Subject: That is some perplexing narration, there.
Author:
Posted on: 2018-04-21 13:23:00 UTC
You'd think folks wouldn't be too hard on the bards back in those days, when spoken word was the main source of stories . . .
—doctorlit, also perplexed by a knight bringing a swarm of people-eating ravens to visit his king
I was going to lead off with some hyperbolic defense of my choosing to read this novel, which I thought would very cleverly mirror Anastasia’s stubbornness and free spirit in the face of Christian’s controlling tendencies. But I just don’t have the energy. Let’s get this over with.
Other than mentioning the word “sex” sometimes, I think I’ve managed to keep this safe for work. Unless the word “sex” is too much, in which case, click away. Spoilers for only the first novel of the Fifty Shades trilogy.
This was dull. This was, by far, the least interesting novel I’ve read since The Magic Mountain, although at least Fifty Shades of Grey was shorter. Being asexual, I’m hardly a stranger to waiting for pointless sex scenes to end so the plot can continue. Well, FSoG is basically all the “waiting to end” part, and almost no discernable plot. And I get it, I’m obviously not the target audience. But there should still be something happening in a story, and for several wonderful chapters at the start of this novel, it really seemed like that was a possibility. I convinced myself that it was hinting at Christian doing something interesting in his business practices. Maybe something heroic and selfless, maybe something shady and illegal. But something. And maybe he actually was; Ana overhears some of his phone conversations throughout the novel, and maybe the reader is supposed to piece clues together from those dialogues and figure out what he’s doing? If so, I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. Maybe answers are revealed in the following books, but I’m not going to read those. But most probably, I was just tricking myself into looking for plot threads that weren’t really there. The point of the book is the sex scenes, and sex scenes that go nowhere aren’t a way to carry a plot.
Knowing that FSoG started out life as a fanfiction, I really thought it would be a lot more amusing than it is. I mean, most of us have read a sex scene in a fic that’s just so awkwardly written, it becomes hilarious. But no. It was all just straightforward sex. I found myself wanting to skip past them all to look for more . . . dialogue, and . . . whatever. There wasn’t much else to look forward to, but at least people talking to each other is something I can relate to.
Christian Grey. Good Lord, what a wasted character. Orphaned early, survived trauma, grew up rich, constantly bored, uses his wealth to fight world hunger, learned to fly airplanes and gliders and heaven knows what else. Do you see it? How very close Christian was to being Batman? Or at the very least, Sherlock Holmes. You’re so bored, Mr. rich executive man, why don’t you go out and solve some dang crimes? But it’s that control freak portion of his personality that ruins it all. Yeah, he does charitable efforts through his company, but he’s also got his huge, fancy house, his private helicopter, his demands for the biggest suites in the hotel, his personal staff. One side of the coin tarnishes the other. It leaves little for the reader to feel endeared to the character in any way.
Anastasia Steele, on the other hand, surprised me. I’ll admit I like her quite a bit. Her “innocence,” as the novel kept putting it, about romance makes it all the more impressive that she consistently stands up to Christian. She doesn’t accept that the rich dude should get whatever he wants, but makes her own needs clear, and fights against Christian’s expectations of her where she feels they would get in the way of her own life. Best of all, she looks at this potential relationship of nothing-but-sex and demands more from it. And Christian starts to follow down her path, beginning to feel romantic love for Ana. My one complaint about Ana is that she keeps putting pressure on Christian to let her touch him, even after he expressed that being touched reminded him of his mysterious childhood abuse. I realize that the power dynamic between them is terribly skewed, but he’s essentially telling her that he has an emotional trigger, and she keeps trying to do it anyway because dat body be hotty. Like, no. Christian made so many concessions to her through the course of the novel, it’s pretty disrespectful of her to not recognize this one personal limit of his.
But that drift towards an equal, loving relationship that characterized the second half of the novel makes the ending feel all the more abrupt and jarring. It seemed like they were heading down a path of compromise and working together to make the relationship function for both of them. I was even starting to like Christian a bit more, since he was allowing Ana some control over him. . . And then, literally in the last four pages, it rather felt like the author forced the resurgence of some of the earlier conflict between them to break them apart again. On the one hand, I get it: two more books. But on the other, did there really need to be more books? Maybe it’s not even my place to say, being ace and maybe/probably aromantic, but . . . even after not really enjoying the rest of the novel, the ending still managed to disappoint me. It just felt very artificial.
The one thing keeping me sane through this novel was Taylor. (Well, that and picturing Christian as a giant, sentient aye-aye in a business suit.) Taylor is Christian’s . . . “butler” for lack of a better word. His specialty is not being in a place, then suddenly being in the place when Christian needs something. Is he a supernatural being? I know in my head he can’t be, because this is a realistic Earth setting, but in my heart, I desperately need him to be a supernatural being. The universe was spawned from the Twilight one, so it must have some supernatural elements in it, right? Heck, it could even be set in Twilight, for all we know. Taylor = glitterpire confirmed, Taylor is best character confirmed, I love you, Taylor, you kept me sane, you deserve so much more.
Oh, one cool thing about the cover of my paperback copy. “Fifty Shades” is written in white, and “of Grey” is in a very light grey, but in certain lighting, like in my pantry, the colors reverse. It’s quite a cool effect, and fits the title very well. Kudos to the cover designer. When a PPCer is complimenting the cover designer, you know he is fishing for things to say.
Enough of this. If you’re looking forward to me reading the sequels, don’t. I’m not reading them.
—doctorlit is glad his subconscious will stop coming up with objectively unfunny jokes now, like when the cricket crawled up out of a sink drain, and he thought to himself, “Fifty shades of cricket.”
I can hardly contain the riotous feelings—or are they spoilers?—that rampage through my body. I can hardly contain the riotous feelings—or are they spoilers?—that rampage through my body. I can hardly contain the riotous feelings—or are they spoilers?—that rampage through my body.
Because if reviewing a Shakespeare play intended for the stage as though it were a modern story was ridiculous, then reviewing an ancient legend of unknown authorage intended to be read aloud like poetry as though it were a modern story is even worse. Also, sorry Tolkien fans, but this was the M.S. Merwin translation, not the professor’s. Spoiler warning for a half-millennium-plus-old story! And on a more serious note, warning for mention of animal bodies being prepared as food, though I think I’ve kept it undetailed enough to not become squicky.
Um, let’s start with the “love” story, I guess? I suppose it’s almost pointless to point out, considering the vast difference in in the way women were treated in ancient times compared to today, buuuut it feels pretty shallow. There’s no real chemistry between Gawain and . . . the lady . . . who I only just noticed was never given a name. Especially taking into account the fact that the lady’s flirtations were engineered to try to tempt Gawain, the fact that their interactions boil down to “lady is flirtatious” and “Gawain is polite,” it seems that both the weaver(s) of the tale and their intended audience took it for granted that the lady’s attractiveness was the only foundation on which an intimate relationship needed to be built. (The poem even refers to her as “she of the fair body.” Priorities, right?) So that entire interaction feels really arbitrary to me, as a modern reader.
As a zookeeper, I am admittedly way too hung up on the animals in this story. In between the scenes of Gawain’s very arbitrary and aimless seduction, are scenes of Bercilak hunting animals with his knights and hounds, catching those animals, and then having someone, um, prepare their meats? In incredibly unwanted detail. Like, I get that it was the middle ages, and folks needed to know how to chop up animals to feed themselves, but I didn’t want to read that, and since the original audience was presumably also familiar, I don’t really understand why those scenes are here. Unless it’s to serve as further misdirection to keep new listeners from figuring out Bercilak is the Green Knight, since the Green seems like a supernatural creature, and therefore maybe doesn’t need to eat? I think there’s also an element of contrast there, since the scenes of animals being captured and, uh, opened, are intercut with scenes of the lady wooing Gawain. There may be some intention for the audience to equate the physical fate of the animals for being hunted down, with the spiritual fate of Gawain for being lured into temptation. (Or Gawain’s physical fate, too; if he earned a nick in the neck for not telling Bercilak about the belt, I’m pretty sure giving into his wife would have led to Gawain losing his head.) But value as a literary device aside, I really can’t help but side with the animals during those hunting scenes. The does, at least, went down quickly, but the boar and the fox (named Reynard. Why does the fox get a name when the other animals don’t? Speciesist.) were chased down for hours. I can’t imagine the stress they went through.
One thing I did like, almost to the point of feeling amused by it, was the almost off-hand mention of Gawain fighting all kinds of monsters both on the way to the Green Chapel, and on the way back. They weren’t relevant to the main plot, so they got glossed over. I was just discussing with Larfen on Discord yesterday that I feel modern western storytelling suffers from an overemphasis on violence and action. You know if Hollywood adapts Sir Gawain nowadays, those mentions of monsters would get turned into meaningless fight scenes that do nothing but look cool. So I was very amused and pleased by this story from a supposedly more barbaric and violent time just skirting around the fact that Gawain slew multiple dragons on his quest, among other things, but not really caring to go into any detail about those battles.
The description drops in this poem rival the longest I’ve seen in any fanfiction, missioned or otherwise. It’s not even the lady, like you might expect, but Gawain and the Green Knight have so much of the detail of their armor described, it’s ridiculous. The Green Knight I can somewhat understand, since his coloring is so strange, but I don’t know why we needed to know SO much about Gawain’s garb before he set out to find the Green Chapel.
—doctorlit recommends the YouTube channel Overly Sarcastic Productions’s two videos on Arthurian legend for an amusing overview of the main aspects of the “canon.”
“Never before had spoilers been seen in that hall by anyone.” “Never before had spoilers been seen in that hall by anyone.” “Never before had spoilers been seen in that hall by anyone.”
In the last part of the Morte d'Arthur, Gawain and Lancelot have a big, multi-day fight. During the fight, Lancelot discovers that Gawain's strength increases massively as the day heads towards noon, only to drop off again in the afternoon.
I always figured that this is actually the girdle/belt at play, though Mallory never says as much. We already know it's a finicky piece of magic (it doesn't actually protect Gawain completely), so this would fit perfectly as a different tradition about it.
hS
Being so used to modern fiction, I have a strong desire for all the known Arthurian material to interconnect like a book series, with internal consistency and characterization and clear plot threads. I know that isn't the case, though, since it all started as word-of-mouth legends with multiple authors contributing, so of course, every individual piece is at least somewhat self-contained. They just weren't designed to be consumed the way The Hunger Games, for example, was. It's kind of a shame. :(
—doctorlit, wanting to read it all
... than the gloriously psychedelic Dream of Rhonabwy, the youngest story in the Mabinogion. Here's a quote:
And Arthur sat upon the carpet, and Owain the son of Urien was standing before him. "Owain," said Arthur, "wilt thou play chess?"
"I will, Lord," said Owain. And the red youth brought the chess for Arthur and Owain; golden pieces and a board of silver. And they began to play.
And while they were thus, and when they were best amused with their game, behold they saw a white tent with a red canopy, and the figure of a jet-black serpent on the top of the tent, and red glaring venomous eyes in the head of the serpent, and a red flaming tongue. And there came a young page with yellow curling hair, and blue eyes, and a newly-springing beard, wearing a coat and a surcoat of yellow satin, and hose of thin greenish-yellow cloth upon his feet, and over his hose shoes of parti-coloured leather, fastened at the insteps with golden clasps. And he bore a heavy three-edged sword with a golden hilt, in a scabbard of black leather tipped with fine gold. And he came to the place where the Emperor and Owain were playing at chess.
And the youth saluted Owain. And Owain marvelled that the youth should salute him and should not have saluted the Emperor Arthur. And Arthur knew what was in Owain's thought. And he said to Owain, "Marvel not that the youth salutes thee now, for he saluted me erewhile; and it is unto thee that his errand is."
Then said the youth unto Owain, "Lord, is it with thy leave that the young pages and attendants of the Emperor harass and torment and worry thy Ravens? And if it be not with thy leave, cause the Emperor to forbid them."
"Lord," said Owain, "thou hearest what the youth says; if it seem good to thee, forbid them from my Ravens."
"Your move," said Arthur.
The entire thing is like that, with the ridiculous colours and eventually the massacre of Arthur's entire household by Owain's ravens (which, quite reasonably, causes Arthur to crush the golden chesspieces to dust). It seems to have been written for the sole purpose of irritating bards who tried to recite from memory alone.
And then, of course, there's the wonderful Culhwch and Olwen:
"I crave of thee then," said Culhwch to Arthur, "that thou obtain for me Olwen, the daughter of Yspaddaden Penkawr; and this boon I likewise seek at the hands of thy warriors. I seek it from Kai, and Bedwyr, and Greidawl Galldonyd, and Gwythyr the son of Greidawl, and Greid the son of Eri, and Kynddelig Kyvarwydd, and Tathal Twyll Goleu, and Maelwys the son of Baeddan, and Crychwr the son of Nes, and Cubert the son of Daere, and Percos the son of Poch, and Lluber Beuthach, and Corvil Bervach, and Gwynn the son of Nudd, and Edeyrn the son of Nudd, and Gadwy the son of Geraint, and Prince Fflewddur Fflam, and Ruawn Pebyr the son of Dorath, and Bradwen the son of Moren Mynawc, and Moren Mynawc himself, and..."
... and on he goes, for another two thousand words comprising the list of knights he wants Arthur to send with him. I have a copy with annotations of things like the meanings of the names, and the list is about eight pages. There's a 3000-word list of tasks Culhwch has to do a bit later, too...
Anyway, Arthurian legend is ridiculous and the Welsh are bad at writing.
hS
You'd think folks wouldn't be too hard on the bards back in those days, when spoken word was the main source of stories . . .
—doctorlit, also perplexed by a knight bringing a swarm of people-eating ravens to visit his king
This review probably isn't going to be very great, since I started this season over a year ago, before I was reviewing on the Board literally every piece of fiction I consumed. I therefore wasn't looking at it from a very thoughtful or critical standpoint until near the end of the season. And yes, it does take me over a year to finish a one-season television series sometimes. It's my least favorite medium, and I can only sit and watch on certain weekends when I don't have other plans.
Spoilers for the end of season one.
I think the bulk of this review is going to be, "Kilgrave is terrifying," so let's start with that. Kilgrave is terrifying. So many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have such plain villains who are ultimately just direct physical threats, but Kilgrave is absolutely a league of his own, in terms of the sheer threat he can pose in basically any situation. He's not a fighter, yet he manages to be untouchable and endlessly dangerous in basically any situation where people are present. Over the course of the season, they really came up with an imaginative variety of ways for Kilgrave to use his powers over people, many of them just horrible. I'm often annoyed by the Marvel movies killing off their fun villains, because it means we don't get to see them anymore. But I wholeheartedly agree with killing off Kilgrave, because . . . well A) he's fun in a very different way than most villains, because the things he can do with his power are so unique and fascinating, but in a way that makes me feel more uncomfortable than fun. And B) the sheer damage he could do is almost unthinkable. We've seen what he can do when dominating someone like Jessica or Luke Cage; imagine what he could manage with Tony Stark or Scarlet Witch—or even worse, Thor or Vision, if his power works on non-humans. I know there typically hasn't been much actor overlap between the TV series and movies in the MCU, but there's no telling what the future might hold, so I'm glad to see Kilgrave gone.
Another big thing that stands out to me is the relationship between Jessica and her adoptive sister, Trish. Despite the huge difference between their personalities, the way they stick together and remain supportive of each other throughout the entire series was really cool, and really sweet. I especially like that this shows through Jessica that someone can be loving and caring without necessarily being a nice person, demeanor-wise. Both sets of actors, the adults and teenagers, did a great job of getting across the two characters' supportive natures, even when they aren't getting along in the traditional sense.
I was kind of weirded out by the whole plotline with Trish's boyfriend suddenly doping up on super-soldier pills. It felt out of nowhere, and really out-of-place with the themes of the rest of the season. The reveal in the last couple of episodes that the facility that made the pills was tied to Jessica (and, I'm assuming preemptively, to Luke) makes a bit more sense, now.
—doctorlit is now caught up through the season three midpoint of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Daredevil season two is next on his MCU docket.
"For each year that I was alone and frightened, spoil yourself in the heart." "For each year that I was alone and frightened, spoil yourself in the heart." "For each year that I was alone and frightened, spoil yourself in the heart."
And have to say, Jessica Jones season 1 is probably my favorite Marvel Netflix series bar none. David Tenant as Kilgrave is just such a brilliant villain
Even in that initial episode, when we only see him on-screen as hallucinations, he is just so utterly terrifying. Tenant did a great job with him.
—doctorlit, busting out the glopsnerch
Like... Taylor? Like Taylor Taylor?
That's deliberate, right? I mean, there's three years between the Twilight movie and Fifty Shades coming out, so... that's deliberate. Right?
hS
I was vaguely curious while I read Fifty Shades of Grey if the characters other than Anastasia and Christian had Twilightverse analogues, but since I really don't know all that much about Twilight, all I could do was wonder. But Jacob is a fairly major character, and considering the whole Team Jacob vs. Team Edward thing, there's an eerie amount of sense in seeing Shades!Jacob get cast as Shades!Edward's butler.
On the other hand, though, Taylor is always portrayed as a positive character. Ana likes him, and there's some level of close trust between him and Christian that didn't get explained in of Grey. So I don't know. Maybe Ana's clingy photographer friend that Christian is jealous of is the real Jacob clone?
—doctorlit, potentially Team Jacob by default now
... was always a better character than Edward, due to not being a creepy stalker. (Evidence: in Twilight, Edward tries to romance Bella by sneaking into her bedroom. In New Moon, Jacob tries it by teaching her to ride a motorbike.) So Bellastasia should like him. ^^
But I think you're right; the photographer sounds more likely. I'd peg Taylor as being one of the Cullen siblings - probably Alice, as she was the one who got on best with both Edward and Bella. There's a slight chance he's actually Carlisle (the Dad-Vamp), because that wouldn't be creepy at all.
Obviously this is all based purely on your comments; I've not gone anywhere near Fifty Shades (even when <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/u/2/pub?id=1Up0PAwPzPV5j-b4-YMXYuup9VLpq85-10cD2YoY69E">inflicting it on Jay and Acacia).
Also my Jacobist (Jacobite? No, that's something else.) sympathies are showing...
hS never read Breaking Dawn and isn't convinced it exists, thankyouverymuch
...sexually assaulted Bella in Eclipse. Yes, forced kissing is legally considered sexual assault (and even if it wasn't? Still way the hell not okay).
And when she punched him in the face for it and broke her hand, he and her own father laughed about it, and the book portrayed it as a very silly experience with Bella overreacting.
Hell, Jacob tried to claim Bella was overreacting because she didn't want to admit she liked it.
#TeamTyler'sVan
I'm pretty sure Jacob is still better for her than Edward (who wanted to - and managed to - straight up murder her, because that's what 'undead' means), but I'll concede that they're both amazingly bad for her, and pretty darn bad as people. Even during New Moon (which is the best book due to having almost no Edward), Jacob spent his time endangering Bella's life constantly.
I feel like there's kind of no good outcome available to Bella? Assuming she can't just leave Forks, she's going to spend her life being stalked by one supernatural creature or another, because apparently she's Just That Tasty. Even if she became self-aware enough to recognise that all her relationships are unhealthy, she'd still pretty much be Buffy without the Scoobies, which is super unsafe.
hS
PS: Laughed at her breaking her hand? o.O Gods, werewolves, amirite? ~hS
In fairness to Jacob's behavior in New Moon, the worst he did in terms of keeping Bella safe was not giving her a damn helmet while they were riding their motorcycles—she was the one who kept ignoring his warnings to slow down and bashed her head in.
The cliff-diving was Jacob's idea, but he told Bella he'd show her how to do it properly when the weather permitted it; Bella just went ahead and jumped without him so she could see her Edward hallucinations again. (Sooo romantic, amirite?)
If we can get genderbent!Twilight, I'm sure we can get both versions of slashy!Twilight. I'm picturing this one as Bella unable to decide between Leah the grumpy werewolf (who, per the wiki, is Speshul as the only girlwolf EVAH) and Alice the... frankly bonkers vampire.
...
...
... okay, be honest with me; does that not sound better than the original story? Leah and Alice are both classic movie romantic interest archetypes dialled up to 11 (Alice in particular is the Manicker Pixie Dream Girl); I think any scene in the series could be improved by cut-and-pasting them into their male counterparts' places.
(Improved so far as comedy value goes, anyway.)
As for maleslash!Twilight (Gaylight?)... we could just crib Beau from the other book, or make Bella trans, but maybe it'd be more fun to pick on someone else entirely? Hmm... I'unno, is there anyone hapless enough to be substituted for Bella in there? Maybe we do need to abduct Beau...
(Steph would be turning in her grave at this conversation, were she dead, which I'm pretty sure she's not.)
hS
I think with a bit of tweaking to Alice's personality (like not having her throw away clothes after her siblings wear them once) she would be an awesome love interest in a lesbian love triangle between her, Leah, and Bella.
Throwing Beau into canon Twilight would be entertaining as all getout, though.
And now I want to write one of these, gods help me...
I've never kept the fact that I think Alice is the best character a secret, so this is inordinately pleasing.
Though a non-tweaked version would be hilarious, provided Bella plays it absolutely straight. Instead of 'my boyfriend is a creepy stalker who climbs through my window and stares at me while I sleep AND THAT'S FINE', we'd get 'my girlfriend is completely doolally and makes no sense at all AND THAT'S FINE'.
... in fact...
Leah just really, honestly, can't.
hS
1) The complete misrepresentation of BDSM
BDSM for you who aren't familiar with the term, stands for Bondage-Dominance-Sadism-Masochism and consists of two people, a Dom (or a Domme) and a Sub, who are both willing cause and receive pain respectively. And it's not about the pain itself, it's about causing pleasure, with pain being the means of achieving it. A dominant who gets off on controlling and punishing, and a submissive who gets off on helplessness and punishment. AND by doing so they realize they're also pleasuring their partner, so if a matching couple of a sadist and masochist dabbles into BDSM, it's super win-win!
And here's the problem: Anastasia is NOT a masochist! She is not into that lifestyle and it's clear what she likes is Grey and his playboy millionaire Iron-Man, Batman, Green Arrow persona. A regular, "vanilla" sex as I think she calls it, but not the whole playroom aspect. E.L. James masqueraded a story about a broken, toxic relationship, about a controlling, abussive a-hole, and a tabula rasa woman who actually has to be introduced into every single aspect of intimacy... Yeah, James decided it's "just a love story".
2) What the heck even, E.L. James?!
a) The amount of control Grey tries to exert over Ana. Even after he clearly agreed to keep the dom-sub thing in the bedroom, he basically overrules her every decision about what she eats, what she wears, where she goes, and when she sleeps!
b) Ana's "Inner Goddess & Subconscious" as was already mentioned... Yes, I get what was meant to happen here: the classical "shoulder angel v. shoulder devil" trope. However... that's. not. what. sub-con-scious. means (!). I don't think E.L. James knows the meaning of words she uses!
I didn't really want to comment on the BDSM aspect in my initial post, partly to keep it work safe, but mostly because I didn't want to misrepresent something I'm not familiar with.
You know, I didn't really make the "shoulder angel/devil" connection with Anastasia's subconscious and inner goddess . . . friends. It gets a bit blurry, with the subconscious/angel sometimes being cruel to Ana, and the inner goddess/devil being less "bad" and more just . . . uh . . . constantly "thirsty"? If that's PG enough for the Board?
—doctorlit himself has a spirit of second-guessing self doubt and an inner day planner, himself
And yeesh, now I'm kinda sorry for bringing it up, but I don't think I've said anything that may be considered unfit for the public eye...
This was a great review, though, and almost makes me want to get my hands on a copy so I can see it for myself, but I'll admit—I'm the same way about sex scenes in books and movies, so... *shrugs*
Maybe if I gave it a go, though, I could try to piece together what Christian does behind the scenes. :P
Not the inner goddess. The less I say about any inner goddesses, the better, I think.
No, it's Anastasia's other strangely animate, disembodied inner thoughts creature. Her subconscious. Early on, I was annoyed with the subconscious "character" because it flip-flopped so wildly between being supportive of Ana and criticizing her. But after a few chapters, I came to realize that's actually pretty normal, at least as far as my inner thoughts go. So that aspect of Fifty Shades of Grey, at least, was decently realistic, and dare I say, even subtle?
As for obtaining a copy, I suggest ducking into Goodwills every once in a while. You'll eventually find on for a buck or two, and that way you're not financially supporting bad writing. Yay? Just don't get addicted to them cheap Goodwill books. Bookshelves run out of room fast that way.
—doctorlit is almost looking forward to Twilight after this. At least Twilight has fight scenes.