Lighter Shades of Grey

by Cassandra Parkin

“Go to him! This is a beautiful location, very romantic…don’t feel you have to come back with me. I want you happy – and right now I think the key to your happiness is upstairs in room 612.” (p424)

  Dear E L James. Can you honestly picture your mother sternly ordering you to go upstairs, never mind if you’re not in the mood right now and there’s other stuff you’re busy with, this is your mother talking, just get up those stairs and fuck your boyfriend? Yeah, I thought not.

  Especially if the first reaction you yourself had on seeing your boyfriend arrive was to turn pale with horror.

  A tender moment

  “When did you start your period, Anastasia?” he asks…

  “Err…yesterday…”

  “Hold on to the sink,” he orders...he reaches between my legs and pulls on the blue string – what?! – and gently pulls my tampon out and tosses it into the nearby toilet. (p430)

  …….

  Although given his past form, I suppose we can all be grateful he didn’t invite her to lick it first.

  Dead romantic

  [Christian to Ana] “Perhaps I should be stricter with you…”

  I swallow. Jeez, no. But at the same time, my muscles clench deliciously deep inside. It is his way of showing that he cares. (p436)

  Oh, you’re right, Ana; he totally hits you because he cares. And family annihilators only kill their wives and children because they’re secretly really great fathers.

  If Ana has five apples, and Christian has two apples…

  “So I am number seventeen.”

  He frowns at me not comprehending.

  “Number of women you’ve um…had sex with.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “You said fifteen.” My confusion is obvious. (p439)

  Ana, monkeys can add one more to fifteen and get the right answer.

  How many lovers has Christian really had?

  “What are we talking – tens, hundreds…thousands?”

  “Tens. We’re in the tens, for pity’s sake.” (p440)

  Just some number between sixteen and ninety-nine…practically a virgin, really.

  Not everything you think of is automatically true

  Elena! Holy Fuck. The evil one has a name and it’s all foreign sounding. A vision of a glorious, pale-skinned vamp with raven hair and ruby-red lips comes to mind, and I know that she’s beautiful. (p448)

  Oh, Ana. Why not try picturing her with a massive wart on the end of her nose and a bad, bouffy hairstyle? There you go. Now you know she’s funny-looking.

  Some math for you. Christian is in his late twenties. That means his mother and her friends are probably in her early fifties.

  I’m not saying women in their fifties can’t be beautiful. But - you know - maybe not quite so much with the glorious pale-skinned vamp, and a little more with the glamorous-sexy-and-interesting Meryl Streep type, yes?

  Scary sky-lady is watching you

  I notice the soft swell of pink and aquamarine in the sky behind. Dawn is following us. (p448)

  But if you hide behind the couch and keep real quiet, maybe she’ll go away again.

  Spatial orientation fail

  The radio crackles into life, and Mark mentions three thousand feet. Jeez, that sounds high. I check the ground, and I can no longer clearly distinguish anything down there. (p453)

  Actually, at 3,000 feet up you should still be able to make out plenty of detail, including rooftops, trees and road networks.

  Photo: brewbooks [flickr]

  Falling, with style

  The plane banks and turns as the wing dips, and we spiral towards the sun…I am flying close to the sun, but he’s with me, leading me. (p453)

  “Gliding” is essentially a very aerodynamically-efficient method of falling out of the sky. Your glider doesn’t have an engine, therefore it is incapable of generating further lift to take it towards the sun.

  Of course, Gliders (like birds) can ride thermals as a means of counteracting the effects of gravity and achieving greater altitude. Unfortunately, the sun isn’t properly up yet, so no thermals for you.

  Ana worries about talking in her sleep

  Holy shit. I know I talk in my sleep. Kate has told me enough times. What the hell have I said? Oh no. (p462)

  Ana, as anyone who has to share sleeping quarters with with a sleep-talker will tell you, somniloquy is pretty much the dictionary definition of what happens when we open our mouths without engaging our brains. My brother once woke his wife up to tell her the ceiling had collapsed and there was blood dripping off the walls. When she asked him about it in the morning, he said he wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe he’d been dreaming about fishing.

  I thought you and Kate each had your own bedroom?

  Christian is called back to Seattle unexpectedly

  Oh no. The last “situation” [Christian] had was my virginity. Jeez, I hope it’s nothing like that. (p464)

  Me too. I’d hate to think there were two women on the planet that dumb.

  Chapters Twenty-five and Twenty-six

  In which Ana finally comes to her senses. But there are two books more to come. So let’s face it, it’s not going to last.

  Ana goes shopping with her mom

  I managed this morning, with my mother’s help, to buy Christian a small gift to say thank you for first class and for the gliding. (p475)

  Did your mom help you talk to the nice man behind the counter and count out the right money?

  Taylor meets Ana at the airport

  “Hello, Taylor.”

  …“Ana. Can I take your bags, please?”

  “No, I can manage. Thank you.”

  His lips tighten perceptibly.

  “But, if you’d be more comfortable taking them,” I stammer. (p476)

  By my calculations, every single named character has now been in some way abusive or inappropriate towards Ana.

  Ana, just out of interest - if you just ignored those tightened lips and hung onto your bags regardless, what’s the very worst that could happen?

  Things that are not strange

  [Taylor] drops me outside the impressive façade that is the entrance to Escala.

  “In you go, ma’am,” he says…”I’ll bring up your luggage.”

  …The elevator doors open, and I am in the foyer. It’s so strange not to be met by Taylor. (p478)

  Although, since you left him outside the building and came up in the elevator alone, it would possibly have been a little more strange if you had been.

  Even stalkers have standards

  [Ana to Christian] “I have a job.”

  …”Congratulations, Miss Steele. Now will you tell me where?”

  “You don’t know?”

  …”Anastasia, I wouldn’t dream of interfering in your career, unless you ask me to, of course.” He looks wounded. (p481)

  The Christian Grey scale of acceptable stalking behaviour

  Covert installation of tracking software on phone = who hasn’t?

  Kidnapping woman you’ve met twice from a bar = for her own safety. Totally cool

  Finding out where she lives by means other than asking her. Twice = How else am I supposed to get her drunk send her champagne?

  Hacking into the airline’s computers and upgrading her flight = a nice gesture

  Turning up uninvited when she’s out with her mom = I missed her, okay?

  Finding out the address of a publically listed company = I would never do that. Ever. Because that would be wrong

  Conversations that would never happen

  “Christian, could you interfere in my career please?”

  “Of course, my beloved. What would you like me to do?”

  “Um…”

 

  A little late to the party

  Kneeling by the door, I am naked except for my panties…Closing my eyes, I try to calm myself down, to connect with my inner sub. She’s there somewhere, hiding behind my inner goddess. (p484)

>   This is why you have no room in your head for your Inner Self-Esteem, your Inner Common Sense, your Inner Filter On What Comes Out Of Your Mouth, your Inner Ability To Control Your Facial Expressions and your Inner Sense Of Self-Preservation.

  Christian Ties Ana Up And Puts Earphones On Her

  Okay. A musical interlude. Not what I was expecting. Does he ever do what I expect? Jeez, I hope it’s not rap. (p487)

  Ana, have you ever in your life managed to focus on the things that really matter?

  Christian at the piano

  Shrouded in darkness, Christian sits in a bubble of light as he plays. (p495)

  What, like David Vetter?

  Photo: Björn Söderqvist [flickr]

  Ana is psychic

  He looks naked, though I know he’s wearing his PJ bottoms. (p495)

  So are his PJ bottoms rendered invisible in the right lighting?

  Ana remembers something important

  “It’s eight in the morning for me. And I need to take my pill.”

  He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Well remembered,” he murmurs, and I can tell he’s impressed. (p497)

  Depressingly, I can actually see his point here.

  Assault and battery

  He…grabs what looks like a belt from the rack beside the door…

  “…I am going to hit you six times, and you will count with me.”

  [He starts hitting her. There is nothing erotic about it.]

  …”Five.” My voice is a choked, strangled sob, and in this moment I think I hate him…

  “Six,” I whisper…and he’s pulling me into his arms, all breathless and compassionate…and I want none of him. (p506)

  Women of the world. Your hero.

  For the first time in over five hundred pages, Ana makes a good decision

  I have to go. That’s it…I have to leave. He’s no good for me, and I am no good for him. (p507)

  Hell yeah.

  I just have something in my eye

  Tears course unbidden and unwelcome down my cheeks…Taylor holds out a linen handkerchief for me…this small discreet act of kindness is my undoing. I sit back in the luxurious leather seat and weep. (p513)

  Technically, Ana, you already were weeping.

  But you’re sad, so I won’t be too mean about it.

  Oh, look, even I feel a tiny bit sorry for you now. He was a terrible boyfriend, okay? You did the right thing in leaving. You’d be better off with Kate.

  Ana retires to bed. Probably for several months

  ...hanging limply at the end of my bed, is a very sad, deflated helicopter balloon. Charlie Tango, looking and feeling exactly like me. (P514)

  I bet Christian’s private name for his penis is “Charlie Tango”.

  Things that sound good until you picture someone actually doing them (11)

  I grab [the balloon] angrily off my bedrail, snapping the tie, and hug it to me. (p514)

  I prefer a teddy-bear myself.

  Or a bi-curious friend of four years’ standing.

  If only

  The pain is indescribable… (p514)

  And yet you’re describing it.

  Aristotle is not pleased

  Physical, mental…metaphysical… (p514)

  Physical pain makes sense. The bastard hit you with a belt six times (damn it, every time I write that I feel like I ought to be coming round to yours with a cup of tea and a cuddle).

  Mental pain also makes sense. You thought you were in a relationship and it turned out you were just someone to abuse.

  Metaphysical, on the other hand, means “based on speculative or abstract reasoning”, and “highly abstract, theoretical, abstruse”. Your ass hurts because he hit you, and your heart hurts because you thought he loved you. Nothing abstract, speculative, theoretical or abstruse about that.

  Still, two out of three ain’t bad. See? You only left him half an hour ago, and already you’re thinking more clearly!

  Photo: zimpenfish [flickr]

  Appendices

  If you’re feeling kind of sorry for Ana, I wouldn’t be too worried. There are two more books to come. And if it’s following the trajectory of the Twilight quartet, by the end we can expect to see Ana and Christian blissfully in love, happily married, raising rugrats and probably still having red-hot multiple-orgasm sex every six pages.

  Let’s do a little more analysis of what we’ve just seen.

  Appendix One

  Oh my, holy cow, his pants are hanging from his hips in that way

  All writers need editors. Editors make our books better. They point out the things we can’t see for ourselves, and force us to confront and overcome our very worstest writing habits. (For the record, my fatal errors are a guilty addiction to ellipses, and the Oxford comma.)

  Unfortunately, once you pass a certain threshold of success, publishers seem to stop editing your work - after all, they know you’re going to sell in the squillions anyway. This is how the world came to contain the Quidditch World Cup and the opening ten chapters of “Under The Dome”.

  And if you’ve made the big-time by self-publishing, and you only get picked up after you’ve become a huge viral success…well, don’t expect much editorial support to shield your literary crimes from the world.

  Let’s have a look at some statistics.

  Distinctive words and phrases

  “Oh my”

  Number of times Ana uses the phrase “Oh my”: 49

  That gives an average per chapter of: 1.8

  Or to put it another way: Once every 10.4 pages

  Wow. That’s a lot, isn’t it?: Quite a lot, yes. But come check this out:

  “Holy…”

  Number of times Ana uses the construction “Holy…”: 147

  That’s an average Holy Somethings per chapter of: 3.49

  Which gives an overall average of: One every 3.5 pages

  Number of times Robin said “Holy Something, Batman” in the classic 1960s Batman series: 360 times

  Which averages out at: Three times an episode

  Ana’s rate of “Holy”ing expressed as a percentage of Robin’s: 116%

  (and the Batman writers were doing it on purpose)

  “Crap”

  Number of times Ana uses the expletive “crap”: 63

  And the per-chapter average: 2.4

  Put that into pages for me?: Once every 8.2 pages

  “Crap” usage expressed as a percentage of “oh my” usage: 128%

  (and most critics agree that her “Oh my” habit is excessive)

  Annoying habits

  Eye-rolling

  Number of times Ana rolls her eyes: 14

  Number of times everyone else in the book rolls their eyes: 8

  Ana’s eye-rolling frequency, expressed as a percentage of the frequency of everyone else’s added together: 175%

  I’m starting to see Christian’s point

  Lip-biting

  Number of times either Ana or Christian bites Ana’s lip: 43

  Average bites per chapter: 1.65

  Another way to look at it: 1.7 times a day

  Let’s hope she has a chapstick

  Gaping

  Number of times Ana gapes, jaw-drops or feels her mouth pop open: 23

  Number of times everyone else in the book has the same experience: 17

  That means someone in the book will gape at an average rate of: 1.6 times per day

  (Just out of interest, when was the last time you saw anyone do this?)

  Ana’s definitely the worst offender, though

  Ana’s gaping frequency, expressed as a percentage of the frequency of everyone else’s added together: 135%

  Ana’s gaping frequency expressed as a daily occurrence rate: 0.92

  Ana Lurves Christian

  Christian’s hair

  So what’s the deal with Christian’s hair, anyway?

  “Fifty Shades of Grey”: repurposed Twilight fan fiction

  Christian Grey: Edward Cullen


  Edward Cullen: Robert Pattinson

  Robert Pattinson: Distinctive “Twilight” hairstyle

  Robert Pattinson’s hair: Object of cultic adoration for the Twiharders

  Ergo Christian Grey’s hair: Subject to obligatory fetishisation

  Okay, glad we cleared that up. What does that mean for the reader?

  Number of times Christian’s hair is mentioned: 43

  Or alternatively: 1.6 times per chapter or once every 11.9 pages

  (almost as often as Ana says “Oh my”)

  Number of times Christian’s hair is overtly eroticised: 20

  Well-hung pants

  Pants that hang from hips. That’s palazzo pants, right?: Well, I’d say so, yes

  And this is sexy how?: Hey, I just work here, ‘kay?

  And here are the stats:

  Number of times Christian’s well-hung pants are mentioned: 10

  That’s not nearly as many as some of the other things: True

  But its utter ludicrousness gives it additional standout

  Ana needs help

  Blushing

  Number of times Ana blushes: 127

  Did I read that right?: You did; 127, I counted

  That’s a daily blush-count of: 5.1

  Crying

  Number of times Ana cries: 21

  How long is the time-frame of this book again?: 25 days

  So Ana cries just under once each day?: 0.8 times a day, yes. Which is a shame, I think

  She’s as mad as a box of frogs, but she deserves better

  The voices in her head

  Number of times Ana engages in dialogue with her Subconscious: 77

  Number of times Ana engages in dialogue with her Inner Goddess: 53

  Making a total number of conversations with imaginary people of: 130 or 5.2 conversations a day

  Total number of imaginary people living in Ana’s head: 4

  (her “Inner Ray” and her “Inner Sub” are non-speaking extras)