The Death of Literature

[gilee7]

Recently the Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy came to my attention. I had noticed the books sitting atop the New York Times Bestseller List for the past few weeks, but I knew nothing about them. However, as references to the books mounted on the internet and television, in newspapers and magazines, I grew curious to see what all the fuss was about.

Comments

[fatpie42]

I actually heard several pretty intelligent women in their thirties going on about how amazing this book was. When I said that it was originally a Twilight fanfic they couldn't quite understand.

"But it's not about that."
"Not anymore, no."
"But it's not even the same subject."
"Yeah, it's fanfic. It doesn't have to be."

They were arguing that nothing has ever done this before. Apparently there's a dearth of decent raunchy novels for women. Heck, there was already notable number of middle-aged women into Twilight and writing awful fanfic based on it, so yes apparently things are that bad that, with nothing better on offer, "Fifty Shades of Grey" will do.... :s

[narkoleptik]

When I first saw the cover and before I was aware that this book was a 'thing' I thought it was a self-published thing. So it doesn't surprise me that the writing is on par with the cover design.

Also, sweet jesus, are there that really many ellipses in one paragraph? How sure are we that it's not some 13 year old girl?

[2ndhandsunshine]

I didn't watch it, but I did see the video link of an interview on Yahoo! once. She looks a little bit like Stephanie Myers (sp?) except older, fatter, and generally uglier. At least if she were 13, she'd have youthful ignorance as an excuse, but sadly, she's just a complete idiot who never outgrew middle school sentence structuring.

[fatpie42]

I'm not sure that her looks are of much consequence here. Writers can be absolutely hideous or stunningly gorgeous with little effect either way on the quality of their writing.

Apparently this writer was able to publish her work because of the success of her Twilight fanfic online. In the end I'm afraid it is Stephanie Meyer who is to blame. The writing level of the Twilight books isn't exactly awe-inspiring and fanfic probably isn't generally expected to out-do it. Presumably this is actually good enough by "Twilight fanfic" standards to gain widespread support. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, since anyone reading and/or writing Twilight fanfic presumably has to be someone who felt happy with Meyer's writing style in the Twilight books in the first place.) :S

[2ndhandsunshine]

Generally speaking, looks and talent have little correlation (except in this case, where both are lacking) but the comment was more an illustrative answer to narkoleptik's question whether we were sure she wasn't actually a 13 year old girl. She most definitely isn't.

That said, I do believe personality colors appearance and it isn't her physical features that make her ugly so much as the fact she's a shameless purveyor of crap. If her contribution to humanity held any intelligence or profundity, then her looks would hardly matter; but that she looks as she does and writes bad erotic fanfiction with the skills of an illiterate middle schooler just plays so much into stereotypes that it's hilariously laughable. She's an uglier version of Stephanie Myers who writes an uglier version of Twilight. (At least Twilight was aimed at a teenage market where bad tastes and lack of awareness are a norm and something we hope is just a phase. Also, I don't think SM used nearly as many ellipses.)

And as I said below, the publishing of books such as Twilight

[2ndhandsunshine]

Oh, my poor darling. Yeah, I heard about this monstrosity too, a couple of months ago, mentioned innocuously enough on an internet comment on some unrelated subject. Went to peruse it on Amazon and after reading the dissenting reviews, I couldn't quite believe that it was that bad, so... I downloaded the free sample on my iPad that encompassed the first 90 pages or so, and yeah. Promptly deleted it again. What amazes (or at least, should amaze me, but has ceased to) is that fully grown, presumably mature and intelligent women don't find it offensive to read such immature prose. Forget about the content, the plot, the character development, and everything else, the writing is just so laughably bad. It made me want to punch people in the face

[zure]

Hear hear!

Yeah, once upon a time publishers were the gatekeepers of literature and knowledge, now they're seriously just trying to cash in on the next big thing. And they predict the patterns too...all trying to get on the bandwagon first, and then marketing their way to the top. That excerpt sounds horrible, like one of those $0.99 downloads from a self published site. Honestly, if these women want raunchy they should go and look at proper erotica/romance novels.

[gilee7]

Well, as long as you didn't pay for it.

Anyways, long time no see. How's life these days?

[jdroa]

... All you've done is make me want to read it more.

[gilee7]

As long as you steal it and use it as toilet paper when you're done.