Let me start off by saying
that I’ve really been meaning to get back to doing blog posts on each chapter
of Fifty Shades of Grey, but I’ve
clearly been putting that off for quite a while since I posted my commentary on
chapter two way back in March of 2015.
This is due to several reasons. For starters, I don’t want to buy the audiobook
version of the book, and it’s really become a challenge for me to discipline
myself enough to sit down not just read this book, but any book for that
matter. That’s pretty much the whole reason why I’ve really gotten into
audiobooks these days. Listening to audiobooks allows me to “read” books while
I do jobs around the house, run errands, which also involves me having to ride
the city bus and walk a lot since I don’t drive, etc. Plus, I’ve never been a
very fast reader to begin with, and listening to audiobooks enables me to
“read” books relatively quickly. Anyway, I pretty much spontaneously decided to
read chapter three of Fifty Shades of
Grey and write a blog post on it since I had the day off from work this
past Sunday, which hasn’t happened in quite a while; that being said, here are
my thoughts on chapter three of Fifty
Shades of Grey.
Right off the bat, I have to
say that I was waiting until I read this chapter and was ready to comment on it
to discuss the fact that Ana blushes at the drop of a hat. I always thought
that it was a really ridiculous quirk for Ana to have. It doesn’t really add
anything worthwhile to the story or anything interesting to Ana as a character and
the book as a whole. It’s a very well known fact that Fifty Shades of Grey originally started out as a Twilight fan fic, but as I said in my
review of Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined by Stephenie Meyer, I haven’t read the Twilight series in years; so I didn’t
remember anything about it being established that Bella had a tendency to blush
a lot. That originally led me to believe that E.L. James had added the whole
thing with Ana having the tendency to blush at the drop of a hat in an attempt
to “make the character her own” when she decided to take her Twilight fan fic (Master of the
Universe) and retool it as the Fifty
Shades trilogy. However, after reading Life
and Death: Twilight Reimagined, which is a gender swap of Twilight, it’s clear to me now that
James didn’t add the whole thing about Ana having the tendency to blush a lot
when she retooled “Master of the Universe” as Fifty Shades of Grey. I think it’s pretty safe to say that James
got the whole idea for Ana’s tendency to constantly blush from Twilight, too. I say this because it
turns out that I had forgotten that Bella blushes a lot in Twilight, and Beau, the male equivalent of Bella in Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined,
blushes quite a bit, too.
The difference between how
James handles it in this book versus how Stephenie Meyer handled it in the Twilight books is that James takes it to
the absolute extreme. Stephenie Meyer may be a rather mediocre writer, but at
least she didn’t overdo it when it comes to how she portrayed Bella/Beau having
that particular quirk. When it comes to how E.L. James handles Ana’s tendency
to blush at the drop of a hat, it’s just beyond ridiculous and way too over the
top. Kate reacts to seeing Ana blush in this chapter in a way that’s absolutely
ridiculous, because her reaction makes it seem like Ana blushing is a rare occurrence,
rather than being something that she does practically every five seconds.
Having read all of Jenny Trout’s chapter recaps for Fifty Shades of Grey, I know for a fact that Ana’s mom, Carla, also
reacts in shock to Ana blushing later on in the book. That being said, I’ll
give James credit for at least having Ana acknowledge in this chapter that she
blushes all the time. Plus, Christian also mentions to Ana in this chapter that
she’s constantly blushing. It’s nice to see that at least Ana and Christian
have an accurate perception of Ana’s whole blushing quirk since they’re the two
main characters in the series.
As I said in my review for Fifty Shades of Midnight Sun Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, I actually found myself liking Ana when I was reading
the story from Christian’s point of view. The part of that book that depicts
the events that take place in this chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey from Christian’s point of view, more
specifically the part where they’re at the coffee shop together, is definitely
one of the times that I actually found myself thinking that Ana seemed like pretty
likable and levelheaded person in that book. However, when it comes to how Ana
comes across in this chapter of this book, she really comes across as being
very immature and annoying. Admittedly, having already read all of Jenny
Trout’s chapter recaps for Fifty Shades
of Grey, I don’t think Ana is as annoying in this chapter as she is
in a lot of the other chapters of this book, though. Don’t get me wrong, Ana
still comes across as a rather unhappy and unlikable person with no self-esteem
in this chapter, but she’s definitely not as bad here, if you ask me. That
being said, one thing about Ana and her actions in this chapter that just
completely baffles me is the fact that she turns Paul (A coworker of hers at
Clayton’s) down when he asks her out on a date, because he’s not a “literary
hero”. Her subconscious followed that thought up by asking her if Christian is
a “literary hero”.
I generally try to avoid
swearing in my blog posts for the most part, but what the fuck does Ana even
mean when she says that Paul is “no literary hero”? He’s supposed to be a real
living person, (In this book anyway) not a character from one of the classic
literature books that Ana’s so obsessed with. How can a guy actually be a
“literary hero” in the real world? That makes absolutely no sense to me, and
Ana turning guys down left and right simply because they aren’t a “literary
hero” is one of the many things that makes her come across as a cartoonish whack
job instead of being a character that feels like they’re a real person. The
fact that they didn’t include any of the “literary hero” nonsense in the Fifty Shades of Grey movie is one of the
many, many, many reasons why I think that the Fifty Shades of Grey movie is a rare case where the movie is
actually better than the book. Personally, I really do think that the people
who worked on the movie did a fairly good job of fixing at least some of the
book’s numerous problems. (Sighs heavily) Okay, rant over.
Maybe this will seem like a
stupid thing to comment on to some people, but having read all of Jenny Trout’s
chapter recaps for Fifty Shades of Grey,
I feel like it’s worth keeping in mind, especially for when I eventually get to
commenting on chapter ten of the book. Something that I think is worth noting
about this chapter is the fact that when Ana leaves to go have coffee with
Christian, she says in the narration that she hates coffee. I know that Ana
saying that she hates coffee might seem like a pointless detail to people
who’ve never read the book before, but I assure you it’s something that’s worth
keeping in mind.
Something that I found
myself noticing a lot as I was reading this chapter is the fact that Ana was frequently
referring to Christian as “Grey” in the narration, but then every once and a
while she would refer to him as “Christian”. It really bugged me when Ana would
flip back and forth between calling him “Grey” and calling him “Christian”
throughout the chapter. E.L. James really should have just made up her mind and
been consistent about how Ana referred to Christian in the narration of the
book. Personally, I think James should have just stuck with having Ana refer to
him as Christian. Ana calling Christian, “Grey”, is just weird, in my opinion.
While I do think E.L. James
is a terrible writer, I actually don’t think that all of the blame for the Fifty Shades trilogy being so horribly
written can be placed solely on her. If you ask me, at least some of the blame
for the terrible quality of the writing should be placed on the editors,
especially when it comes to this book. For starters, I really think that the
people who edited this book should have made sure that the dialogue and other
issues related to word choice in this book had been changed so the writing
would at least reflect the fact that this story takes place in America. A lot
of the dialogue and other matters related to word choice feel very…British at
times, and it’s one of the things that makes this book seem so ridiculous to
me. I understand that E.L. James is British, but she should have recognized
that the characters in this book aren’t, so both James and the people who
edited this book should have worked to change the writing accordingly. That
being said, some of the problems with the wording in this book don’t have
anything to do with the fact that James is British, but the characters aren’t.
Some of the problems with word choice in the book is that there are occasionally
parts where Ana is describing a location where events in the story are taking
place, and she’ll use words to describe it that contradict each other. For
example, this is the description she gives of the Heathman hotel. “The rooms
are elegant, understated, and opulently furnished.” (James pg. 36)
The problem with that
description is that describing the hotel as looking “understated” suggests that
the design for the hotel is subtle, while describing the hotel as being
“opulently furnished” makes it seem like the hotel’s design and appearance is
excessive and over-the-top. Given the fact that it’s Ana who’s describing the
hotel in the narration with words that contradict each other, it honestly ends
up being one of the many things that makes Ana come across as being an idiot,
especially when you consider the fact that she’s an English major who’s about
to graduate from college. From the standpoint of the writing for the book
itself, that logical disconnect in the prose really is something that I think
an editor should have caught and made sure that it was corrected.
Another problem that I think
this book has is a serious lack of proper transitions and omitting unimportant
details in the book. For example, there’s a completely unnecessary exchange
between Christian and his bodyguard, Taylor, where Christian arranges for
everybody at the photo shoot that they had for Kate’s article on Christian to
get a ride home, so Ana won’t have a good reason to turn down his offer for
coffee, which is actually kind of creepy if you think about it. There’s also a
rather long and drawn out description of Ana and Christian’s walk to the coffee
shop and of Christian ordering coffee for himself and tea for Ana once they get
to the coffee shop. That whole sequence of events just seems like a lousy
attempt at drawing out the tension between Ana and Christian. Nothing
noteworthy happens during that whole sequence of events. The only thing that
could possibly be considered noteworthy is the fact that it was established
that Ana had never held hands with anybody before.
I get that James is trying
to portray Ana as being naïve and innocent, but she just takes it to the
extreme by saying that Ana had never held hands with anybody, and it’s just
ridiculous. The fact that it’s established at the end of this chapter that she
had apparently never wanted to be kissed by a guy until now almost comes across
as if it was James’ intent to portray Ana as being asexual in a way that’s
really messed up since it’s only after she meets Christian that she seems to finally
truly be sexually attracted to a man. I honestly wouldn’t be the least bit
surprised if people who identify as being asexual were offended by the way
Ana’s lack of interest in José and Paul and her attraction to Christian are
portrayed in this book.
All in all, I actually
enjoyed finally revisiting Fifty Shades
of Grey for the first time in months. I’m going to try and do a better job
of not taking such long breaks between reading and commenting on each chapter
of Fifty Shades of Grey moving
forward. As for my final thoughts on chapter three, I’ll admit that Ana
thankfully doesn’t come across as being nearly annoying as she usually does. This
is definitely a chapter where I think the fact that the Fifty Shades books started out as a Twilight fan fic is fairly obvious if you’re someone like me who
has read the Twilight series, or
possibly if you’ve only seen the movies, particularly the first one. The way
this chapter ends with Christian preventing Ana from almost getting run down by
somebody on a bicycle is very reminiscent of how Edward stops Bella from
getting hit by a car in the parking lot of the high school that they go to,
which prompts Bella to start figuring out that Edward and the other Cullens are
all vampires in Twilight. While the
writing for this book, along with Fifty
Shades Darker, Fifty Shades Freed
and Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by
Christian all have a lot of problems and is pretty bad, I still think that
E.L. James does have a talent for writing books that are more addictive than
cigarettes for some inexplicable reason.
