Liberty wrote:

I struggled with 50 Shades too (I found it rather boring), but I'm fascinated by the phenomenon!   When it was at the height of it's popularity, every woman I knew seemed to be reading it, regardless of background.   I'm interested that a book about an aspect of women's sexuality was so popular, famous and widely read.   Has that ever happened before? 

My mother read the 50 Shades books for the same reason The Phantom Lady is, to see what the hype is all about. She commented on this very issue that Liberty is bringing up. Americans are extremely Puritanical, especially in contrast to the world my mother grew up in (post-revolution 1960s Quebec). They make a big fuss of things that wouldn't be an issue in her part of Canada and in most of Europe, like political sex scandals. 50 Shades is being read openly by women who wouldn't normally openly read this kind of material, or even read it at all if it wasn't considered 'acceptable' by the mainstream. So it's opening up an interesting dialogue and broadening horizons, making once taboo subjects something that can be talked about openly. Doesn't make me interested to read them.

I don't read a lot of novels, but it's a tradition at this time of year that I reread Solzhenitsyn's One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich. It's a quick and easy read about the inhumanity commited against others and the resiliency of the human spirit. I always leave it wondering what, really, 'freedom' is.

Mary

besleybean wrote:

I desperately want to read some Solzhenitsyn.

Reading is work is transformative. The subject matter is difficult, but there is often hope and great humanity in it. I've been slowing working my way through is bibliography. One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich is the only one I've read multiple times.

Mary

I am half into the second book of the 50 Shades triology... but I am slowly giving up. It keeps repeating itself and the characters annoy me to no end... 

I have read short sections of it before and decided I never wanted to read the thing. Last weekend I saw a woman read one of the books on the train, right in front of her son and I was so frustrated that anyone would do that... so I decided before I said more foul things in my mind I had to read the thing...

Generally I like to make my own impressions... without getting into a religious discussion; after I became an Agnostic and decided to leave God, I decided to read the entire bible cover to cover... 

My main bother is that I've lived that life myself... I started out researching; chatting with both ends of the spectrum, really getting to know them... I even tried it... and eventually... well... But for me it all start for a novel I wanted to write (Heaven help me!) About a young girl meeting a dominant man and where she realizes the strength in being his... It is the second time I've had to give up an idea for a novel because of someone else making something similar. 


It is just so clear the writer only writes what she think about that world, Sure... the main character has no idea and probably is a representative of a puritanical America drawn into the dark underground... 

 

Last edited by This Is The Phantom Lady (December 10, 2014 8:14 pm)

Liberty wrote:

This is just my opinion, and I may be misinterpreting the book, but it read to me as - trying to put it politely - women-orientated fantasy soft-porn.  Not meaning to demean the book, but I think a lot of the criticisms of it are because people are trying to read it as a piece of literature instead of fantasy fodder.  A lot of it just screamed "fantasy" at me - the very ordinary, awkward heroine (to make it easier to insert yourself into that fantasy, if you should wish) paired with the very extra-ordinary, impossibly attractive hero (definitely a fantasy figure) who is besotted with her in the extreme.  And then the fantasy situations.   It's not about real life relationships (or real ilfe BDSM).  It's about what women might fantasise about (but not necessarily want in real life), and I feel it legitimises those fantasies for women.

Apparently, it was written originally as Twilight fan-fiction.  I'm not so familiar with Twilight, but it seems to have some of the same fantasy elements (self-insertion heroine, impossibly attractive and besotted hero) without the sex aspect.  

I know it's odd that I'm defending a book that I didn't actually like (and I couldn't bring myself to complete the series, so may have a different view if I'd read them all!), but I do think it's misunderstood.  Expecting it to be an accurate portrayal of relationships is like expecting the same of pornography.   Or of rom-coms, etc.   (Did anybody see the film Don Jon which compares pornography and rom-coms?  I love that film!). 

I think you're right.. but as it was advertised as "revolutionary erotic literature" it's no surprise if readers expected something a little different/better. But if it had a liberating effect on women and their fantasies, I don't want to say anything against it.. In my little un-puritanic corner of the world I was just surprised about the furor such a badly-written, tame (imo) soft-core fantasy fodder caused.

Phantom, you could still write something good and nuanced about it..
 

Last edited by Zatoichi (December 11, 2014 5:21 pm)

I am reading 'shadow' by Michael Morpurgo.

I am actuall reading, or just started to read, the collective work of Sherlock Holmes. 

The script of 'The Prestige'. Just saw the film again and was blown away again. Now I want to know its secrets. 

Right decision!
I started trying to read The Hobbit when I was a kid...maybe I should give it another go

Please God somebody tell me the latest rumour of Benedict in Shades...it's not really true is it?

I honestly don't know if I could...mind you, I survived watching him in a bloomin' royal thing about sex...The Other Boelyn Girl!