SHADES OF AWFUL
As you may know by now, I read "Publishers' Weekly" and other book review sources, dutifully recommending books I think a small town library should have on its shelves.
My word is not gospel and those who run the library are well aware of my many prejudices and preferences. (See "What the Old Lady
Reads," "What the Old Lady Doesn't Read" elsewhere in these pages).
Although I skirted mentioning them one way or the other to the library, I confess I read the "Shades of Gray" S&M volumes, so I find the piece in the July 19, 2012 "London Review" by Andrew O'Hagan, especially delicious. Titled "Travelling Southwards," it looks back to earlier "bonkbusters," including novels by Jackie Collins, Sidney Shelden, Harold Robbins and Danielle Steel. Then O'Hagan moves along to Judith Krantz. "Each era gets the erotic writing it craves, or deserves," he says.
There certainly is bad writing throughout the Gray trilogy: "My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves." You can put up with this stuff maybe for the first one, but reading all three becomes annoying. Throughout, there are commercial tie-ins. Characters use only high end brands and every time they get cleaned up, they use body wash. O'Hagan says the books invite the reader "to be submissive, too, not to punishment, but to a 1980s-style dominance of money and power and products. "
That the "Shades" books are banned by certain public libraries because they are deemed "porn," is a mistake -- they should be banned because of awful writing. I'm sure she's aware of such criticism but never mind -- E. L. James is crying all the way to the bank.
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