London - Whenever I spot someone reading a book on a train or in a bus, I can’t resist craning my neck to find out what it is. But recently, I have stopped bothering because the answer is always the same: Fifty Shades of Grey.
You spy it everywhere – by the swimming pool, in the park, on the aeroplane. It can’t be long before we see it poking out of the Duchess of Cambridge’s handbag.
No other novel has sold so fast. In Britain, 200 000 copies a week are being bought; this month, it became the first book to sell more than a million copies on Kindle.
It has sold 15 million copies in the US and Canada. Fifty Shades of Grey is set to overtake Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and the Harry Potter books as the best-selling paperback novel yet, with its follow-ups, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, not far behind.
The movie rights have sold for $5 million (R40m), and a “licensing agent” has been appointed to handle all the spin-offs: perfume, jewellery, chocolates, lipstick, bubble bath and so forth. No doubt the range will soon extend to garden implements (Fifty Spades of Grey), milky drinks (Fifty Shakes of Grey) and household products (Fifty Shapes of Tray).
What is the key to its success? On the surface – and there is not much more to the book – it is soft-core porn of a sado-masochistic bent, aimed at the middle-aged mum market. The story, or what there is of it, is about a 21-year-old virgin called Anastasia Steele who goes to interview a successful businessman for a US magazine. “My mouth goes dry looking at him… he’s freaking hot.”
So, it’s not Lord Sugar, then. In fact, his name is Christian Grey, and, what’s more, he’s cultured. He has always wanted to go to England, he tells Anastasia, because “it’s the home of Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontë sisters, Thomas Hardy. I’d like to see the places that inspired those people to write such wonderful books”, he says.
By now, even the most patient porno reader will be screaming: “Get a bloody move on!”
But it is not until page 78 that they make any effort in that direction and then it is only to kiss.
“I moan into his mouth, giving his tongue an opening. He takes full advantage, expertly exploring my mouth…”
To me, this sounds closer to dentistry, or to a particularly demanding form of washing up, than to erotica.
It’s one of a number of passages which suggest the author, chained to her typewriter, hard at work pounding out the porn, is secretly entertaining fantasies about getting on with housework.
At last, on page 117, Christian and Anastasia get to have sex, though it has all the hallmarks of a spin-dryer: “He speeds up. I moan, and he pounds on, picking up speed, merciless, a relentless rhythm, and I keep up, meeting his thrusts.” That’ll be the speed-dry, then.
It soon comes to an end. Anastasia is delighted by this new activity. “Wow… that was astounding.”
When Anastasia wakes, Christian is playing the piano, a “sad and forlorn” expression on his face.
“That was a beautiful piece. Bach?” says Anastasia.
“Transcription by Bach, but it’s originally an oboe concerto by Alessandro Marcello.”
Borring! Who wants to read about transcriptions of oboe concertos at a time like this?
But the major problem faced by writers of porn is how to fill in all the boring bits between the bouts. They know that no sane person really wants to wade through them, but they know, too, that they are somehow meant to be good for you, like All-Bran, or having a cold shower.
In recent weeks, many commentators have tried to argue that Fifty Shades of Grey represents a revolution in the world of mass-market erotica. One half claims it shows the world is going to the dogs. The other half claims it is a turning point for women, allowing them a new openness in their sexual fantasies.
The awful truth is that both are wrong. Far from being revolutionary, Fifty Shades of Grey sews together something borrowed and something blue, but severely lacks anything remotely new.
Christian Grey is a hand-me-down mix of the fragile and the bullish, the cruel and the vulnerable.
He is a Barbara Cartland hero with knobs on – or, rather, a knob on. One minute, he is cutting a dash in his office, barking out high-powered stuff to underlings – “The prototype looks good, though I’m not sure about the interface,” and so on. The next, he is playing sensitive classical tunes on his piano, or revealing his appreciation of fine wines.
Once Christian and Anastasia finally get going, the sado-masochistic games they play are very tame, and entirely consensual.
An ineffable amount of time is given to their negotiations in drafting a contract for Christian’s relationship with Ana, or “The Submissive” as he refers to her.
Frankly, I have read sexier house rental agreements.
“The Submissive will obey any instructions given by the Dominant immediately without hesitation or reservation and in an expeditious manner.” It goes on to include everything from grooming (“The Submissive will visit a beauty salon of the Dominant’s choosing…”) to types of activity permitted (“The Submissive shall accept floggings, spankings, canings, paddlings, or any other discipline… without hesitation… or complaint”).
It was while ploughing these contractual negotiations that it struck me that the author, EL James, shares her initials with comic Peter Cook’s character EL Wisty, the founder of the World Domination League. It was the ambition of that EL to become Minister of Nudism.
“If I did become Minister of Nudism,” he announces, “I’d be allowed to be on television every evening around 9.30. I’d come on and say: ‘Good evening. This is the Minister of Nudism. Take off your clothes and begin to dance about.’ “
Actors like Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have been mooted for the film version.
As this is the fastest-selling novel of all time, everyone has been looking for its secret ingredient. My suspicion is that there isn’t one. It was simply published in the right place and the right time. – Daily Mail