We open with more vanilla sex. There must be a layer of dust in the Red Room of Pain by now.
Oct 182012
Oct 182012
Here we find out that Mrs. Robinson’s real name is Elena Lincoln (is that American enough?).
We could go into a debate over the ethics and morality of a sexual/BDSM relationship between an adolescent male and an adult woman, whether it is intrinsically exploitative, whether we would feel different if the genders were reversed, and so on. That’s outside the purview of this blog. I will say that Ana’s feelings regarding this other woman aren’t driven by anything like that. They come from jealousy, pure and simple.
Oct 172012
There’s a fair bit of action in this chapter, but not much to actually advance the plot. Also, EL James’ idea of witty, flirty banter wouldn’t pass in a CW teen soap.
Oct 112012
This chapter introduces two nemeses to the story: Leila, Christian’s deranged former submissive, and Jack Hyde, Ana’s new creepy boss. Instead of resolving the problems of the Ana-Christian relationship, the narrative shifts to dealing with external threats. It’s probably not coincidence that Jack and Leila function as dark doubles of Christian and Ana: there’s a kind of dream-splitting at work in this story, with the bad elements of a figure separated and projected onto another figure by the dreamer or fantasizer.
Oct 072012
Christian does call Ana on her childish attempt to make him jealous, all the while dragging her into a restaurant and ordering a full meal for her, plus haranguing the server. (This guy deserves the Tyler Durden special sauce on his order.)
Oct 032012
In the first book of the Fifty Shades trilogy, an emotionally damaged one-percenter attempted to coerce a college graduate into an abusive relationship (which she had no understanding of or desire for) through a combination of seduction, bribes, deception, stalking and emotional blackmail. She finally realized that she was neither submissive nor masochistic, returned his gifts, and left him. The end.
Hopefully Anatasia Steele would have realized there are other men in the world, that there are other options than a false choice between slut and old maid, and perhaps she might even experimented with BDSM with some other person who is not so deranged and compulsive.
Except it wasn’t the end.
Sep 262012
Sep 232012
It’s time for the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco (I know because Peter Labarbera is outraged again). Here’s the history of this magnificent event.
Goal for 2013: attend Folsom Street Fair.
Sep 102012
If you need more evidence that the Fifty Shades trilogy is actually an anti-kink book, look no further than the Fifty Shades one-off magazine, probably on a newsstand near you.
Aug 212012
I didn’t have high expectations of this book when I started. If anything, now that I’ve read it, my low expectations of Fifty Shades of Grey were too high.
