I already know before I turn my car ignition off that I will write about the book I've been societally coerced to read -- 50 Shades of Grey. I'd managed to avoid it for a full year, dipping and diving between the droves of friends, acquaintances and colleagues who at one time or the other came out to me about reading this ridiculous book. But finally I've succumbed mainly because I realized that I had to use the 3 audio book credits that have been hanging out in my audible account before they expired.
The book is about S&M, control and submission and the classic "girl who doesn't know she's pretty is rescued by worldly white knight" but with a tried and true twist -- lots of forbidden sex. Poorly written, predictable and smutty, it truly is a ridiculous piece of literature -- that I can't stop listening to and/or thinking about! I'm obsessed with the book and vaguely amused by this as I watch myself devour it. I like the book because it’s about sex and fantasy -- and just like that, 37 years of intelligence, discernment and sophistication unravels into the steaming pile of bullshit that it is, and I am as neanderthal as the first cave man who discovered the magical combination of friction and genitalia. A million years from now there will be cockroaches and sex.
My consciousness has been split in three since I started listening to this book -- The IDIOT, drooling over each cheap scene; the intelligent, mortified, detached SNOB who is watching the IDIOT listening to the book; and the nonchalant SMARTY PANTS me who consistently reminds the other two that the only reason that this is happening is because I've been single for many years, and haven't had a date since I moved my crazy ass to the country over one year ago. Reading about sex and fantasy right now is like dropping a lit match on a huge, dry, tumbleweed in the middle of death valley. I'm an easy target. Still, I find it hard to reconcile my feminist identity with the person willingly listening -- enjoying even (gasp) -- this book. On occasion, I picture Harriett Tubman sitting on a cloud, head in hands, wondering if I got this tendency from the white side of my family...
Even as I write this I'm wondering if the mousy girl in the story will win the heart of the handsome rich asshole, and how much sex I can look forward to in between, and how I will recoup all of the brain cells I've sacrificed in pursuit of this cheap thrill. I'll probably finish the book tonight and tomorrow I'll do the walk of shame over to the classics section in the library and hopefully resuscitate my suicidal brain, before diving into 50 Shades of Grey book two...
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