Sex tips? You’d be better off reading a manual. Ladies, have some self-respect, for heaven’s sake.
The Sunday Times today carries a fascinating story about sales of Fifty Shades of Grey in Malta.
(…)
“We are getting one consignment after the next, yet we are constantly running out of stock,” said Michael Vella de Fremaux, trade manager at Miller Distributors, which owns Agenda Bookshop.
He said that over the past few weeks sales of the book have been in “thousands” and “have shot through the roof”.
“The sales are crazy: for every book we sell, we are selling about 20 copies of Fifty Shades,” he said prompting customers to pre-book a copy when it is out of stock.
Mr Vella de Fremaux was quite surprised by the popularity of the book and its two sequels. “But then even the UK publishers were taken by the storm – and for a time it was out of print in the UK,” he said.
It is mostly women who are snapping it up, he said, which could be a reason why sales are so high.
“In Malta, women read much more than men and, unlike the Harry Potter series and The Da Vinci Code, this is a book which definitely targeted women,” he said, estimating that at least 75 per cent of readers are female.
At Merlin Library and Books Plus, the frenzy of sales is just the same. “Everyone is asking for it. Women just buy it, while men are curious about what it is about, and why everyone is talking about it,” said manager Jo Cole.
Although it has been dubbed ‘mummy porn’ by some international literary critics, there does not seem to be an age limit to it and buyers range from 18-year-olds to elderly pensioners.
“We had one grandmother in the other day, she grabbed the trilogy and rushed to the till,” said one bookseller.
“We have had a couple of male buyers, but they also feel the need to stress that ‘it’s for the wife’,” said another bookseller.
Although many people are reading it, not everyone is willing to own up to being hooked, and several expressed a wish to remain anonymous when giving their verdict.
“I can’t believe I read the three books. This is essentially terrible writing – only it’s about sex,” said one reader.
“It’s not a literary phenomenon, but it’s racy, and it’s a good guide to bedroom tips,” joked another reader.
One reader expressed concern at young girls reading the book.
“It is totally anti-feminist. The plot centres on the corruption of a virginal student by her successful, control-freak boyfriend. The message they’re getting is: be submissive,” she said.
(…)
———
A friend has just remarked to me, “the last time I remember a craze like this, it was about Harry Potter, the point being that those were 12-year-olds. not grown women.”
Unfortunately, when society infantilises women or reduces them legally and in other ways to the status of children, that’s how they end up behaving. It’s an inevitable consequence.
The ironic tragedy is that the book itself is about the corruption of a young woman by a control-freak monster, who reduces her to the status of a mechanical object there to perform sado-masochistic sexual services for which he could have easily paid elsewhere.
Looking at the photograph of the author, E. L. James, for the first time today, I understood immediately why she had been kept secret and mysterious. Her drab ‘mara tad-dar’ appearance shatters the fantasy that she knows anything at all about the experiences she writes of.
The true nature of the book is put into perspective when you know that in London’s Soho, it is being sold in sex shops, along with the message ‘You have read the book, now buy the toys.’
How sad is that.
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I don’t know whether you noticed but JPO’s tie on his second marriage posed photo, is precisely the same as the one on the book.
Is she submissive?
Someone should slip a copy of Shakespeare in Michelle’s bag before she boards a plane.
If this copycat culture is so pervasive, we might hope for a cultural and literary revival.
““We have had a couple of male buyers, but they also feel the need to stress that ‘it’s for the wife’,” said another bookseller.”
Now how embarrassing is that?
Maybe this is why Simone Cini almost missed the flight from Milan,she must have been sex-toy shopping.
The Sunday Times front page story refers.
Interesting to know if this craze erupted when you first mentioned the book in your blog.
My, oh my. Never has it been so inspiring since Xavier Hollander’s published her memoirs in the early 70s (Jeez, I am getting old) with her paperback, ‘The Happy Hooker; My Own Story’. It was revolutionary then, but to be reading mummy porn in 2012….
You forgot ”Deep Throat” the ”Emanuelle” series and that all time classic – the Queen Esther account from the Old Testament.
Daphne, If you read Italian, I highly recommend Alberto Moravia’s “La Noia”. It’s beautifully written and nails the psychology of the disfunctional protagonist and his objectifiying of women down to a T.
One of the most profoundly touching books I’ve ever read.
[Daphne – I don’t read Italian except on a functional basis.]
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/MP-Silvio-Parnis-to-hold-Parnis-Summer-Family-Fest-20120818
The South. Here we come.
Come on, I think you’re taking it way too seriously. Its just a stupid erotic book that I imagine most are buying for the fun of it, and maybe some are even getting off on it, so what? I’m pretty sure everyone knows its not an important piece or literature and that it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
[Daphne – Anything that sells itself into the status of a phenomenon has to be taken seriously, Matthew, though I don’t mean seriously as in ‘worried’. But it certainly merits discussion.]
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/340987215
I actually thought it had to have been written by a man, until I Googled a picture of the author and thought exactly the same as yourself.
I have not read these books and only got to know about them from this blog. Am I living on another planet? Maybe.
I doubt very much I’d have the patience and stamina to read them if I could ever successfully compete in the rush to acquire them.
I am, however, reminded of “Histoire d’O” (“The Story of O”), a French novel written by Pauline Réage (pseudonym) written in the early fifties and made sometime in the 70s into a movie starring Corinne Cléry.
The theme of the novel (I think an English version exists) is…guess… dominance and submission.
So what’s new under the sun?
I painfully (no pun) plodded through half the novel when the film was made (otherwise I’d never have heard of the novel) and found it so terribly boring that I stopped half-way through.
The movie was more manageable and I obtained a copy on VHS from a foreign friend as the film never found itself in Maltese cinemas, such as they were at the time.
That so many people enthusiastically waste time and energy on these books speaks much of the level of cultural taste today. But then it’s all envy on my part…had I the talent to write such “literature”, I’d be a millionaire today.
What makes me laugh, actually smile not laugh, is none of the woman, Daphne included, who comment on this book, did read it. It’s all what they heard.
If they didn’t read it how can they comment on it?
[Daphne – Oh, very easily, Franco. We read the reviews, verdicts and opinions of people whose judgement we trust. There are other ways, too. How an you tell whether a restaurant is good or bad without actually eating there? There are clues which many people can read.]
This is 2012, haven ‘t you yet accustmed youselves to the fact that you are now free to make fools of youselves as much as you want?
P.S.
If you go and buy it, you can always pretend you thought it was a cookery book.
[Daphne – Silvio, why do I suspect that you were one of the men who bought it at Agenda and made a point of telling the shop assistant that you bought it for your wife?]
Dear Daphne, actually I bought it for MYSELF.
I like keeping up to date (even at my age). It is a way of knowing what, apart from money, makes today’s woman tick.
Remember it was quite different in our days when some (not all) girls went bananas just seeing Roger Moore give that certain look.
How times change, but I find it my duty to keep adjourned, you can never tell what you can come in need of.
[Daphne – Silvio, might I point you in the direction of Ecclesiastes 3:1 (the Bible, not E L James)? There’s some invaluable advice there by which I swear. Those who don’t see the wisdom of it end up by making themselves utterly ridiculous. Sadly, that means very many people my age who were never ‘cool’ at 18 or 20 and who are trying desperately to be so now. Sadly for them, they are also doing it very publicly. Too late, my dears – too, too late. This also applies to men of 73 who buy and read Fifty Shades of Grey.]
Nothing to be surprised at. People still come to your blog even with that horrible face popping up each time. Everything has a limit though.
Dear Daphne, It’s never too late to learn.
At GS Supermarket in Naxxar there is a whole shelf of 50 Shades of Grey, staged prominently in the middle where no one can miss it. Not even one customer stopped to look during my 40 minutes there.
If the situation is as described in this article in The Sunday Times, then I would have witnessed fighting and running to clean out the shelf. This kind of ‘everyone wants it’ publicity is just a way of building more sales.
The diamond coconut model. Works every time.
Wow, she looks like the Fat Controller in a black wig.
What a turn-on.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/340987215?auto_login_attempted=true
I haven’t agreed so completely with an article in a long time.
Since I haven’t read the book, my views are based on others’ reviews of it.
What would probably fascinate me most in Grey’s obsessive behaviour is that he seems to be the perfect anti-dote to sometimes being barely noticed.
Sure, your husband noticing your new dress is nice, but, for someone whose relationship is based on longevity, being taken for granted is actually healthy.
“andreana attard
Today, 17:21
Here’s the thing – WHY do so many women need to read about interesting sex scenarios? This is the big question. The answer may be that women are enjoying sex vicariously through this book and it should worry all men who think they are satisfying their women.” http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120819/local/Fifty-Shades-of-Grey-tops-Malta-s-list-of-bestsellers.433379
“Why do so many women need to read about interesting sex scenarios?” Well,why do so many men need to view porn?
The fact is that men are sexually aroused by visual images whereas women are stimulated by the spoken or written word. That is why so many women like to read romantic novels but couldn’t care less about porn and men are the complete opposite.
I have been following with interest all the comments about “Thirty Shades of Grey” and I might be the only woman on this blog who has bothered to read it (or who will admit to reading it.)
I first heard of this book months ago from a friend, who like myself, is an avid, eclectic reader. My friend is a well-educated professional woman (she lectures in the English Department at two local colleges here in Southern California) and she was reading it on her Kindle (which is probably what Michelle Muscat should have done if she had a brain in her head).
After that, it seemed like this book was everywhere. It was in the news, talk shows, on the internet . I knew it had become a national phenomena, when not only was it in bookstores but also at Cosco and in the aisle next to the milk and juice at my local supermarket.
For the longest time, I couldn’t be bothered to read it as I really didn’t think it was my cup of tea but finally I have to admit that I gave in to my curiousity. Fourty million women and counting have read this book worldwide. That is more than the “Harry Potter” books. Ultimately, I had to find out for myself what all the fuss was about. Yes, I could have taken the high road but life is short and at the end of the day, it is just a book.
I think the people on this blog are taking this book way too seriously. The author, E.L. James, wrote it for fun and as a way to deal with her midlife crisis. It was written as fanfiction based on the Twilight books of which she was a great fan. Originally, she published it one chapter at a time, on the internet where it found a following which eventually grew to such an extent that it lead to an e-back and later was published in its present form.
E.L James is not just a “mara tad-dar.” She has a degree in history, has worked as a television executive, is a mother of two and married to a screenwriter and director. Her husband edited the book.
So now we come to the book. Is it a great work of literature? Of course not, we all know that. However, reading the book is definitely not the same as reading reviews or other people’ s opinions.
I have to disagree with Daphne about the restaurant analogy. You can read or hear from friends how great a restaurant is but it is a whole other sensory experience when you are actually there. You have the visual experience of the environment and the taste and smelll of the food which contribute to the overall culinary experience.
So back to “Fifty Shades of Grey” which incidentally was originally going to be called “Seven Shades of Grey” but didn’t quite have the same ring. Yes, there is a lot of sex and yes, it is explicit but there actually is a story. OK, not the greatest story but more entertaining than I anticipated.
Surprisingly, nothing sexual happens until about a 100 pages, which is about a fifth of the way through the book. An attempt is made to develop the characters before all the sex starts to happen.
There is more of a love story than you might be lead to believe. Yes, it is pretty dysfunctional but from what I have heard and read, Christian does change over the course of books two and three because of his love for Ana. I haven’t decide yet whether I want to bother reading the sequels
So ladies, those of you who don’t want to read it, you are not missing that much. The other ladies, who want to read it because they are curious just as I was, don’t let anyone make you feel guilty or demonized just because you want to read a sexy book. We women are sexual creatures and sometimes reading a racey book can be entertaining.
As for the men out there, this book is not written for you. Silvio, I appreciate you wanting to keep up to date but I find that a 73 year old man reading “Fifty Shades of Grey” is kind of creepy.
Also, all you men on this blog, who have been so sanctimonious and judgmental about the women reading this book, I would like to know how many of you have never in your lives viewed porn in some media or other?
Interesting how that double standard continues to exists.
Ain’t our yummy mummy readers too hot to be bovvered?
ASDA in Inverness was selling them at £7 for two last week. I wonder how much the local robbers are selling them.
If your personal spy didn’t see Mrs Muscat with this book in her hand, would you bother write and fuss about it?
[Daphne – Yes, of course. It’s a phenomenon. Michelle Muscat is not.]
Recently in Malta we had il-Grajjiet tan-Nanna Genoveffa on the book shelves and it was a success. Did you write something about it?