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1. David Smith 07/29/2012 - 8:33 pm  subscriber

   Slow news Sunday. No publicity is bad publicity.

2. John Hayes 07/29/2012 - 8:48 pm  subscriber

   The hotel owner said:

   ““I thought it would be a special treat for our guests to find it in their bedside cabinet and that includes the men too,” he said. “They are as desperate to get their hands on a copy as the women.”

   He added: “The Gideon Bible is full of references to sex and violence, although it’s written using more formal language, so James’s book is easier to read.”

   http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/news/9824187.Racy_Fifty_Shades_of_Grey_replaces_bible_at_Lake_District_hotel/

3. Anthony Andreass 07/29/2012 - 8:54 pm  subscriber

   I waiting for the review in Commonweal before I buy it. Hurry up and review it, Grant!

4. John Hayes 07/29/2012 - 9:04 pm  subscriber

   Coincidentally, today’s ” Miss Conduct” advice column in the Boston Globe discusses whether you should take a copy of Fifty Shades of Gray to the hospital to read while sitting by your parent’s bed in the Hospital..

   “A few days ago, I was visiting my father in the hospital. My sister was there, reading Fifty Shades of Grey (with our father lying asleep a few feet away!). Is it old-fashioned of me to think this is probably not appropriate reading material in this situation, or really any public setting? Am I simply being too prudish?”

   Miss Conduct says:

   “If your sister had put another cover over the book, that would have been acceptable. (Or read it on a Kindle. She wasn’t trying to get back at your father for not giving her the e-reader she wanted for Christmas, was she?) But reading clearly labeled erotica in a hospital — or subway, park bench, or Lutheran fellowship hall — is a violation of decency, and what on earth has happened to our society that I even have to explain that?”

   No dicussion of whether reading erotica is OK.

5. Abe Rosenzweig 07/29/2012 - 9:53 pm

   I have been deeply amused by the number of women I see reading this on the train, whereas you used to see a dozen copies of Eat, Pray, Love or The Devil Wore Prada in any given car.

   The thing is, in terms of content, 50 Shades is not much different than a lot of romance novels, which also tend to be pretty packed with heated sex scenes that manage to be explicit without ever actually using the words penis or vagina. It’s certainly more explicit, but the basic tack that 50 Shades takes is the same as a lot of romance novels: a woman resists a man who (rather easily) overcomes her. The bdsm element of 50 Shades is not something you see in most other books in the romance genre, but whereas those books lack the ben-wah balls, they do have a lot more rape fantasy than the unsuspecting reader may have anticipated.

   It’s worth remembering that 50 Shades started out as Twilight fan fiction, and you don’t have to scratch fan fiction’s surface very deeply at all before you come to discover how deeply invested people are in the erotic potential of the fictional worlds that have become important to them. (I needed a still from a South Park episode featuring an antichrist character named Damian for a lecture I was giving; I flat-out couldn’t find one–but I did find DOZENS of pictures of a surprisingly buff Cartman having sex with said Damian)

   This hotel is kind of known for publicity stunts, which of course is what this is–but the proprietor does make an interesting point about wondering why some people think it means something if suddenly those pasteboard dressers cease to have a Gideon’s in the drawer.

6. Bill Mazzella 07/29/2012 - 10:23 pm  subscriber

   Fifty Shades of Grey is an extraordinary phenomenon. It is not the usual erotica. Even surpassing Harry Potter. Here is one Catholic women’s appraisal with help from the CCC. http://thecatholicrealist.com/2012/05/16/one-catholics-opinion-on-fifty-shades-of-grey/

7. Claire 07/30/2012 - 6:42 am

   I learned about the Twilight series after seeing its characters used in a colleague’s assignment for the students. The assignment was couched in terms of a poor, helpless, crying Bella being rescued by Ed. My protests went unheeded, and in retaliation, for the rest of the semester all my assignments featured a strong, competent female cast and weak, helpless male characters. (I don’t know whether my students noticed the pattern, but one colleague was indignant when I mentioned it to him: he said that I was deliberately practicing just another kind of discrimination).

8. Janet 07/30/2012 - 8:04 am  subscriber

   there are so many books I want to read and don’t have time to read, that these wouldn’t even be on the list. a woman who works where i do devoured them and i took a look at her copy. seemed pretty boring. what is interesting to me is that these would be interesting to anyone innour culture, given our sex-soaked everything.

   Funny (and also sad?) coincidence: a young adult novel also on the shelves right now: Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys. Gorgeous, harrowing story of a young girl under Soviet oppression. Lots of confusion of the two books—I have seen websites hysterically shouting, “Between Shades of Gray is NOT Fifty Shades…!!!!!!”

9. Jean Raber 07/30/2012 - 10:05 am  subscriber

   I read all the “Twilight” books when I volunteered to help the local middle school start a newspaper and all the girls wanted to write about it. The series is dreadful, not the least b/c the author is not wholly talentless (as Evanovich is reported to be), and they have the potential to raise really interesting moral questions seem to have been ditched when the editors saw that it was the chaste but never-ending foreplay that sold the books. Moreover, the last book has the most horrific obstetrical scene I have ever read, and parents should be advised.

   My favorite part: The rich vampire family justifies their conspicuous consumerism by donating their haute couture to the Goodwill. I hope they put that in the movies–the Cullen family loading their Armanis and Chanels into black garbage bags and stuffing them into the collection boxes in dead of night. I bet that scene never makes it into the movies.

   Boys have deep animosity to these books, and most refuse to see the movies with their girlfriends. Bravo to that! A whole raft of young girls are being told that the rich, pretty, evil dead who will remain forever 17 are preferable to real guys who actually grow up and become interesting.

10. Cathleen Kaveny 07/30/2012 - 10:42 am  contributor

    Yes, Bella is no Buffy.

11. Mollie Wilson O'Reilly 07/30/2012 - 10:46 am  contributor

    One day a few weeks back I found myself sitting next to a woman reading “Fifty Shades” on my train ride to work in the morning — and again on my train ride home. It struck me as funny because I was reading my daily Scripture both times. (It was Give Us This Day, not a Gideon Bible.) Those women were definitely concentrating better than I was.

12. Irene Baldwin 07/30/2012 - 11:21 am

    “the last book has the most horrific obstetrical scene I have ever read”

    I had to sit through Breaking Dawn the movie with my older daughter. Though the ending, with Bella’s horribly painful labor is I guess a cautionary tale against teen pregnancy. And I am still wondering whether the baby is a vampire baby? And what are the mechanics of being a vampire baby? Do they grow up?

    If I were looking for vacation lodging, I would assume that a hotel that markets bedside copies of Fifty Shades does not cater to families and that it might possibly be a hotsheets.

13. Jim Pauwels 07/30/2012 - 11:38 am

    I’ve spoken to a couple of women who are definitely intrigued by the book but can’t overcome the embarrassment factor of having to walk into a public bookstore to buy it. Who wants to be judged by their bookstall clerk? Whether it is the smuttiness or the literary-dreck factor that is embarrassing, I’m not completely sure.

    One mentioned that she also doesn’t want to pay for something that is reputedly that badly written (although she does want to read something that torrid). She has a Kindle, but even the ebook edition from the local library has a waiting list of 75.

14. Jean Raber 07/30/2012 - 3:53 pm  subscriber

    Irene, the obstetrical scene might not only be a cautionary tale against teen pregnancy, but might make impressionable girls never want to get pregnant, ever.

    I have no idea about the mechanics of having or being a vampire baby. Yes, they do grow up. If their vampire parents don’t eat them. I guess.

    Speaking of talentless writers, here’s a re-do on that awful sentence from my last post: The series is dreadful, not the least b/c the author is not wholly talentless (as Evanovich is reported to be), and THE BOOKS have the potential to raise really interesting moral questions THAT seem to have been ditched when the editors saw that it was the chaste but never-ending foreplay that sold the books.

    No, Bella is no Buffy. She fights very hard to stay out of the dark with Spike. Bella ends up possibly soul-less; this is never clearly spelled out in the book. But (and this is a direct quote), she is made a vampire at age 18 and realizes she will have the body of an 18-year-old forever, “Every woman’s dream!” So she’s happy with her haute couture, the many classic cars in the vampire garage, and sharing mountain lion blood with hubby (awwwwww).

    Gag-o-rama.

15. Claire 07/30/2012 - 3:58 pm

    Jim P., why don’t you buy copies of that book and give it to those women as a present? It would be courteous of you to spare them the embarrassment, wouldn’t it?

16. Crystal Watson 07/30/2012 - 5:40 pm

    I saw a pretty good review of the 50 Shades books – more of a feminist perspective ….. http://feministing.com/2012/04/16/what-katie-roiphe-gets-wrong-about-fifty-shades-of-grey-and-fantasies-of-sexual-submission/

17. Jim McCrea 07/30/2012 - 7:23 pm  subscriber

    It stands a good chane of being read. The bible? When’s the last time you opened one of those Gideon bibles and discovered that it was obvious that you were the first one to do so?

    I once stayed in a motel in Utah and it, of course, the bible and Book of Mormon. Guess which one appeared to have been at least looked at regularly?

18. John Hayes 07/30/2012 - 7:52 pm  subscriber

    I once stayed in a motel in Utah and it, of course, the bible and Book of Mormon. Guess which one appeared to have been at least looked at regularly?

    Don’t have to go to Utah. Just stay at any Marriott-related hotel chain.

19. Bill Mazzella 07/30/2012 - 8:52 pm  subscriber

    Crystal, the review you cite is very good. It is accurate and not necessarily just feminist. Spot on. Startling, how many opine about it without reading the book. It is in fact a terrific love story. It is a very well written book. Amazingly, some literary people criticize the literary quality of the book. Jealously for sure. Even Erica Jong chimed in. The woman in the book is indeed just as strong as the man even if she is much less experienced. At least in the beginning. They are not perfect just as most Catholic brides are not virgins anymore.

    At first women on Catholic blogs praised the book. Out of obedience, I guess they recanted after some quoted Ratzinger and the like. I forgot Ratzinger and John Paul II know so much about sex in marriage.

20. Jim Pauwels 07/31/2012 - 9:41 am

    Claire, you’re right, that would be extraordinarily courteous of me, but I fear my gallantry would be mistaken for some other message :-)

21. Janet 08/03/2012 - 9:46 am  subscriber

    Bill: the celibate ordained male knows just aout EVERYTHING about sex and sexuality. How could you forget this magical doctrine of infused information? Women—half of humanity’s sexual reality—need not apply for any deliberative, authoritative place at the table. Remember: JP II wrote a whole PAMPHLET about women; I am sure it is definitive, as is everything he ever said or did.

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