Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Gatekeepers

I have no desire to read 50 Shades of Grey, just as I had no desire to read Twilight (and when I saw the lead characters in the movie, it sealed the deal). From what I've seen and heard, it's badly written, a take off on Twilight and a published fan fiction.

I wouldn't mind publishing fan fic myself, I've got lots of it, but gee, color me stupid, I thought that was verboten.

A couple of my coworkers are reading Shades and I hear them discussing it. They love it, can't wait to see what happens next. Their voices are excited and I often hear "Oh My God, can you believe it?"

Okay, my theory is this. They're southern girls, brought up in the country, married now with children. I image the goings on in Shades has a 'wow' factor for them, even though others online have stated it's a pale reflection of BDSM. Who am I to judge? I too was ignorant of such goings on, even at my age, until a few years ago.

I think there are women like this all over the country and the world; naive, even innocent, although the internet should take care of that in a few decades. For them, this book would be breaking new ground.

But my question is this: what happened to the Gatekeepers?  (Shades of Ghostbusters!!) You know, the publishers who are supposed to protect us from badly written shlop. Have they lowered their standards? Or is it that Shades is not that badly written?

If I had more than a mild curiosity about it, I'd buy the book and find out for myself. But these days I'm having trouble reading books I want to read; I'm not about to start in on books I don't want to read!

Has anyone read it? If so, what's your opinion?

4 comments:

  1. I couldn't watch the video.... I ate breakfast this morning.

    I don't love the fan-fic thing especially with a movie deal. That gets really skeevy and I can't believe Stefanie Meyer isn't suing James' ass.

    But I refuse to bemoan any book that does well. More power to her for being able to get an audience.

    What makes me laugh is the readers who complain it's badly written yet buy all three books and read them. Heh. They just want the sex scenes.

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  2. OK....I confess....yes....I have read them all and....shock horror...really enjoyed them! OK...they aren't Tolstoy but hey...nothing wrong with a bit of light reading, opened my eyes to stuff I have never come across before but made me laugh at the same time. sometimes there is a danger of becoming a little too precious about book publishing.

    Isn't it better that at least it has encouraged..OK..mainly women to pick up a book and actually finish it...badly written or not....who are we to judge? E L James must be laughing all the way to the bank! Personally, not sure where there is any similarity to Twilight...or have I misunderstood?

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  3. Jan, 50 Shades is a Twilight fan fic. It was originally published as a ff with the title Master of the Universe.

    I just think there's a definate grey area when a published fan fic gets a movie deal. That starts to feel skeevy.

    And I never judge what people read. As long as they read then I'm celebrating.

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  4. I think what bothers me is that it was originally fan fiction, but now the claim is that it's 'original'

    That's what gets my goat.

    And since I have plenty of other stuff to read that I'm actually curious about... *shrug*

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