Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

So, this is it. The big kink-fest we have all been waiting for is about to commence. Christian is showing Ana his ‘playroom’. It’s described as smelling faintly of citrus and apparently, it has a ‘womb-like’ feel. I’m sorry. Womb-like? This is either supposed to be a) a sexy image, or b) some misguided attempt to be all Freudian and deep. Whichever it is meant to be, it fails miserably. There is nothing sexy about being spanked (whoops, spoiler) in a room that resembles a uterus, and there’s nothing particularly meaningful about it either, it’s just weird.

There are cuffs and restraints everywhere, riding crops hanging from the walls, ropes, shackles, a massive wooden ‘X’, an iron grid on the ceiling and a four-poster bed covered in red leather and satin. It’s the most ostentatious, pretentious wank-fest of a sex den you’ve ever heard of.

Predictably, Ana finds it a romantic setting. Oh good, that bodes well. “I walk towards the bed and run my hands down one of the intricately carved posts. The post is very sturdy, the craftsmanship outstanding.” Don’t you just hate it when you’re tied to your lover’s red leather four poster bed, being flogged and spanked for his pleasure, and you notice the awful craftsmanship of the bedposts? Such a mood-killer.

Christian tells Ana that he’s a ‘dominant’, and that he wants Ana to submit herself to him in all ways possible and become his 'submissive'. “Why would I do that?” asks Ana. “To please me,” replies Christian, without a trace of humility or irony or anything. 

According to Christian, there are strict rules Ana must follow, but she will be rewarded for following them. “It’s all part of the incentive package. Both reward and punishment.” They sound like they’re discussing a gym membership, but whatever.

When Ana asks what she gets from this arrangement (a very fair question, for once), Christian simply says: “Me.” Doesn’t sound like a great incentive package to me, I’d prefer unlimited use of the spa facilities and my twelfth month free, thanks.

He continues telling Ana about his incentives. She has to stay at his apartment Friday through Sunday, in her own room, submitting fully to Christian’s every wish and desire. I’m no expert on the sex industry, but this ‘incentive package’ now sounds less like a gym membership and more like prostitution.

Christian leads Ana back to the kitchen and tells her that unless she signs the consent form, they will have no further relationship, and that this is the only kind of relationship he’s interested in. Ana asks why Christian is the way he is, and what led him there.

“That’s kind of hard to answer. Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese?” replies Christian. Whoa, this just got seriously deep. Christian Grey is a regular Nietzsche. Philosophy at its finest, right there. But wait for it, Ana has her own pearls of wisdom to add. “We’re talking about cheese… holy crap,” she muses. 

Have I missed something? Is cheese discussion somehow significant to the furthering of a relationship? Does it have some profound, metaphysical connotation that I’m oblivious to? My best friend gets a cheese board every single Christmas. Sometimes she puts cheese on top of cheese and eats it, and I highly doubt even she would give a lump of cheddar this much consideration.

Christian commands Ana to eat and she questions him further about his proposal. He tells her that he’s hurt women in the past, and that if she agrees, he’ll be physically punishing her, and it will hurt. “I think I feel a little faint,” Ana contemplates. “I take another sip of wine. Alcohol – this will make me brave.” Yeah, what a great idea. Get yourself so drunk that you lose the inability to make rational decisions at this crucial time. Actually, Ana’s decision-making is dubious enough when she’s sober. It probably won’t make a bit of difference.

When she’s eaten approximately three grapes, Christian takes Ana into his study and shows her the entire contract which she’s supposed to sign. Because this is fan-fiction, and fan-fiction readers go crazy for this sort of thing, E. L. James has typed up the entire contract, word for word. There are extensive paragraphs detailing the limitations of what Ana can eat and wear, how often she has to sleep, how often she has to exercise and how often she has to wax/shave. I wish I was kidding, seriously. Ana has to submit to having a personal trainer, she has to go to the beauty salon of Christian’s choosing whenever he sees fit, she’s not allowed to snack between meals and she has to have all of her clothing approved by Christian. But then I guess, for a girl with no ambitions, like Ana, this all sounds pretty cushy.

Next, there is a list of ‘hard limits’. These are actions that are absolutely forbidden and won’t be carried out by Christian under any circumstances. Highlights include no fire play, no acts involving children or animals (the fact that he feels the need to specify this is beyond wrong), no acts involving gynaecological medical instruments (but those are so fun!) and no urination or defecation. Honestly Christian, you call yourself sexually enlightened?

Christian asks Ana whether there’s anything she’d like to add, and having never held a guy’s hand until about a week ago, she’s obviously clueless. Ana has to finally ‘fess up to Christian and admit that she’s a virgin.

Christian is shocked, then angry (the nerve of her! How dare she preserve her virginity for someone she cares about!). I find it hard to believe that Christian ever thought Ana was anything but a virgin (the clues are all there), but there you go. 

TBC!

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

So after their slightly scary and borderline violent kiss in the lift, Christian and Ana get into his massive Audi SUV. The product placement in this novel is quite something, by the way. E. L. James is currently rolling around in a huge Audi, speaking on her Apple iPhone while she sips away at her Twinings Breakfast Tea.

Ana is lamenting the fact that Christian hasn’t mentioned their kiss. Give him a chance, it only happened two minutes ago. But of course, this is fan-fiction world, where the instalments were usually posted days or weeks apart, so when this was originally posted, it must have felt like an age since they last kissed. Ana comes to the conclusion, after a whole three minutes of Christian not mentioning it, that she must have imagined the kiss. That's sensible. If someone doesn't verbally acknowledge a kiss within 200 seconds of it happening, it means it didn't happen. 

Christian puts the MP3 player on and he’s listening to the Flower Duet from the British Airways advert opera Lakme. Ana says that her senses are all in disarray, with the music teasing and seducing her. I had never thought of the Flower Duet as particularly sexy, myself, but each to their own. Christian tells Ana he likes all kinds of music, from Thomas Tallis to the Kings of Leon. He puts Sex On Fire on. It’s cringeworthy.

As they pull up at Ana’s apartment, Christian tells Ana he won’t kiss her again unless it’s premeditated. Ana completely disregards all creepy insinuations and just wonders why he won’t kiss her. “His surname should be Cryptic, not Grey.” Ohhh, burn.

They go up to Ana’s apartment. Ana tells Christian she liked what happened in the elevator, and then says that she’s ‘not sure if [she] hear[s] an audible gasp’. Audible, by definition, means that you can definitely hear it – it’s clear and distinct. How can you be unsure of whether something was audible or not? “I wasn’t sure if I could see the book as it went sailing visibly out of the window.” Doesn’t make sense, does it?

As they get into Ana’s apartment, Kate and Elliot (apparently Christian’s brother, but most likely someone the author invented just so that Kate wasn’t a third wheel) are there, having been showing each other a good time all night long, by the sounds of it. Elliot has not been properly introduced to Ana, but he hugs her anyway. So does Kate. There is so much unnecessary hugging in this book, it makes me vaguely nauseous.

Christian and Elliot say goodbye – “Laters, baby.” You might want to remember this too. Like the lip-biting, you will come to despise it. The author knows how to take an in-joke and run and run and run with it, until you are so sick of it, you want to pull out your own eyeballs and use them in a slingshot, preferably directed right at E. L. James’ face.

Elliot kisses Kate goodbye and Ana feels an ‘unwelcome pang of jealousy’. Ana cannot be happy for anyone unless it’s herself. She is a shallow creature with cardboard, two-dimensional feelings.

If 50 Shades was a movie (which, I read, it soon will be), what follows is a shameless makeover scene in which Kate prepares Ana for her next date with Christian. She shaves her underarms and plucks her eyebrows. I’m not here to dictate what women should do with their body hair, but I’m finding it really hard to believe Ana hasn’t taken a razor to her pits in her whole life – especially as every other element of her being is so sheltered. “[Kate] assures me this is what men expect these days,” says Ana. Hey, what’s the sound? That, my friends, is the sound of us hurtling back through time, to an era where what men expect of women is more important than what women want for themselves. Shave your underarms or don't shave them, but don't let a man be the reason for the choice either way.

Ana can’t stop contemplating that tonight is the night. Context: Ana is a virgin who had her first drink two days ago and had never held anyone’s hand before, but she is quite happy to give up her virginity to this egomaniacal lunatic on what is essentially their second date. Again, I’m an advocate of women being able to do what the hell they want with their virginity, I just don’t think this is likely or realistic. But then, I guess if I was holding out for realism in this book, I’d have given up when she swan dived into his office and landed on her face at the beginning of chapter one.

Christian picks Ana up from work. “The drive to the helicopter is short, and before I know it, we arrive.” This is the most hilarious sentence I’ve ever read. Bar none.

Christian straps Ana into his big, manly helicopter. They take off, and there’s a whole sequence with Christian saying manly things like, “Roger tower” and “over and out” into his headset. I don’t know how much research the author did into actual helicopter jargon, but if it’s the same amount of research she did into the rest of the book, I’m going to go right ahead and say that she made the entire thing up off the top of her head.

The views must be incredible up above the city, but all Ana can look at is Christian. He confides he’s never brought a woman up here before, which makes me think Ana is insulting his gesture by just gawping at him all the way through and not taking in the view he obviously wanted to show her. “You’re just so… competent,” she says to him. Oooh, baby, I love it when you’re… competent. Who said this book wasn’t sexy?!

They land on Christian’s roof and go into his apartment. He offers her a glass of wine: “Pouilly Fume okay with you?” he asks. This is quite condescending of him. He knows she doesn’t drink, how would she know what specific type of wine she preferred? He’s making her feel small.

Ana sits down and contemplates that she feels like ‘Tess Durbeyfield looking at the new house that belongs to the notorious Alec D’Urberville’. I wish she would stop with these half-baked references. We know you’ve read the book (or at least looked up the synopsis on Wikipedia); you don’t need to keep proving it to us.

She asks Christian why he bought her the Tess book specifically, and he says, “It seemed appropriate. I could hold you to some impossibly high ideal like Angel Clare or debase you completely like Alec D’Urberville.” Is that supposed to be a really hot sentence? Psychological abuse vs physical abuse. Tough call. Ana says she’ll take the debasement. I weep for women everywhere.

Christian now presents her with a disclosure agreement. This is fair enough. If we’re to presume that Christian is a famous young CEO, perhaps equivalent to the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, a disclosure agreement is probably a wise idea. Ana wants to sign it without even reading it. Hand me that pen when you’re finished, would you, Ana? I want to sign my own death warrant.

After she’s signed the disclosure, she asks, “Does this mean you’re going to make love to me tonight, Christian?” Oh boy, one glass of wine and she’s pissed already. For a supposedly shy and reserved character, this is also a pretty forward sentence. “I don’t make love,” says Christian. “I fuck. Hard.” A thrilling prospect for any inexperienced virgin, I’m sure.

From here on out, what little plot there may have seemed to be in the chapters so far completely dissipates. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 

TBC!

Chapter Five: Part Two

Chapter Five – Part Two

Ana has a shower and of course, Christian has sent his henchman out to buy her some new clothes to replace her vomit-splattered ones. The following paragraphs borrow very heavily from Pretty Woman, which is also disturbing, because the woman in that film is a prostitute. Is that how the author sees Ana? 

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I ordered a selection from the breakfast menu,” says Richard Gere, as Ana joins him in the kitchen. Ana says that this is very ‘profligate’ of him. I don’t know anyone who uses the word ‘profligate’ in real life. E. L. James has been at the thesaurus again.

When Ana offers to pay Christian back for the clothes, he refuses. “Why should you buy these for me?” asks Ana, fairly reasonably, in my opinion. “Because I can,” says Christian. Honestly, this man is so pompous and arrogant and utterly self-obsessed. Christian says he felt like he owed her an apology when he didn’t kiss her after her near-miss with the Cyclist O’ Doom, which is why he bought her the ridiculous first-edition book (that she won’t appreciate because she can’t analyse Thomas Hardy to save her life. I hope she failed her exam).

Christian then carries on with this complete oxymoron of a sentence: “You should steer clear of me. There’s something about you, though, and I’m finding it impossible to stay away.” So, loosely translated, that means: “You should probably stay away from me, but it won’t matter whether you do or not, because I’ll just stalk you and turn up wherever you are anyway – work, home, socialising… you name it, I can track it.” Looks like you found your literary romantic hero, Ana.

Mr Literary Hero is asking the questions, and he asks what Ana’s plans are when she moves to Seattle. She says that she’s applied for a few internships, which is funny, because just a few chapters ago she said she didn’t know what she wanted to do. This is what happens when fanfiction authors write real books. Fanfiction is generally written chapter-by-chapter, with no overarching plan - continuity is pretty much a myth in this type of story.

This bit is important, because you’re going to get mightily annoyed with the repetitive nature of this silly action. Ana bites her lip at something Christian says, and he comments that he’d like to bite that lip. This is a fairly sexy thing to say to someone really, but after the one hundredth time, it loses its edge. Just a word of warning for the future.

Christian says he won’t touch Ana without written consent. I’ll say again that if this guy wasn’t supposedly smokin’ hot, there would be an Ana-shaped hole in the nearest door. It is a sad testament to either a) Christian’s extremely appealing physical appearance or b) Ana’s pathetic sense of self-worth and poor risk assessment abilities that she decides to go along with this entire thing.

Ana agrees to meet Christian later that night to see what he means about the ‘written consent’ thing. He scolds her for not eating her breakfast and is very sinister about the whole thing. “Good girl,” he says as she finishes her pancakes. “I’ll take you home when you’ve dried your hair. I don’t want you getting ill,” says Christian. 

“There’s some kind of unspoken promise in his words. What does he mean?” ponders Ana. I’m guessing he means that he’ll take her home once she’s dried her hair because he doesn’t want her to catch a cold. Not everything he says is encrypted code that must be analysed and taken to pieces. 

For any men reading this: that is not the way women’s minds actually work. Ana Steele gives women everywhere a very bad name. What Ana Steele wants is most definitely not what all, or even the majority of women want (although if anyone does want to get me a first-edition Tess of the D'Urbervilles, I can tell you now that I'd appreciate it much more than this silly character).

There’s a very long, dragged out scene in which Ana basically just gets dressed. Fan-fiction writers aren’t generally blessed with great narrative skills, and here's a spoiler for the future: this story doesn't have a plot. So they pad out their chapters with a lot of mundane, pointless activity. Christian and Ana take the elevator down from his penthouse and, wait for it… the first real action of the book, you guys. I know, I'm excited too.

Christian basically pounces on her while they’re in the lift (because she bit her lip - see? It's annoying already), pinning her hands above her head and yanking on her ponytail until she has no choice but to kiss him back. “It’s only just not painful,” says Ana. I’m sure the first kisses of all of Ana’s literary heroines were just the same. Do you remember that famous scene where Mr Darcy pinned Elizabeth Bennett against the wall and held her hands in a ‘vice-like grip’ above her head so he could force his tongue almost painfully into her mouth, leaving her ‘helpless’? No, me neither. 

TBC!

Chapter Five: Part One

Chapter Five - Part One

Ana wakes up in a bed in Christian Grey’s massive hotel suite. She gets some flashbacks from the night before and notices that Christian has left her some orange juice and some painkillers on the bedside table. I thought this was quite a sweet gesture, but Ana calls him a control freak and doesn’t seem to be too pleased. A crazed stalker with a standard Murder Kit in the boot of his car tracked her phone and followed her across the state because she said she was drunk, but it's the orange juice that makes her mad? That bastard, trying to cure her hangover. What a tool.

Christian walks in and he’s all sweaty because he’s been working out, and he’s wearing pants that hang from his hips again. Is he one of these men who wear their trousers halfway down their backside so you can see their underwear? That isn’t hot. Pull your pants up, Christian. “I feel like a two-year-old,” Ana contemplates. “If I close my eyes then I’m not really here.” Honestly, Ana, we don’t need any more proof of your complete incapability of rational thought or action. Also interesting to note that E. L. James compares Ana to a child a lot. Weird.

Ana wonders how she got there, and Christian confirms that he brought her to his apartment and undressed her, down to her t-shirt, knickers and socks while she was unconscious. Weird. Creepy. Unacceptable. If this is your boyfriend or long-term friend bringing you home when you’re drunk, you might be able to deal with the fact that he stripped you down while you were in a drunken stupor, but not a man you’re meeting for the fifth time this morning. I’m no prude, but this is just very, very fast, and there are real issues with consent that go totally ignored.

I am briefly cheered by the fact that Ana is now annoyed about the phone tracking. Christian tells her that phone tracking technology is available over the internet. He’s right, it is, but the person whose phone is being tracked must agree to the tracking. It can’t be done without their consent. It is not okay to track people’s phones, not unless you’re an officer of the law or a member of the FBI, and you’re in the middle of an investigation of some sort (and no offence to E. L. James, but I don’t think her narrative prowess extends to Christian being some sort of secret agent).

Christian says that if he hadn’t tracked her phone, she would have ended up in Jose’s bed. Well, no. There is a third option here, and that involves Ana going to find Kate and going home safely, like most girls do after a night out. Again, the author’s idea that all women are damsels in distress who must be rescued is patently evident (and sad).  

This is where I start to lose the tenuous grip I had on my sanity before I started this book. Christian gets mad, literally scolding Ana and telling her it was completely irresponsible to get drunk without eating a proper meal, because he hates to think what could have happened to her. “If you were mine, you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday,” he says. 

I just can’t get on board with this, and as much as I have torn her to pieces in previous posts, I am utterly on Ana’s side. As a twenty-two year old woman, she has the right to go out and drink as much alcohol as she likes, whilst eating as little food as she likes. If she wants to go out and chug absinthe all night long on an empty stomach, Christian Grey should have absolutely no bearing on that choice. His egomaniacal tendencies come right to the fore here, and he somehow manages to make the situation all about him, as though she should have considered his feelings before she went out and did what normal young women do when they reach a milestone in their life. How inconsiderate of you, Ana.

“He’s not a dark knight at all, but a white knight in shining, dazzling armor – a classic romantic hero – Sir Gawain or Lancelot,” swoons Ana, after Christian goes to take a shower. She thinks all the stalker stuff is bold and brave and honourable. Urgh.

“He’s probably not celibate,” she continues. Hahahahaha! You think?! “But he’s not made a pass at me, unlike Paul or Jose. I don’t understand. You’ve slept in his bed all night, Ana, and he’s not touched you. You do the math.” 

Right, because those are the only two options. If a man doesn’t make a pass at you, that means he just has to be celibate. The most worrying thing about this is that she is completely objectifying herself. She sees herself as a sexual object for these men, and if they don’t want her for sex, they don’t want her at all. I am sad. Sad for this literary construct and sad for the women who will read it and long for this kind of relationship.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Chapter three concludes with the most hilariously dramatic non-accident that’s ever been written. Ana nearly gets knocked over by a cyclist (not a motorcyclist, not even a car or a van – a man on a pushbike). Christian pulls her out of the way just in time, and chapter five opens with Ana wishing he would snog her face off. “I’m not the man for you,” he says, out of nowhere. You’ve got that right, pal. Also a timely reminder that this is still only the third time they've met.

Christian holds her at arm’s length and all Ana can think about is how much she wants him to kiss her. Note: she doesn’t ever consider just kissing him. Are you mad? A woman making the first move on a man? When he doesn’t kiss her, she muses that she has royally screwed up this coffee morning, because of course, it's all her fault if a man doesn't want to kiss her. 

Ana thanks Christian for saving her, and he says that he ‘shudders to think’ what might have happened to her if that man, who was probably going at about 10 miles per hour on a pushbike, had crashed into her. Bruises at best, I’d say, but the guy seems to have a penchant for melodrama.

This is a little nit-picky of me, and I’m not 100% sure on this, having never been to America, but Ana says that when she turns around, the ‘green man’ is showing, so she’s safe to cross the road. I always thought the signs were ‘Walk’ and ‘Don’t Walk’ in America. This novel is actually littered with British references that shouldn’t be there. I don’t understand how this was allowed to be published. It hasn’t even been glanced over by an editor (probably because if it was, it’d be in the bin before the end of the first chapter).

Ana says goodbye to Christian, runs back to the garage where her car is parked, and starts crying. Don’t you just love strong women in literature?

“Perhaps this nonsensical pain will be smaller the smaller I am,” she says, curling up in a ball in the garage. Perhaps that nonsensical sentence will be smaller if I throw my Kindle out of the window so that I can’t see it anymore. Punctuation and phrasing are a foreign concept to this author. This novel has been bashed out by a woman curled up on her sofa, typing in the breaks of Loose Women with a stray cat occasionally wandering across the keyboard.

Ana cries about her ‘dashed hopes, dashed dreams and soured expectations’ (she met him three times! I wish I was making this up), moaning about how she rebuffs every man who likes her because of her deep-rooted insecurities.

Then, this treat of a sentence appears: “Stop! Stop Now! – My subconscious is metaphorically screaming at me, arms folded, leaning on one leg and tapping her foot in frustration.” We've covered the random capitalisation of words which don't need it. We've covered the fact that you can’t interact with your ‘subconscious’. You also can’t scream ‘metaphorically’ at someone (especially if you are, in fact, someone’s subconscious). You’re either screaming or you’re not. A metaphorical scream is like me saying that I cried tears of metaphorical despair at that sentence. My despair wasn’t metaphorical. It was real.

When Ana gets home, she cries a little bit more to Kate, who reassures her that she’s a ‘total babe’, and then Kate shows her the finished Christian Grey interview, complete with wet-haired, flannel-trouser wearing pictures. Ana doesn’t read the interview, she just looks at the pictures (like little kids do), and decides that the reason Christian doesn’t want her is because he’s too good-looking for her. Surely not - surely it's the fact that she's boring and shallow and despite spending a fortune on college, doesn't seem to have any ambition or plans for the future. 

When Ana finishes her final exam in the next paragraph (yes, quite a leap, I know – it’s not my narrative), she gets home and finds that Christian has tracked down a first-edition copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and had it sent to her address. That total bastard.

But, consider this: he’s never been to her apartment, he’s met her all of three times, but he knows where she lives. Romantic, right? No. It’s creepy as hell. 

Ana considers it highly ironic (read: coincidental) that he’d choose that book to buy for her, because she’s just spent three hours writing about Thomas Hardy’s novels in her exam. 

After finishing their last exams, Ana and Kate decide to go out and get drunk. I was quite pleased to read this – maybe Ana wasn’t so friendless and sheltered as I thought – until I read on a few pages and discovered that she’s never been drunk before. Ana has never held anybody’s hand, she’s never liked a guy before, and she’s never been drunk. She's the perfect, virginal princess whom no man has sullied - and she almost certainly reflects about 0.1% of the population. I am baffled as to why so many women seem to identify with her.

Ana drinks five margaritas (yes, five. She has no alcohol tolerance whatsoever but she can drink five margaritas and still be conscious) and decides to go into the bathroom and drunk-dial Christian Grey. I can’t contradict this. Drunk-dialling is a seminal part of life, it's almost a rite of passage. Except Christian’s controlling side comes out and he demands to know where she is. Uh oh. This is creepy because it’s so reminiscent of a father coming to pick up his daughter. And the thing is, she doesn’t even tell him where she is. He tracks her phone. Ladies, is this romance? Is this even legal?

Ana goes outside for some fresh air and what follows is actually quite a disturbing scene. Jose comes out and tries to force her to kiss him, and it’s just all kinds of wrong. And then…

“I think the lady said no.” Oh, yes. You guessed it. Right in the nick of time, Christian! Bear in mind that Ana is in Portland, and it’s probably been about three minutes since she hung up the phone to him in Seattle. But whatever, why let a little realism stand in the way of a terrible good story?

At this point, Ana is sick all over Jose’s shoes. Good. Christian holds her hair back while she spews, which would be sweet if he hadn’t just stalked her across the state. Oh, and he also goes into total 'dad mode', reprimanding her and saying: “I’m all for pushing limits but really this is beyond the pale.” It is really? She got a little bit drunk and threw up. We’ve all been there, right? She's a grown woman who is fully capable of looking after herself (I think). I am a strong advocate of a woman being able to get drunk and puke her guts up on the night of her final exam, if that is how she chooses to celebrate (and many do).

Ana gets annoyed with him now, and rightly so. Joy! There is a backbone in there somewhere! And then just as I'm thinking we'll make a strong heroine of her yet, it all just fades away into a feeble excuse about never drinking again, and she agrees to let him take her home. Or at least, that’s the plan. 

Ana heads back into the bar to tell Kate and collect her bag, and somehow ends up grinding all over Christian on the dance floor like she does it for a living, despite the fact she’s, let me guess, never danced before. Maybe we could make this novel a whole lot shorter by first covering the things Ana has done in the past. I'm guessing this is the exhaustive list: read, sleep, eat, breathe, fall over, whinge about everything. 

Also, I can only speak for myself here, but when I’ve just spent the last five minutes vomiting into a flowerbed, the last thing I want to do is start grinding my backside into some stalker guy’s crotch on a sweaty dance floor. But hey, Ana is all for pushing boundaries now that she’s held a guy’s hand and felt lust for the first time. She’s a pioneer! 

TBC - and thanks for the lovely comments. I am hating and enjoying this in equal measures :)

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“The richest, most elusive, most enigmatic bachelor in Washington State just gave you his cell phone number.” (This is where I’m going to pretend the third chapter begins because the real beginning is totally inane and includes a reference to Carl Bernstein that is just hopelessly silly.)

Kate and Ana are having a token girly phone conversation about Christian and trying to plan his photo shoot the next day. Ana starts to consider the fact that Christian might like her. She hugs herself and rocks from side to side with glee – another of those things that sound borderline okay on paper, but when you actually do it, look absolutely ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the usual photographer they use for the school newspaper is at home for the weekend. How inconvenient. Where are they going to get another photographer from at such short notice? Oh, right. Jose/Jacob. Of course. I don’t expect all of my fiction to be gripping, mysterious and full of unexpected twists but really, this is just so obvious.

The guy with the possessive arm from the previous chapter asks Ana out for a drink after work. She says he’s ‘cute in a wholesome all-American boy-next-door kind of way, but he’s no literary hero’. God, seriously? You’re twenty-two and you haven’t worked out that there is no such thing as a literary hero who’s going to come along and sweep you off your feet?

Also, the fact that you’re holding out for one of these men doesn’t lead me to think that you’ve analysed your literature much at all. All of the most famous literary heroes are… well, not very nice. Mr Rochester of Jane Eyre was a pretty cold guy, and conveniently forgot to tell Jane that he was hiding his mad wife in the attic. Mr Darcy from Pride and Prejudice was pretty rude and didn’t think highly of women. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights was obsessed with revenge and getting his own way. Even Angel Clare from her beloved Tess of the D’Urbervilles subjected Tess to psychological abuse when he discovered she wasn’t a pure and virginal goddess.

Basically, what we can deduce from this, is that Ana’s ideal 'literary hero' love interest is cold, rude, self-obsessed and abusive, with a low opinion of women in general and a crazy lady hiding in his (metaphorical) attic. *FORESHADOWING CLAXON*

Anyway, Ana calls Jose and asks him to do the photo shoot with Christian. He has a bit of a whinge about it, and Kate takes over, ‘tossing her red-blonde hair over her shoulder’, which, to me, is a little bit like saying she tossed her ‘black-white’ hair over her shoulder. Hair can't be red and blonde at the same time. 

Kate talks Jose round, and now Ana has to call Christian. She completely goes to pieces on the phone, but manages to secure an appointment with him the next morning. Christian smiles in a ‘sphinx-like’ fashion, which just makes me think of the bald cat that Rachel gets in Friends, which she has to wear oven gloves to carry around. Is smiling like a bald cat attractive? Also, how can she tell he's smiling like a sphinx when she's talking to him over the phone? 

"Hi, I'm Christian Grey."

Ana laments the fact that she sounds all breathy, ‘like a child, not a grown woman who can vote and drink legally in the State of Washington’. Could have fooled me.

That night Ana dreams about ‘gray eyes, coveralls, long legs, long fingers and dark, dark unexplored places’. I know what you’re thinking: Voldemort in dungarees, right?

They arrive at the hotel the next day and Christian walks in with his hair still wet from his morning shower, and grey flannel pants. Of course, Ana dissolves into a pool of hormonal jelly at his feet.

Kate shakes Christian’s hand and Ana is in awe of the way she is so cool around him. She puts it down to the fact that Kate's family has money and she has grown up sure of her place in the world. Of course, only rich people are allowed to have the confidence and the adequate social skills required to conduct a professional interview.

After the photo shoot, Christian asks Ana to walk with him. As someone who sold him a textbook Murderer Kit just the day before, if I were Ana, I’d be a little wary about going anywhere alone with this guy, but Ana’s common sense seems to be just as limited as her understanding of classic literature.  He asks her to go for coffee with him. Ana agrees, obviously, but Kate is not pleased. She probably doesn’t think it’s wise to let her best friend, who has the emotional capacity of a (particularly horny) cricket bat, go on a date with this intense egomaniac who wears flannel pants. I’m with Kate on that one.

When Ana and Christian leave the hotel, he reaches out and holds her hand. “No one has ever held my hand,” says Ana. Twenty-two years old, people, and apparently every guy she encounters falls headlong in love with her. But we’re supposed to believe she’s never held anyone’s hand. Also let's try to bear in mind that this is the third time they're meeting and, with the exception of Christian's interview soliloquies, they've barely said ten sentences to one another.

“Try to be cool, Ana”, her subconscious implores her. Your subconscious can’t implore you to do anything. It’s a subconscious, you are not aware of it. Writing 101.

Ana doesn’t like coffee, so Christian goes to get her a cup of tea, and brings it back to the ‘small, round, birch-veneer table’. We don't get a fleshed-out and believable relationship with Ana's mother to read about, but my God, E. L. James is going to describe the heck out of every piece of furniture she sees. 

Ana tells Christian that she finds him intimidating. “You should be intimidated by me,” says the guy who spent his Saturday buying rope, masking tape and cable ties. It is monumentally stupid that Ana Steele is not running for the hills right now. Christian comments that she seems very self-contained. “Me, self-contained? No Way.”  Again, that's a verbatim quote from the book, misplaced capital letter and all. If I had bought the paperback version I’d have set it on fire by now.

“I’m used to getting my own way, Anastasia,” Christian continues. This is not hot. It’s not attractive. If I was having coffee with a guy and he started spouting all this, he wouldn’t be getting a minute more of my time. “It’s like he’s trying to warn me off,” muses Ana. Ya think?!

Christian starts quizzing Ana on her family to get to know her better. When prompted to describe her step-dad, Ray, Ana says that he’s ‘taciturn’. Nobody uses this word in real life. Only in weird fanfiction. 

Ana questions Christian about his parents – he had an affluent upbringing, but he’s adopted. This is much more interesting than talking about how he always gets his own way, and if I were Ana I’d be asking what that was like, but she just starts talking about how she’d like to go to England one day. “It’s the home of Shakespeare, Austen, the Bronte sisters, Thomas Hardy. I’d like to see the places that inspired those people to write such wonderful books.” Unfortunately, England was also the place that inspired E. L. James to write this atrocity, so I’m afraid it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

TBC! 

Chapter Two: of Hawks and Handsaws

Chapter Two

This chapter opens with Ana, yes, you guessed it, falling headfirst out of the elevator in Grey Enterprises. She says that no man has ever affected her the way Christian Grey just did, and she can’t fathom why. She's twenty-two years old and she's been at college for four years. I'm not saying that everyone has to sleep around in college but for the vast majority of people there is some kind of sexual awakening during this time. Ana - sweet, virginal, innocent Ana, has never felt sexual attraction towards another man. No word yet on whether she's hit puberty. 

What’s most annoying about this part is that, in wondering why Christian affects her so much, she questions whether it could be his looks, his wealth, his power, or his ‘civility’. I like good manners as much as the next girl, but a man showing some standard, common courtesy has never really made me get hot under the collar. Also - looks, wealth and power are presented as really great reasons to be attracted to a man. Cool. 

Ana curses herself all the way home about the interview. She gets home and Kate runs up to her and hugs her like she's just returned from war, not a four-hour round trip to a nearby city. Also, Kate has the flu. Don’t hug your friends when you have the flu! Gross. 

At this point, we learn that Ana works at a nearby hardware store called Clayton's. She's decided to head there for a shift now. This is where the fanfiction roots of the story are so apparent - we haven't heard anything about Ana being employed up until this point, and she seems to have just decided that she's going to work for a bit.

This is what happens at work: “[Mrs Clayton] sends me to the stockroom to start re-stocking shelves, and I’m soon absorbed in the task.” Then she goes home, no further information. Talk about filler?

When Ana gets home, Kate starts hinting that Christian Grey might fancy her. No, really?! After all that careful description of how utterly nondescript her appearance is, her rude questions and her constant falling over? How romantic. This guy must be a real keeper.

Ana admits she found him 'interesting' and Kate’s all like, "You?! Interested in a man?! That's a first!" As though they're not fully grown women who have reached sexual and emotional maturity. 

There’s some amusing intertextuality here, where Ana talks about working on a Tess of the D’Urbervilles essay – “Damn, but that woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time in the wrong century,” she says. Firstly, ‘wrong time’ and ‘wrong century’ are exactly the same thing. Secondly (spoiler alert! Although if you haven’t read Tess, you don’t deserve to be alerted to spoilers – go and read it immediately), Tess murders her abusive husband at the end. It doesn’t matter what time or century you’re in, that kind of thing is still illegal.

Ana finishes her essay and goes to bed, pleased that she’s ‘accomplished so much for a Monday’. She did a favour for a friend, stocked some shelves in a stockroom and wrote a few paragraphs of the essay and it's an 'accomplishment'. 

Ana decides to call her mum in Georgia for a catch-up, and after all of three sentences (literally three), her mum deduces that Ana has met someone. I'm pretty close to my mum, and I know a lot of women are the same, but she'd need a lot more than three sentences out of me to magically be able to guess that I'd met someone. The author can't really be bothered giving her protagonist a real relationship with her mother (she just wants to write about sex, dammit) so she plonks her out of the way in Georgia and gives her psychic abilities to ensure their conversations are never longer than a few sentences. 

Some more comical intertextuality coming up. Ana's talking about her stepdad Ray, who apparently was the one to teach her 'the difference between a hawk and a handsaw'. This is a phrase from Hamlet and means that you have a strong grip of reality (something Ana clearly does not). Honestly, if you need to be taught the difference between a bird of prey and a carpentry tool, I'm surprised natural selection hasn't claimed you already. And doesn’t Ana work in a hardware store?!

Hawk

Handsaw

At this point, Jose (Jacob) shows up at Ana and Kate’s apartment with a bottle of champagne. He’s managed to get his own exhibition at a gallery in Portland, and wants the girls to celebrate with him. Apparently, Jose is in love with Ana, but Ana doesn’t reciprocate. “He’s cute and funny, but he’s just not for me,” she says, although I don’t know how she’d be so sure of that considering the first time she felt attracted to any man was three days ago. 

Ana wonders if she is missing the ‘need-a-boyfriend gene’. Good grief. She starts wondering whether there’s something wrong with her. I will suspend my judgement for now.

I don’t know whether it’s the copy I’m reading or just the genuine, horrendous narrative, but after Jose pops the cork of his champagne, we’re suddenly back at Ana’s hardware store again, where she's getting mixed up between pelicans and power drills (probably). She’s scoffing a bagel behind the counter and trying not to do any work (hey, maybe I can empathise with this girl), when who should walk in? Christian Grey himself. You’re shocked, right? No, me neither.

He’s wearing a cream chunky-knit sweater, jeans and walking boots. In my head he looks like this:

"Hi, I'm Christian Grey."

They start having a little chat, and Ana is bewitched by his voice. “[It's] warm and husky like dark melted chocolate fudge caramel… or something.” Or something?! That little afterthought isn’t something I’ve added; it’s verbatim from the book. Or something. I don’t know about you but when I buy a book, the least I expect is that the author/narrator is sure about what they’re trying to convey.

Ana shakes her head to gather her wits. Imagine doing this in a real life situation. You would look like a serious weirdo.

Basically, Christian has rocked up in this obscure, family-run hardware store that is conveniently Ana’s place of work because he wants to buy cable ties, masking tape and rope. Pretty much everything except for a body-bag and a really rusty knife. There don’t seem to be any alarm bells ringing in Ana’s head, but then again, I’m not sure there’s much of anything going on in Ana’s head beyond gawping at Christian’s intimidating cream chunky-knit sweater.  

Christian makes some quip about taking his clothes off, putting Ana’s coherency well and truly out of business for another few paragraphs. She thinks everything he says is a double entendre, and as readers, we already know that this book is about kinky sexual exploits, so we’re predisposed to do that, too. Ana makes a passing comment about how Kate could do with some photos to go alongside the interview they did, and Christian agrees to a photo shoot the following day. I don’t know whether that’s before or after he’s made use of his Mad Axe Murderer Kit, but either way, looks like we’re going to be seeing a lot more of him.

Some male friend of Ana’s comes bounding up, hugs her and places a ‘possessive arm’ over her shoulder. Apparently every single male in this book has the hots for Ana, and the poor, naïve bookworm doesn’t have a clue. Pass me the sick bucket.

Ana comments that Christian is watching them like a hawk. Oh good, at least he's not watching them like a handsaw.

TBC!