Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey

2012 paperback cover
Author	E. L. James
Language	English
Genre	Erotic fiction
Publisher	Vintage Books
Publication date	June 20, 2011
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	e-book, paperback
ISBN	ISBN 978-1612130286

Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic novel by British author E. L. James. Set largely in Seattle, it is the first instalment in a trilogy that traces the deepening relationship between a college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey. It is notable for its explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of BDSM.

The second and third volumes are titled Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, respectively. Fifty Shades of Grey has topped best-seller lists in the US, the UK and around the world. The series has sold around ten million copies worldwide, with book rights having been sold in 37 countries, and set the record in the U.K. as the fastest-selling paperback of all time surpassing the Harry Potter series.

Plot

The plot traces the relationship between recent college graduate Anastasia Steele and manipulative billionaire Christian Grey. Steele is required by Grey to sign a contract allowing him complete control over her life as well as a non-disclosure agreement, something that he has required from all of his previous submissives. Upon learning that she is a virgin, Grey agrees to have sex with her in order to prepare her for later encounters, fully intending that the contract would be signed. As she gets to know him, she learns that his sexual tastes involve bondage, domination, and sadism, and that childhood abuse left him a deeply damaged individual. In order to be his partner, she agrees to experiment with BDSM, but she struggles to reconcile who she is (a virgin who has never previously had a boyfriend) with whom Christian wants her to be, his submissive and a to-do-with-as-he-pleases partner in his "Red Room of Pain".

Background

The Fifty Shades trilogy was developed from a Twilight fan fiction originally titled Master of the Universe and published episodically on fan-fiction websites under the pen name "Snowqueens Icedragon". The piece featured characters named after Stephenie Meyer's characters in Twilight, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. After comments concerning the sexual nature of the material, James removed the story from the fan-fiction websites and published it on her own website, FiftyShades.com. Later she rewrote Master of the Universe as an original piece, with the principal characters renamed Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and removed it from her website prior to publication. Meyer commented on the series, saying "that's really not my genre, not my thing ... Good on her — she's doing well. That's great!"

This reworked and extended version of Master of the Universe was split into three parts. The first, titled Fifty Shades of Grey, was released as an e-book and a print-on-demand paperback in May 2011 by The Writers' Coffee Shop, a virtual publisher based in Australia. The second volume, Fifty Shades Darker, was released in September 2011; and, the third, Fifty Shades Freed, followed in January 2012. The Writers' Coffee Shop had a restricted marketing budget and relied largely on book blogs for early publicity, but sales of the novel were boosted by word-of-mouth recommendation.

The book's erotic nature and perceived demographic of its fanbase as being composed largely of married women over thirty led to the books being dubbed "Mommy Porn" by some news agencies. The book has also been reportedly popular among teenage girls, and college women.

By the release of the final volume in January 2012, news networks in the United States had begun to report on the Fifty Shades trilogy as an example of viral marketing and of the rise in popularity of female erotica, attributing its success to the discreet nature of e-reading devices. Due to the heightened interest in the series, the license to the Fifty Shades trilogy was picked up by Vintage Books for re-release in a new and revised edition in April 2012.

Reception

Reception to Fifty Shades of Grey has been mixed, with Princeton professor April Alliston writing, "Though no literary masterpiece, 'Fifty Shades' is more than parasitic fan fiction based on the recent 'Twilight' vampire series." Entertainment Weekly gave the novel a "B+" rating and praised it for being "in a class by itself." Jenny Colgan of The Guardian wrote "It is jolly, eminently readable and as sweet and safe as BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) erotica can be without contravening the trade descriptions act" and also praised the book for being "more enjoyable" than other "literary erotic books". However, The Telegraph criticised the book as "treacly cliché" but also wrote that the sexual politics in Fifty Shades of Grey will have female readers "discussing it for years to come." A reviewer for the Ledger-Enquirer described the book as guilty fun and escapism, but that it "also touches on one aspect of female existence [female submission]. And acknowledging that fact – maybe even appreciating it – shouldn't be a cause for guilt." The New Zealand Herald stated that the book "will win no prizes for its prose" and that "there are some exceedingly awful descriptions," but that it was also an easy read and if you "can suspend your disbelief and your desire to – if you'll pardon the expression – slap the heroine for having so little self respect, you might enjoy it."

The Columbus Dispatch also criticised the book but stated that, "Despite the clunky prose, James does cause one to turn the page." Metro News Canada wrote that "suffering through 500 pages of this heroine’s inner dialogue was torturous, and not in the intended, sexy kind of way". Jessica Reaves, of the Chicago Tribune, wrote that the "book's source material isn't great literature", noting that the novel is "sprinkled liberally and repeatedly with asinine phrases", and described it as "depressing". The book has also been criticised for the author's use of British idioms which, syntactically, present a disconnect from the would-be American voice of the protagonist, thus adding further strain to the dialogue.

Criticism

Origin as fan fiction

Fifty Shades of Grey has attracted criticism due to its origin as a fan fiction based on the Twilight novels, with some readers predicting copyright issues due to this connection. Amanda Hayward of The Writer's Coffee Shop responded to these claims by stating that Fifty Shades of Grey "bore very little resemblance to Twilight" and that "Twilight and Fifty Shades Trilogy are worlds apart". In April 2012, E. L. James was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World", with Richard Lawson of The Atlantic Wire criticising her inclusion due to the trilogy's fanfiction beginnings.

Sexual content

Fifty Shades of Grey has also attracted criticism due to its depictions of BDSM, with Katie Roiphe of Newsweek asking "But why, for women especially, would free will be a burden? ... It may be that power is not always that comfortable, even for those of us who grew up in it; it may be that equality is something we want only sometimes and in some places and in some arenas; it may be that power and all of its imperatives can be boring." Andrea Reiher expressed frustration at Roiphe's depiction of the series, stating that "[b]eing submissive sexually is not tantamount to being the victim of abuse" or that they're "giving up their power or their equality with their partner". Other sites such as Jezebel have responded to the article, with Jezebel listing reasons for Fifty Shades of Grey's popularity, stating that "the vast majority of fans fawn over the emotional relationship Anastasia and Christian have, not about the sex." In an interview with Salon, several dominatrices have responded that while submission can be an escape from daily stresses, they also frequently have male clients and that trust is a big factor in dominant/submissive relationships. One interviewed former dominatrix and author, Melissa Febos, stated that even if the book's popularity was a result of women's "current anxieties about equality" that it "doesn’t mean that it’s “evidence of unhappiness, or an invalidation of feminism, ... it might actually be a sign of progress that millions of women are so hungrily pursuing sexual fantasies independent of men." Writing in The Huffington Post, critic Soraya Chemaly argued that interest in the series was not a trend, but squarely within the tradition and success of the romance category which is driven by tales of virgins, damaged men and submission/dominance themes. Instead, she wrote, the books are notable not for transgressive sex but for how women are using technology to subvert gendered shame by exploring explicit sexual content privately using e-readers. Instead of submission fantasies representing a post-feminist discomfort with power and free will, women's open consumption, sharing and discussion of sexual content is a feminist success. Dr. Drew commented that the book was "disturbing" but stated that "if the book enhances women's real-life sex lives and intimacy, 'so be it.'"

In March of 2012, a Florida library removed copies of Fifty Shades of Grey from its shelves, citing that it did not meet the selection criteria for the branch and that reviews for the book had been poor. A representative for the library stated that it was due to the book's sexual content and voiced that other libraries had declined to purchase copies for their branches. Deborah Caldwell-Stone of the ALA commented that "If the only reason you don’t select a book is that you disapprove of its content, but there is demand for it, there’s a question of whether you’re being fair. In a public library there is usually very little that would prevent a book from being on the shelf if there is a demand for the information." The Florida library later made their copies available to their patrons due to public demand.

Film adaptations

Several studios, including Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount and Universal Pictures entered bids for the film rights to the trilogy, with reports stating that James was requesting to retain some control during the movie's creative process. On March 26, 2012 it was announced the rights had been secured by Universal Pictures and Focus Features. Actors Ian Somerhalder and Ashley Benson have expressed interest in acting in the film. In June, 2012, it was reported that Angelina Jolie was interested in directing the film and was currently in talks to direct the adaptation. American Psycho writer Bret Easton Ellis publicly expressed his desire to write the screenplay for the film stating, "I'm putting myself out there to write the movie adaptation of 'Fifty Shades of Grey'..."

See also

• Sadism and masochism in fiction
• BDSM in culture and media

External links

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• Official author page