Fifty Shades of Grey? It wouldn’t get Lady Chatterley blushing

Have you heard about a book called Fifty Shades of Grey? Yes, it’s the book that has supposedly got the whole world reaching for the smelling salts, the erotic tale of how beautiful but innocent literature student, Anastasia Steele, falls head over Jimmy Choos for passionate billionaire (and control freak) Christian Grey.

Well, perhaps a little late – it has, after all, recently become the fastest selling paperback in history - I have just read it. And to be perfectly honest, I can’t really see what all the fuss is about.

Yes, it’s rather racy. There’s even a pair of handcuffs. But as an author in my seventies, I can’t help but think it’s rather mediocre. Juvenile even.

Now I certainly don’t begrudge the author, EL James, her success or the vast amount of money she must be earning from it - writers deserve all the luck and good fortune they get, so good on her. But as I finished the book on a transatlantic flight last week, I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed and confused. For while Fifty Shades has become the year’s undisputed publishing phenomenon, it is ultimately just Mills & Boon with a little added sex.

Remarkably, some people have even called it for it to be banned, to be taken from our libraries and stripped from the shelves of bookshops. Well, that is absurd. I don’t agree with any kind of censorship. People do, after all, have a choice about what they read. They don’t have to be offended.

But the truth is that there just isn’t that much to censor in this book anyway. It may have got us all a little hot under the collar, but it simply isn’t strong enough to warrant anything of the kind.

In fact, while I’ve never indulged in, ahem, bondage myself, I did expect a little more of it in the book. It is, after all, what most of the kerfuffle has been about.

So while I do wish the author and the book well, it is, from a literary perspective, a very mediocre novel. There are, in fact, some truly cringe worthy scenes - although they’re not the sex scenes, funnily enough. Anastasia’s lover is, of course, a billionaire, but EL James doesn’t seem to have much of an appreciation of how the wealthy live. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but it means that many of the scenes lack the ring of truth. The book doesn’t feel realistic.

The sex scenes, however, aren’t bad. They’re not coarse or tasteless, but they do get a little repetitive, even boring – and that’s despite all the sex toys.

But the book has become so huge that if you are in the business, you really do have to take a close look at it.

I first heard about Fifty Shades of Grey through a friend, who heard about it through her daughter-in-law, who heard about it on the school-run from all the other Mums. And that is partly why it has become such a big success. It has had a huge amount of luck, and a huge amount of hype behind it, but it has also become massive through simple word of mouth. People are talking about it.

But why? There are after all, much better – and far racier - erotic novels, from DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer to the really quite shocking Story of O by Pauline Réage, which really is a book about sadomasochism and actually quite frightened me.

Well, my god daughter, who is terribly beautiful and sophisticated and clever, tells me that young men are buying it for their wives and girlfriends in their droves. Perhaps more tellingly, she also told me that many young women today don’t really read much.

Which got me thinking that the book has ultimately become a guide to the bedroom for a generation that simply hasn’t ever thumbed through those old erotic classics and so has no real sexual reference points. In the absence of Lady Chatterley, of course Anastasia seems alluring.

It is, then, a very modern romantic fairytale. A young woman’s fantasy. A shopping list for couples looking to spice up their love lives. And people are reading it for that reason, not because it’s a novel of any particular note.

It is certainly of it’s time. Christian Grey showers Anastasia with gifts, but they are very much of the 21st century: a Blackberry phone, a laptop, a car. And they spend an awful lot of time sending each other irritating emails. These aren’t love letters, they’re just rather superfluous computer communiques. In this sense, their relationship is rather like a business transaction. They even have a contract.

Having said all of that, EL James certainly knows how to get the world reading her books – and blushing (it seems the young are rather more coy than they would have us believe) while they do it.

Certainly, by the end of the first book, hints of Christian’s darkly mysterious background make the two sequels (Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed) look a little more intriguing.

In fact, you never know, on my next flight across the Atlantic, I just might not be able to resist picking them up.

www.barbarataylorbradford.co.uk

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