn’t be reading such things, but I wouldn’t think it has the power to do any harm on society as it is.
As for the story, it was sort of lukewarm for me until the very last pages. My interest was only truly awakened towards the very end, in terms of we never really learned what happened that upset him, and like ‘will he tell her anything she wants to know?’. He didn’t, really. At least not in the first part.
If I ever try the sequels it is only going to be for the story, this ending sort of left me curious about a few things (nice move!). But for now, I am so desperately in need of some meaningful, intelligent, classic literary work!
Both my subconscious and my inner goddess agree. 🙂
