Filthy Shades of Grey

Well everyone else in the world seems to be reading it, talking about it and writing about it, so I thought, what the hell.

Here’s yesterday’s Sunday Times Column, hope you enjoy it, pornstars.

A MILLION MILES FROM NORMAL – By Paige Nick

FILTHY SHADES OF GREY

I hope you can all still respect me in the morning, after Itell you this. I just read Fifty Shades of Grey, by EL James.

For the 25 of you who haven’t yet been assaulted by this book’s presence inthe world, it’s basically a good old-fashioned bodice ripper. Alsoreferred to as erotic literature, or if we’re being entirely honest with ourselves, pornography forchicks. You know its chick-porn because it has a hint of a story line woven inbetween the sex scenes, and in dude-porn those are the bits they normally editout.

Everyone seems to be talking about this trilogy at themoment, so I thought why not jump on the bandwagon. So I read all three of themin quick succession. Much like eating candy floss, it doesn’t take long.

Love it or hate it, it seems everyone has an opinion,whether they only read the back cover, the first twenty pages, or make it topage five hundred and seventy nine of the final book. That’s a lot ofopinions and a lot of people. Ten million in about six weeks, if the salesfigures are to be believed. That’s almost bible status, or at the very least back ofcornflake box status.

I read them out of sheer curiosity and to try figure out thehype, and of course wonder how an author such as myself could replicate thiskind of frenzy in a local sense, where selling just 3000 books is considered asuccess. Seriously, who do you have to screw around here to sell more books? Orperhaps I’ve got it all wrong, and it’s who does my heroine have to screw around here to sellmore books?

Now people keep asking whether they should read them, and I’m finding itdifficult to answer. So my answer would be, I don’t know. Yes, nice anddecisive.

All three are undoubtedly pornographic and exceptionallybadly written, but you didn’t buy this newspaper and turn all these pages tohear that, you knew that already. So aside from the obvious, I found the firstone oddly compulsive in a morbid rubber-necking-at-an-accident-and-can’t-believe-I-really-want-to-see-thiskind of way.

The second one was rather boring, but still mildlyentertaining in a vapid, pure escapism, idle chewing on gum kind of way.

And the third was simply very dull and repetitive. Did I mentionit was repetitive? By the end I’d developed an allergic reaction to the word ‘fifty’. The meresight of it made my Kill Me Now Muscle swell to the size of a grapefruit. And Irolled my eyeballs so many times, I was worried they were going to pop out ofmy ears.

Do you have your vomit bag handy? The heroine’s name isAnastasia Steele, and the handsome, super-wealthy hero’s name isChristian Grey. She bites her lip a lot, he stares at her a lot, with varyingdegrees of intensity. Oh and he spanks her quite a bit too, but then I supposewith a name like Anastasia Steele, she was always asking for a smack.

I certainly wouldn’t read another one, and I have nointerest in the mov
ies that will no doubt begin to roll out. There’s talk ofAngelina Jolie directing them – Lord, please either give me strength, or arazor blade.

But as much as I want to diss them, the truth is that I didbuy and read all three, so EL James must be doing something right. And if thesebooks make more people read and have more sex as a natural side effect, thenthey can’t be all that bad, can they?

So you decide if you want to read them. It’s the same asdeciding to do crack, or watch every episode of all four seasons of a series ina single weekend. You know it’s bad for you, but in some mindless, drooling way, you alsoknow how good it feels to succumb to complete undemanding escapism.

If you decide to give it a go (nudge, nudge), the next bigquestion is where are you going to read it, and whether you’re going toadmit to it in public?

A friend read it on her daily commute on the London tube,and found herself blushing and mortified for five hundred pages. She felt likeeveryone around her knew she was reading porn, even though I tried to explainthat since she was reading it on her Kindle, chances are it was only her ownblushing that gave it away.

I can’t help wonder if these books would have been half assuccessful in a time before e-books? Amazon saves you the embarrassment ofhaving to pick it up off the shelf, and carry it through the store to thecounter and pay for it, while trying to avoid the dirty, knowing smiles of thesales people and other shoppers.

It’s the equivalent of a teenage boy buying a condom twentyyears ago, or men buying pornographic magazines and having the shop assistantwrap them in a non-descript brown paper bag for covert transit purposes.

Now in the wake of my erotic trilogy extravaganza, Irealise I’m going to have to follow them up by reading something veryliterary, in order to offset my porno footprint. Something hefty, important,and full of big words. War and Peace springs to mind. Definitely not Lolita.