Fifty Shades of Boring Satire
Whatever You Think of Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey is Worse
Much
like 9/11 or the death of Princess Diana I still remember where I was
when I was first made aware of Fifty Shames of Earl Grey. I was at
the book shop where I work, checking through the newest delivery of
stock, looking for appropriate titles to put in the “Dark Erotic
Vampires Fucking One Another” display when I came across it. With
cover and art work mischievously similar to E.L James' oeuvre there
it was; Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, by Fanny Merkin.
Fifty Shames of Earl Grey. Fifty Shames of Earl Grey. Fifty SHAMES
of EARL Grey.
It
was like a punch to the gut, a perception shattering blow to the
brain. I just started laughing, right there in the stock room like
some bloody mad man! My mind had been blown and my preconceptions
shattered into tiny idiot pieces on the floor. I had missed the Ben
Elton, Alexei Sayle satire boom of the mid 1980s on account of being
an unborn sperm at the time. And this was punishing, visceral satire
very much in the same vein. Brutal take no quarter literary
assassination. Comedy with a brain. Comedy
with a heart and balls. And spunk. Comedy with big spunky balls. In
a way it was the end of innocence, a rite of passage. I had become a
man. As I flicked through the opening pages I was suddenly struck by a thought, “Jesus Christ. I wouldn't want to be E.L James right
about now...she can't recover from a calculated barb like this. She
is finished...”
Now,
unless you've been living under a massive leather dildo that shields
you from news for the past few months you'll be aware of literary
sensation Fifty Shades of Grey which is a very cleverly marketed bit
of erotica aimed at women. It is poorly written and essentially
presents itself as the TV soap that everyone
is talking about. But with more fisting. It's a bit like the show
Lost in that there is very little substance to it but it is
compulsive viewing and a staple of water cooler conversation. But
with more fisting.
Whilst
it isn't true that with every literary action there is an equally
strong reaction, there has been a pretty decent kick back against
Fifty Shades of Grey, but does there need to be?
One of the main critiques of the book is that is that E.L James
hasn't produced “real” literature, it's just badly written
titillation. She knows.
When people buy the
book, they're just buying rubbish. They know.
It is similar to the
reaction of “Oh you don't watch the X Factor do you? That music
isn't as good as The White Album!” They know. We know. Everyone
knows. The point of Fifty Shades of Grey isn't to add to canon of
great British Literature, it's to serve as escapist fantasy to
unimaginative women.
So
whilst there is a point to Fifty Shades of Grey, what is the point
of Fifty Shames of Earl Grey? It's one of those books that has
“Christmas present for someone you don't know”
written
all over it and is sure to be a staple of Charity shop bookcases for
years to come. It is set in the same vein as a book that came out a
few years ago called something like “Pride and Prejudice...and only
bloody zombies as well! You weren't expecting THAT were you?!” Or
the achingly unfunny “Twishite, New Moan”. Books that are
carefully displayed by the counter at HMV, so if someone is feeling a
little bit tired and sad they might think “oh that's quite funny,”
buy it, get it home and never read it.
Or
start reading it, get 8 pages in and think “Oh. It's just the one
joke: Imagine if there were zombies in Pride and Prejudice? Well
then. Be a bit weird wouldn't it!...Pfffft, well there's 124 pages
more of this...um...Mr Darcy would like brains if he were a
zombie wouldn't he? That'd be...that'd be not in keeping with what
he's like in the original text. Pfft...look do you still have the
receipt for this or not?
If Fifty Shades of Grey was cynically marketed (which it was) then it
is nothing compared to cash in parody books. If, as some seem to
genuinely claim, novels such as Fifty Shades are killing literature,
then Fifty Shames is bursting into the funeral wearing a party hat
saying “zany parody!” on it and fucking the corpse for cheap
laughs while grieving relatives throw coins in delight. And you
might think that it's not the same thing at all. But it is.
Also
for the record there is also a parody title called “Game of Groans”
but that is simply not good enough to require criticism.
