Book review: 'Fifty Shades of Grey'

Fifty Shades of Grey
Author: EL James
Publisher: Arrow Books
Pages: 514
Price: Rs 350

Anastasia Steele is 21 years old and just about to graduate. She’s a “pale, brown-haired girl with blue eyes too big for her face”. And she’s a virgin. Fifty Shades of Grey, already being touted as ‘mommy porn’ the world over, is a book about Ana’s sexual awakening.

When kate, her roommate and editor of the student newspaper, falls ill, Ana is asked to interview Christian Grey, multi-millionaire and benefactor of their college. Unprepared, Ana stumbles — literally — into Grey’s office and asks him Kate’s questions, some as embarrassing as “Are you gay?”

After a disastrous interview, of which she can only remember how sexually charged the atmosphere was and what a control-freak he came across as, Ana is surprised when Grey shows up at her workplace and asks her out. Intimidated, intrigued, turned on and attracted to him all at once, Ana accepts. After a couple of harmless dates and when the sexual tension is no longer bearable, Grey flies Ana to his home in Seattle.

Ana is all set to lose her virginity to this man who seems too-good-to-be-true. Once inside his house, she is shown his “red room of pain” — a room that smells of leather and citrus polish, and is equipped with all sorts of tools and toys that Ana is completely unprepared for. Christian Grey gets off on inflicting pain, controlling and dominating others — he’s “fifty shades of fucked up”.

As she learns about his BDSM (bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, sadism-masochism) lifestyle, she’s horrified. But, what's more unnerving for her is that she's turned on despite her horror.

Ana’s first-person narrative makes Fifty Shades... an enjoyable and entertaining read. She may be an innocent, but she’s no submissive. She’s defiant, independent and strong-minded. And she’s constantly caught between her subconscious and her Inner Goddess — the personification of these two alter-egos makes for constant and hilarious commentary that keeps the narrative engrossing and prevents it from becoming a staid monologue. This internal debate — whether to give into the debasement or to suffer the pangs of a break up — is what makes her dilemma real.
At times outraged by Grey’s demands, at other times turned on, Ana is slowly coming to terms with her own desires. But she also desperately wants to push her own “hard” and “soft” limits, as that seems to be the only way she can be with “Mr Grey” or “Sir”.
Mr Grey, on the other hand, scarred as he is by a dark past, is prepared to sleep with Ana after some heavy-duty “f**king”. He’s also prepared to break a rule and have “vanilla sex” with her. But his need to control her gets the better of him, and he showers her with gifts — a Macbook, a Blackberry and an Audi among other things.

Despite Ana’s constant defiance of Grey (or because of it) the sex — frequent, elaborate and intense — is hot. A little freaky, sometimes too verbose, disgusting even. But mostly, super-hot. The ‘mommy porn’ tag seems a bit unfair, although this book does seem directed only at the ladies. And the BDSM isn’t as earth-shattering as it’s made out to be. In fact, it seems like a rather toned-down version of how violent BDSM can really be.
After this, if you still want more steamy sex along with an entertaining internal dialogue, there’s good news. Fifty Shades of Grey is followed by Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.