Today's Review: Fifty Shades Of Grey (The Book)

I'm going to see Fifty Shades Of Grey the movie tomorrow. I certainly noticed the furore surrounding the books when they were released, but I never wanted to actually subject myself to the thing. No, I was quite happy to sit back and watch the ridicule roll in, picking up little tidbits here and there that I could casually throw into conversations to seem topical. But with the tickets already purchased for a movie I'm sure I will not rate highly, I thought it would be best to have some frame of reference for how truly awful it may be. So I set myself the task of reading the book, and unfortunately I set myself that task yesterday morning. It's been a truly exhausting two days, with a deadline looming over my head that I really didn't want to make. But about an hour ago, I finished. There's really not much I can say about this book that hasn't already been said, but here goes.

Fifty Shades Of Grey follows Anastasia Steele, a perfectly innocent young woman who finds herself absolutely entranced by wealthy CEO Christian Grey. Fortunately, the feeling is mutual, and Grey pursues Steele relentlessly, and after one date he rolls out an extensive BDSM contract that makes Anastasia a submissive sex slave that must satisfy Grey's every whim. What a classic love story. There's really not much more to the plot than that. After the first act, during which Grey stalks Ana and displays every indication of being a very dangerous man, everything comes up trumps for him, and we have several elongated chapters, in which Ana and Grey meet someplace, have sex, she goes to another place, he shows up, they have sex, repeat ad nauseam. I can't tell which erotic happenings occur in which place, but it doesn't really matter, they all seem the same. Sure, there's some "kinky" stuff afoot in a couple of chapters, but it's mostly oddly worded cookie cutter sex scenes, written with an odd sense of timing that makes it seem like it's all over in 30 seconds.

It's funny I should mention the writing... actually, no it's not, because the writing is bad. It's not appalling, there aren't any typos, and you can actually read it, but it's certainly not good. Sure, it's a lot better than some of the fan fiction out there (this was originally written as Twilight fan fiction, you know), but the writing is just wholly uninspired. The amount of overused utterances and references are well publicised, between the "oh my" and "inner goddess", and the repeated mention of "there", it's just laughable. The one that really got to me was the constant reference to Grey's "long index finger", not just because I was completely baffled as to how that's the sexiest thing one can think of, but because whenever it's said all I can picture is E.T. The image certainly isn't helped by the fact that Grey has a brother called Elliot.

Of course, the main focus in the book is Anastasia. She's the one providing the narrative, and her journey from innocent virgin to submissive is the main draw of the novel. But her character is so frustratingly underdeveloped and poorly written that I couldn't help but feel agitated throughout the whole book. She's constantly at war with herself, which is a good way to write a character, but it's just so cheesy. Whenever she has to make a decision, she is either chastised by her "subconscious" or egged on by her "inner goddess", clearly representations of Freud's super-ego and id respectively, but overall coming off as a dissociative identity disorder. Actually, we shouldn't drag such complex terms into this, because Anastasia is a frustratingly simple character. The extent of her inner turmoil goes something like this:

Grey: "I want to have sex with you, but not in a regular way, in a nasty way. Also, you still haven't signed this contract, and no matter how much time I give you to think about it, I know where you are and will turn up at your doorstep without warning"
Ana's subconscious: "Eww, this guy is creepy. He's definitely dangerous and stalker-like, and you're being a bit of a ho-bag"
Ana's inner goddess: "Oh, but he's so dreamy"
Ana: "I'm going to succumb to your every whim now, but later I'm going to moan about it"

This is what happens, time and time again. The process gets repeated so much, you could probably just condense the entire book down into one meeting, one revision of "the contract" and one sex scene. Nothing gets learned, Ana has some inner turmoil, but immediately turns to jelly every time she sees her new lover. It's exhausting, and it may be a bit more bearable if there was some actual interesting writing going on, but it's the same references, the same descriptions, the same utterances.

Fifty Shades Of Grey is a one-dimensional book filled with one-dimensional characters. I wish the book itself was one-dimensional, so I hadn't wasted two days ploughing through 500 pages. So yes, it's bad. It's not the most awful thing I've ever read, but it's certainly the worst book I've read. That probably doesn't mean much coming from me, I'm not a big reader, and I'm quite discerning with my literature, but this certainly isn't an experience I enjoyed. Now I know for sure that the movie adaptation can only be poor at best. So check back tomorrow, when my misery has been fully realised.

My rating: 1/5

Today's Review: Not Now, Bernard

My kids have been taking part in the library's summer reading challenge, because apparently instead of being outside enjoying the nice weather, they should be inside reading books. Well, it's a nice opportunity to get them literate, so we've been picking out a few books from the dregs left by the other hundreds of children who are also taking part. I did manage to find one "classic" though, a book that I remember from my childhood. This is Not Now, Bernard, and it's horrifying.

We follow our titular character, Bernard, as he attempts to talk to his mother and father about something. Now, most parents may take the time to respond to their child, but not Bernard's parents. Instead, upon greeting his mother or father, he is met with the even more titular "Not now, Bernard!"

Alright, I get it, he interrupted you, but you could at least see what he wanted to talk about. Just look at Bernard's face as he shuffles away. He's used to this response, he's used to being flat out told to go away. He gets the same reaction from his mother, even when he informs her that there's a monster in the garden and it's going to eat him. Sure, he might be making it up, but the lady could at least take the time to reassure her son that there's nothing to worry about. But now, she'd rather just water the plants. Dejected, Bernard goes out to the garden and attempts to befriend the actual real life monster that's taken a pew on an oddly large rock. True to form, the monster does what Bernard predicts, it eats him.

Reading this book the first time, you may think that this is some kind of trick. Bernard can't really have been eaten, maybe he's just sitting inside the stomach, waiting for someone to cut him out, a la friendlier versions of Little Red Riding Hood. But no, Bernard is dead. Not only dead, but devoured, massacred by a purple monster. All because his parents wouldn't talk to him. But the monster doesn't stop there, it wanders into the house and attempts to scoff the parents for dessert. Actually, probably the father for a main and the mother for dessert, I don't know how monster menus work. 

Too bad monster, because Bernard's parents are so uncaring of their child that they just figure this purple horned beast is their son, and carry on ignoring him and telling him to go away. The monster, clearly fazed by such indifference, assumes the role of Bernard a little, reading Bernard's comic, eating Bernard's dinner, until the mother, still not even bothering to look at her child, sends the monster up to bed with a glass of milk.

"But I'm a monster!" he cries. But who is really the monster? I mean sure, the monster is literally a monster, and a murderous one at that. But Bernard's parents truly are the monsters of this tale. They're neglectful, uncaring, and apparently their neglectful attitudes extend to their gardening, as they placed an inviting monster-friendly rock perch there and didn't bother dealing with the resulting monster guest. Bernard has been murdered in cold blood, and this mother and father don't even know, so wrapped up in their lives and chores that they still can't pay any attention to their "son". All Bernard needed was some love, some reassurance, probably a weapon to defend himself. But now he's dead, consumed, expired. 

Not Now, Bernard is a harrowing tale of child neglect, a tale of the downfall of humanity, the consequences of our uncaring, selfish nature. But it's also a jolly fun read, and the kids love it. After all, we can't read into these things too much, can we?

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: Singing Rhymes By Wendy Body

Sometimes my daughter chooses some nice books at school for me to read to her. Other times, not to much. This is actually the second time she's brought this book home from school, expecting me to read it. The first time I passed it up in favour of a Dr. Seuss classic, but this time she was insistent that I follow through. So it was time to delve into this... interesting collection of playground songs. I state in the title that this book is "by Wendy Body", but the cover actually says that it's "remembered and collected" by her. This basically means that Wendy was sitting down one day, and thought "Oh yeah, I remember some stuff I used to sing in school, I should write it down and sell it to people". 

She didn't even do that good of a job. You know how many songs are in this book? Five. Spread over 12 pages. That's not a book, it's a pamphlet. At least I didn't have to sit there and sing songs for too long, and better still, I couldn't quite remember how one of them went, so I got to skip over that one. You see, a book full of lyrics isn't particularly helpful if you don't know the melody, but hey, maybe I should have remembered these songs as well as Wendy did. The best part is that this book isn't just full of regurgitated playground frivolity, there are also some interesting illustrations drawn by Avril Turner. 

Yeah... Interesting. We have a nice cast of ethnically diverse children, assuming various positions in order to portray the actions of the songs. But this is another thing that doesn't really work on paper, there's no clue as to which action to perform at which point during the song, or even if there are other actions. For those who don't know their playground ditties, this book reads like bad poetry that you have to recite while contorting your body into uncomfortable positions. 

They see me rollin', they hatin'

Perhaps I'm overly cynical. I mean, I certainly couldn't draw children as well as that, especially the emptiness in their eyes. Oops, there I go again, but seriously, I could not get into this book at all, and not just because I finished it in a couple of minutes. It seems like a low effort production clapped together in an afternoon, and while the illustrations are nicely detailed and plentiful, the amount of writing that's gone into it is lazy at best. If this turns up in my daughter's book bag again, I'll be heading straight for Green Eggs And Ham.

My rating: 1/5

Today's Review: Mr. Uppity

Adorning my Twitter, Facebook and Google+ profiles (I know, super social media guru) is a picture of a quite random selection of items. It is supposed to be representative of the array of things I review on this blog, and while I have indeed reviewed the R2D2 cookie jar and table fans, I certainly haven't reviewed the rest specifically. Well, now it is time to delve into the literary classic present at the forefront of my profile picture, Roger Hargreave's Mr. Uppity.

Mr. Uppity is part of the Mr. Men series of books, each of which deals with a different Mr. Man with a different Mr. name. There is Mr. Happy, Mr. Tickle, Mr. Small, and so on, and each character is pretty well represented by their name. Mr. Uppity is no exception. He is a rude, rich man who lives in a massive house.

You can tell from the middle window that his house is 1/3 atrium

Mr. Uppity spends his days wandering around and being rude and uppity to people. But one day, that changes, as he encounters a goblin in his garden, and promptly tells him to go away. The goblin, in return, works a spell on Mr. Uppity that shrinks him:

Now, Mr. Uppity doesn't appreciate being tiny, and so is led to the Goblin King, who allows him to return to normal, but on the condition that is he is ever rude to somebody, he will quickly shrink again. So, through a magical form of operant conditioning, Mr. Uppity learns not to be rude to people, for fear of having his entire molecular structure shrunk over and over again. But that's okay, because once Mr. Uppity stops being a dick, people start to like him, and that makes him happy.

So there you have it kids, the moral of the story is not to be rude to people, or else goblins will make you shrink. While the first part of the moral is pretty sound, the second is pretty ridiculous, but this is coming from a guy who wrote books where Mr. Greedy is scared slim by a giant, and Mr. Mean is tortured via magic until he becomes less mean, so I guess anything goes.

But, all in all, this is an entertaining book for the kids. The pictures are big, bold and happy, and while the threat of goblins in the real world is negligible, it is nice to have life lessons put across in an entertaining, magical manner. Mr. Uppity is a good addition to the Mr. Men range, and while it may not hold up to other classics like Mr. Happy and Mr. Small, it's still good fun.

My rating: 4/5

Today's Review: The Adventures Of Tintin: Flight 714

You know, I never really read the Tintin books that much when I was a kid. I read a few, sure, but I can't really remember them. I was more of an Asterix man myself. Still, I saw this book in the library the other day, and I just had to borrow it. It's every man-boy's dream. Adventure, mystery, guns, a drunk sea captain and a dog.

Little did I know that Flight 714 is the penultimate (finished) book in the series. As such all the characters are introduced as if they're my old friends, but I had vague memories of most of them, so it was okay. The plot follows Tintin, Haddock and Professor Calculus as they journey to Australia, only to be invited onto a private plane by an eccentric millionaire. Unfortunately people are out to get said millionaire, and the gang get caught up in the plot, being kidnapped and taken to a private island, a sceme masterminded by Tintin's apparent old nemesis, Rastapopoulos. Wow. What a name.

I read this book pretty much in one sitting. Not that it's particularly long, but I certainly got engrossed in it. From the kidnapping to the daring escape, to the hidden tunnels on the island, it's a nice little tale to get sucked into. But then it got to the end and things got a bit weird. One of the evil henchmen lost his teeth, making his speech difficult to read, while at the same time Tintin and co. stumble upon a weird dude who is contacting them via telepathic alien technology, and whose speech is also difficult to read because he ends every other word with "ink". Then they all get beamed aboard an alien spaceship. That's just weird, and it's hardly explained, it's like Hergé ran out of ideas to get the team out of their predicament, but then just said "Aliens!".

Still, while the plot does get quite ludicrous in the final pages, it's still a good read. Beautifully drawn, of course, and I feel that if I had the previous knowledge of the earlier books under my belt I could have been even more engrossed in it. This has done the job of giving me the desire to hunt out the rest.

My rating: 4/5