Bedroom Olympics

Well, I've just finished E L James Fifty Shades of Grey, I'd like to add that it was just after I'd finished Hare with the Amber Eyes and a fantastic biography on Margaret Mahy, both literary tombes.

My expectations were as high as those of me of winning gold in any Olympic event in these, or any, past or present, Olympic games. Which might lead you to ask, why read it at all? Well, the beast of curiosity was lapping at my feet, and I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. I'd heard about it firstly as mummy porn.

Interestingly we don't hear much about daddy porn, and the term irks me as it's somehow trying to downgrade and ridicule women, and this is of course another story. Preceding something parental to something supposedly raunchy word is akin to brewer's droop. Goodness, there's a huge industry spawned for men, straight and gay. Why not porn for women? And if it's making mega bucks why is it smirked at?  Suspect this is a bigger discussion, and I have little to contribute at this stage.

Anyway, so there was the explosion of this book, an e-book doing wonders having been written by an ordinary woman. Well, I'd say now that E L James is no ordinary woman. She's a very, very wealthy ordinary woman. I watched an interview with her and I thought, "good on you girl". What I find most extraordinary, is that she wrote the book and her sons know she wrote it. My two were horrified when they knew I was reading it, but once I'd told them of its success, they were quick to think of appropriate titles I could rename my children's books for a bigger and wider audience.  

Roll up a few months later, and in a small suburb in Auckland, a group of six women are gathered around a table, and the conversation finds its way to James's book. Surprisingly, all of my bright, beautiful friends were reading it, ordered it or were about to read it. At that stage, I was the only one not in its thralls. I'd have to borrow one of their's, and I did.

So it's Sundary morning and I've just finished it. I enjoyed it, it's an easy, entertaining, and titallating read. I think if there were Olympics for describing orgasms, then James would most definitely be a contender whether or not you're taken in by the fantasy. And rightfully so. If you have a spare minute, you could use this as a writing exercise. Might be fun or excrutiating, it's certainly not easy.

And no it's not a literary tombe and won't be put on the 'show off' bookshelf' (you know the ones where Dickens, Freud and Wilde fight with each other on the shelves). And yes, I'll be reading the next one but I have an Austen and Dickens' waiting in the wings at the moment.