by Anna Roberts
The gynecologist comes round and gives Ana a hormone shot. She also checks her ears for mites, clips her claws and prescribes a course of worming pills. Goddamn, don’t you just love a man who treats you like livestock? Oh, and she has Ana do a pregnancy test, even though there’s little to no chance that Ana could be pregnant but hey, drama is drama, right? Cue pointless shitfit and more crying.
Then Dickfacehead and Ana take a shower and she washes off the remnants of the lipstick she put on his body yesterday afternoon? Ew. Gross. Then he starts crying in the shower because she touches him and he’s so moved by the power of her deep, meaningful love, which is currently less than forty-eight hours old and largely based on frequent but unimaginative sex. He wangsts loudly that he’s not worthy of her love. Personally, I think he almost deserves it.
“I can’t hear this, Anastasia. I’m nothing. I’m a husk of a man...”
Oh, come on now Dickfacehead. You’re far worse than that.
Then he tells her he loves her and in a shocking twist, the chapter ends.
Chapter Nine...
...opens with our ghastly heroine jubilant that Dickfacehead loves her.
His soft, sweet confession calls to me on some deep elemental level, as if he’s seeking absolution; his three small words are my manna from heaven. Tears prick my eyes once more...
It’s such a liberating realisation, as if a crushing millstone had been tossed aside. This beautiful, fucked-up man, whom I once thought of as my romantic hero – strong, solitary, mysterious – possesses all these traits, but he’s also fragile and alienated and full of self-loathing. My heart swells with joy but also pain for his suffering. And I know in this moment that my heart is big enough for the both of us. I hope it’s big enough for the both of us.
You’ve spent...what? A total of about two weeks together, all told? I think I actually preferred them back in Fifty Shades of Grey, back when they were just two charm-free bores who yabbered on about sex contracts and tea-bags for what felt like a short Ice Age. At least when they were only fucking one another we didn’t have to cope with anything quite as awful as the paragraph above.
There is a lot to get angry about in this book, but for some reason this paragraph makes me furious every time I read it. It’s horrible writing, but horrible writing is a given in these books; after a while you let it wash over you because the alternative is suffering some kind of rage-induced aneurism on behalf of the English language.
But this? This does something to me. I don’t know exactly what it is – the Tupperware sentiment, the shitstorm of cliches, the underlying reek of self-congratulation or a ghastly combination of all three. Maybe it’s because it leaves me with the embarrassing feeling that I just saw the kind of weird emotional porn that empurples the author’s fevered mind when she’s whacking it to the thought of Edward Cullen. Maybe it’s because this is essentially a plastic girl recycled from someone else’s novel, spouting Self-Help sentiments about a man she has known for about two weeks in total. I don’t know. It’s not one specific thing. All I know is that every time I read it I go through all five stages of Grief and come out the other side in a state of resigned and slightly hysterical acceptance that the human race is absolutely, definitely, completely and utterly fucking doomed.
In a way, this paragraph represents E.L. James’ greatest achievement as a writer. Good job – you made me feel something. Granted, it was a swirling black hell of rage and despair that eventually gave way to a kind of numb, grey nihilism in the face of the knowledge that everything is ultimately hollow and hopeless, but hey – it was real.
Just pray this woman never takes up poetry. The results could be well and truly Vogon.
So – anyway. Naturally it’s Fuck O’Clock and so we are into the second shag of June 12th, which takes place off-screen because the author used up all her True Love cliches on the tragic botched prose-abortion at the start of the chapter. Thank God. Ana goes on about handsome he is because we had no idea up until now. Also he’s rich. Did we mention he was rich? And hot. So hot.
Because Dickfacehead is rich and hot he takes Ana to buy a car to replace the one that got Fatal Attractioned by his ex last night. You remember the ex – the crazy lady with a gun, who made them flee the apartment in the middle of the night about six hours ago. This is why Dickfacehead and his moronic consort are sporting gaily in the open without so much as a post-traumatic bodyguard to cover their arses.
I hope Golumette is a good shot.
They buy a car for about four pages and this time Ana doesn’t even complain about how much money he’s spending on her. Because they’re in love. Whatever. Then they get in the car and listen to Eva Cassidy for a meaningless section. Then they go to a marina for lunch and Ana is once again weird about black people. It’s an odd thing in these books but whenever there’s a black character (No, there were some. The guy in the lift in the first book – he had a whole line. And maybe the receptionist at Ana’s job?) Ana coos over them as if they were made of gingerbread. It’s especially weird when the character is a woman because Ana hates most other women on the grounds that she thinks they’re trying to have sex with Christian.
As if.
Anyway, Dante is black and very good looking but don’t get attached to him because he’s only there to serve them lunch.
For once Ana and Dickfacehead have a normal conversation – you know, one of those things where you share information about one another. This gets summarised in a paragraph or two.
In turn he plagues me with questions about Ray and my Mom, about growing up in the lush forests of Montesano, and my brief stints in Texas and Vegas. He demands to know my favourite books and films, and I’m surprised by how much we have in common.
That’s actually interesting. If only we could find out what you had in common via some other means...maybe...no, wait. It’ll come to me. I’m sure there’s another way to do this. I think it rhymes with ‘snory-helling’?
Really. Because we couldn’t have a romance novel where two people got to know each other by exchanging information about their lives and sharing their likes and dislikes by way of conversation or maybe some sort of plot. God no. That would be boring.
As we talk, it strikes me that he’s turned from Hardy’s Alec to Angel, debasement to high ideal in such a short space of time.
Oh dear.
I knew it couldn’t last.
Anyway – he has a yacht. Like Angel Clare in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. He had a yacht too. Oh no. Wait – he didn’t. Actually he doesn’t resemble Dickfacehead at all. It’s almost as if this book is nothing like Tess of the D’Urbervilles and that these clunky lumps of intertexuality are hammered in there to make the author look clever.
Then they go sailing and have sex again, for the third time today. He misquotes Antoine de St. Exupery – “There is a poetry in sailing that is old as the world,” – which is not only annoying but inappropriate. A far better quote for this section would be “...frigging in the rigging, ‘cause there’s fuck all else to do.”
Chapter Ten
They fuck about on the boat some more and talk about how great they are. It’s almost an art how they manage to moo at one another pretty much constantly without conveying anything of interest or anything that reveals character or moves the story along. Character revelations are usually marked by someone crying and it’s ALL VERY VERY DRAMATIC in a totally boring, self-indulgent way, and whenever the story needs a shot in the arm either Ana has a dream or someone phones Dickfacehead so that he can loudly say things like “KILLED IN A CAR CRASH, YOU SAY? MADWOMAN ON THE LOOSE WITH A GUN?” like a bad actor yelling over the sound of cutlery in a dinner-theatre.
Then in the evening they go for dinner, in order to engage in further meaningless mooing.
“Can I ask you something?” I decide on a fact-finding mission.
“Anything, Anastasia. You know that.” He cocks his head to one side, looking delicious.
“You don’t seem to have many fri
ends. Why is that?”
Because he’s a boring, joyless shithead with less charm than a billboard sized photograph of an anal prolapse?
Apparently not. His friendlessness is due to the fact that he’s a workaholic, even though we’ve never seen him do any work and I’m not even sure what it is that his mega-industrial tycoon enterprises holding inc etc actually does. Does anyone know? I’m honestly curious.
The conversation takes a turn for the even more boring with her worried that she’s not meeting his kinky needs. It’s dull but after the mindnumbing tedium of the neverending masked ball everything feels as though it’s moving along at a merry clip. After a short burst of mooing about neeeeeeeds and fifty shades of fuckedupness (TITLE DROP! o/) ... “We slip into an easier, happier conversation, talking about all the places he’s visited.”
I want to hear that conversation. Then I could learn things about the characters, maybe get an idea of their voices, their mannerisms, their interests and backgrounds. Goddamn it, E.L. THIS IS WHAT DIALOGUE IS FOR. The nonsense that Dickheadface and Ana regularly blart forth from their upper fuck-holes is like the opposite of dialogue – it’s anti-dialogue. It’s just noise. And dear sweet fancy lace-trimmed tapdancing Christ, is it annoying.
Then they go back to the apartment complex, which is now definitely clear of armed lunatic ex-girlfriends. Then in the elevator Ana comes over all Aerosmith and wants to get busy, but is distracted when she discovers that her clothes are now hanging in Dickfacehead’s closet. Apparently Taylor moved her in with Dickfacehead, for her own safety.
We’ll forget about the bit where they were merrily frolicking out in the open earlier, because he was there and he’s super strong and ice-cold and can run so fast he’s a blur and...oh no, wait. He can’t do that because of find/replace. So he was a sitting duck for much of the morning. Luckily Golumette appears to have also lost interest in her half of the plot. Well – luckily for him. Not such great news for us.
Then he yells at Ana for wanting to go to work the next day and says she doesn’t need to work for a living.
“What does he mean? He’s going to support me? Oh, this is beyond ridiculous – I’ve known him for what - five weeks?”
Every now and again, in the stygian hell of stupid that is Fifty Shades Darker, there is a rare and tiny spark of common fucking sense. Unfortunately it is usually snuffed when someone gets a boner, which is what happens here. Like every other time when some deal-breaking issue comes up (her right to choose her method of birth control, her consent to certain sexual practises, her right to work) they snarl at one another until Fuck O’Clock rolls around again and they can smug their way to the bedroom as if this was an adorable romantic comedy and not a horrible and regressive book that romanticises abusive relationships.
As usual, when a man tells you that he hates the fact that you have financial independence and aspects of your life that don’t revolve around his glans, Ana heads for the pool table. You remember. The one in the library. You know – the library, next to the swimming pool, opposite the art gallery. What do you mean, you don’t remember a swimming pool or an art gallery? – they were totally there.
Anyway, she bends over the pool table and it’s probably Fuck O’Clock again because it’s a horizontal surface they haven’t yet used for their bland, repetitive crotch-bumpings.
Chapter Eleven
“We’re lovers, Anastasia. Lovers don’t need safewords.”
Oh dear. This has the ring of famous last words about it, doesn’t it? Like the last person to say this was found asphyxiated the next morning wearing fishnet stockings and a Tesco bag on their head.
Then he smacks her with a ruler and they fuck. For the fourth time that day. I don’t know why he’s so worried about birth control – by this point his testes are probably running on fumes. And tonight’s orgasm is brought to you by the words ‘draining’ and ‘soul-grabbing.’
Then they go and take a bath together to moo at one another some more. He agrees to let her go to work as long as Taylor drives her right to the door of the building and watches her go in. Don’t know what he has planned for the rest of the day but he’s probably stuck a GPS tracker in her bra.
It’s only ten thirty, but it feels like three in the morning. This has to be one of the most exhausting weekends of my life.
I’m not surprised. It was the length of the Upper Triassic.
Then he asks if he could borrow her laptop and that might be significant but it’s impossible to tell plot points from meaningless jibber-jabber in this book.
Then they go to sleep and wake up and it’s morning and jibber-jabber time again. Yes, we need to know that Ana looks pretty in her Business Barbie clothes, and Dickfacehead approves, so long as she doesn’t get any ideas about actually working for a living. And we learn that Dickfacehead’s housekeeper makes his sandwiches every day and would Ana like one too? Yes please. Oh, it’s so much fun watching them say things like ‘Have a good day at the office dear,’ like they were an old married couple.
I DON’T CARE. I JUST DON’T CARE.
Interesting fact – The Fifty Shades Trilogy adds up to roughly 621,000 words. That’s about 207,000 words a book, which is a hefty size even for books with actual plots. When you consider that all three books barely have enough plot for a short trade paperback, 207,000 words begins to feel like it should be classified as Cruel and Unusual as per the Geneva Convention. These books contain more bland filler than a prison sausage.
Anyway, onward. (help me)
Then she goes to work and Jack says “I have work for you to do,” because he is the boss and that’s what bosses say. I feel like I’m watching a four year old play dolls.
So, of course, the first thing Ana does is e-mail her boyfriend. Dickfacehead says he hopes she’ll never leave and she is astonished.
She e-mails back asking him if he is asking her to move in with him. He didn’t ask anything of the sort but the author knows he’s about to, so. Jack nearly catches her at it and asks her to a ‘Fiction Symposium’ in New York on Thursday. His eyes darken as he asks her, so he’s probably going to try and rape her, because this book apparently needs another lacklustre antagonist and another equally soggy subplot.
Dickfacehead has got the memo from the author and asks Dumbass to move in with him. She tells him about New York and he predictably flips his wig about it. As you’ll remember – the last time she travelled cross country he stalked her every step of the way. So romantic.
They e-mail back and forth for long enough for anyone with half a brain to know Ana is a lousy employee and then Mrs. Robinson e-mails asking Ana to lunch. Then Dickfacehead phones to complain about her last e-mail and to be ‘a little more circumspect in the language you use in your work e-mail’, because apparently her e-mails are being monitored and the world will be scandalised, I say, scandalised if it gets out that Dickfacehead has a taste for unexciting S&M and is in a (sort of) consensual relationship with a (sort of) actual human woman.
Then Jack pitches a fit because someone has placed a moratorium on all spending at the company and he can’t go to New York. (Spoiler – it was Dickfacehead.)
Dickfacehead then says he is “just protecting what is mine,” which is odd because although I don’t know nearly as much American History as I should, I’m pretty sure they had this big thing that made it illegal for one human being to own another. He also complains that he knows “how effective you are at fighting off unwanted attention,” based on the time he rescued her from a handsy drunk photographer.
Well, he says ‘rescued’. Legally I think one might refer to what he did to her that night as ‘kidnapping’ but hey, he’s really, really hot you guys, so we’ll let that one small major felony slide.
Then Ana, who can totally take care of herself, forwards Mrs. Robinson’s e-mail to Dickfacehead asking for advice, and then snippily tells him she’s trying to work.
Of course she is.
By the way, Jack is also having a pastrami
sandwich for lunch today. On rye, no mustard. I wonder if this is significant. Also he is having a Coke with his sandwich and will reimburse Ana when she comes back from the sandwich shop.
Are you enlighted and excited by this information?
Of course you are. If I’m privy to any more of these thrilling details I may very well have to go and have a lie down.
I sit and eat the chicken salad sandwich Mrs. Jones made for me. It’s delicious. She makes a mean sandwich.
THE CONTROVERSIAL INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING TRILOGY – CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT KNOWING HOW THE CHICKEN SANDWICH WAS FOR ANA?
Ana has to work late. Because Jack is a mean boss. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that she spent all morning dicking about e-mailing her boyfriend and didn’t do any work.
Jack gets handsy, as we knew he would, but she escapes for now and meets Dickfacehead.
...for the first time since he left for work this morning, I begin to relax. Just being in his company is a soothing balm...
Yeah. Because Dickfacehead is soooo relaxing, isn’t he? He’s so fucking chilled he makes The Dude look stressed and edgy.
Will you listen to yourself? This is the guy who hauls you from pillar to post at the slightest sign of danger (except when the plot demands otherwise), has an armed lunatic following him, cries in the shower when you tell him you love him and BUYS THE COMPANY WHERE YOU WORK SO HE CAN KEEP AN EYE ON YOU.
