Deep plunging into the intricate sexual relationship between the college graduate Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, a young wealthy business magnate- this is what British author E.L. James managed to accomplish with her 2011 erotic romance Fifty Shades of Grey. February, 11 2015 was the date when the novel gained exquisite publicity amongst cinema viewers, since its outrageous love scenes of sadism-masochism, bondage-discipline and dominance-submission relationship came to live on the big screen through the 2015 British-American film Fifty Shades of Grey. It was directed by Sam-Taylor Johnson, starring Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey.
The movie was wrapped in a mixture of reviews; it was widely criticized, however, it happened to be absolutely successful in the box office with various records, winning almost $570 million all over the world.
The book Fifty Shades of Grey managed to climb the top in the best-sellers’ list in both the UK and the USA. With 125 million copies sold all over the world, the book was announced to be UK’s fastest-selling written work ever. It has been released in translation versions into 52 languages. What a fabulous success! The critical reviews on both, the book and the movie, on the other hand, appear to be much Greyer than their quickly gained popularity and readers’ and viewers’ acclaim. The book was negatively received; critics found the prose to be low quality and generally poor.
-
Salman Rashdie commented on the badly written book of Fifty Shades of Grey, comparing it to the poor quality of Twilight, which in his view looked like War and Peace
-
Maureen Dowd considers the book to be dull and makes implication to the style of Bronte, lacking any talent whatsoever
-
Jesse Kornbluth believed the weak plot of the book made the reading experience feel like a sad joke
-
Another allusion to the Twilight vampire series is made by April Alliston, whose commentaries on the book classify it as more than parasitic fan fiction
-
Lisa Schwarzbaum, however, expresses a slightly different opinion about the book, rating it a B+. Her review is far from unfavourable, believing that book belongs to a class by itself.
-
Jenny Colgan is another critic who deviates from the general negative trend of criticism. She thinks that Fifty Shades of Grey is even more likable than some other erotic books.
-
The Daily Telegraph classified the book as sweetish and readable. Nevertheless, its popularity would stay for long, since many female readers will go on commenting on the sexual politics the book describes.
-
Other reviews discuss the notion of female submission and criticize the heroine’s low self esteem, which should not be modeled by the female public
-
The New Zealand Herald doubt that the book will be any kind of prose winner
-
According to Columbus Dispatch, the writer of the book managed to make its piece intriguing so that you are willing to keep on reading. However, the prose is considered awkward.
-
Jessica Reaves criticizes the novel for its excessive number of stupid phrases. She defined the book as depressing.
-
Some critics and even scientists state that the bondage/discipline/sadism/masochism relationship between the lead characters is quite different. They believe that it demonstrates characteristics of an abusive sexual relationship, which is further complicated by sexual violence, threatening, quite stressful situations, and even alcohol misuse.
Fifty Shades of Grey suffered from severe censorship for its excessively sexual content. A certain library even removed it from shelves for the inability of the book to meet the selection criteria. Nevertheless, the book is an item absolutely demanded for; as a result, the library had to make the book accessible and available for the voracious readers.
Regardless of the generally negative criticism of the book Fifty Shades of Grey, its sequels(for it is a trilogy) - Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed are going to be on the big screen in 2017 and 2018 respectively. We are looking forward to seeing them!
