Fifty Shades of Grey is pretty terrible in a few respects. Its been criticized for it's portrayal of BDSM culture, specifically in the regard that it romanticizes an abusive relationship and calls it something it is not. One of the key elements of BDSM is aftercare and mutual respect, something that Fifty Shades seems to look over for some reason. While I could go into a much longer rant, that is not what this post is about. Along with being misinforming, Fifty Shades suffers from another flaw; Terrible writing.
Disclaimer: I have never finished the book. There was an attempt made once, however I have a certain standard of what I will read. I could hardly get passed the first chapter of Fifty Shades without wanting to take a cold shower and contemplate what I'd just read. This being said, I found a list of quotes online, helpfully titled "Fifty terrible lines from Fifty Shades of Grey" and went to work finding the worst of the worst.
When you read sentences like "Don't you like the butt drawer?” and “His voice is warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel... or something.” it’s hard to think that a.) This is a real published work that sold over and million copies and b.) there is truly a terrible line. However, never fear, for I have read something so terrible my eyes will never be able to unread it and I don't know how I will ever be the same again. It reads as follows.
"He reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string… what! And… a gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. Holy fuck. Sweet mother of all… Jeez.”
There are so many things wrong with this sentence. First of all, it is absolutely disgusting. It is undoubtedly as gross as you think it is. Reading the passage around it makes me gag. There is no reason for this to exist anywhere.
Secondly, it’s poorly written. The ellipses are unneeded. It’s weirdly spaced out. The words don’t mesh together in the sentence correctly, and I had to double check the website hadn’t made a mistake when writing “And… a gently”. I suppose I understand what E.L. James was attempting to accomplish with all of this; to show the lead characters thought process. However it ends up a gross jumbled mess, and leaves everyone uncomfortable and wondering “why?”
Why did E.L. James include this in her book at all?
Why would she think this was a good idea?
Why didn’t her editor stop her?
Why didn’t her editor stop her?
Of all the cringe worthy sentences, this one wins the prize for being the worst, and the author has gone on to be more popular then I can conceive. I guess I’ll never know how this came to pass; It will be one of the great mysteries of my lifetime.
This was tremendously entertaining!Like gummy bears on ice cream...or something.
ReplyDeleteI have never read these books but a couple years ago a few students decided it would be fun to read some lines from the books in class. I thought they were making it up. They weren't.
I had a student write a paper once on self-publishing and the E.L. James phenomenon, and the short answer to "why didn't her editor stop her" is that she had no editor. She self-published these, and, to make it worse, something like three of her books were on last year's top bestseller lists. She is an author and she is rich, rich, rich. Sour grapes? Yes, I suppose, but it's hard to sell students on the value of good writing when E.L. James is shredding $100 bills and using them for cat litter. Sigh.