50 Shad3s: Chapter 18

TLDNR
It's Ana's birthday and it seems like Ray is going to be ok.

This is a short and bad one. I'm honestly not sure if I just care less, or what, but I think I didn't write much about this chapter because nothing happens at all and it's hard to find much to write about when nothing much happens at all. You can totally read this whole thing during a single commercial break, even if you DVRed the show and you're watching commercials on fast mode. That's how short this is.

Wait where were we?

50 Shad3s: Chapter 17

TLDNR
Hospital stuff

I think I'm going to stop thinking of this trilogy as a trilogy, because it just doesn't behave like one. Ooh unless we're thinking about movie trilogies, in which case it totally does. And not like the rare trilogy that was planned as a trilogy. The sort of accidental trilogy where the producers are like, "Well, they keep buying tickets, so yeah I guess let's keep making these movies." Like, not with any plan or anything. Not one long story that needs to be told over multiple hours. Just like, "Uh I dunno. Maybe let's do this one in space?"

That's what's going on here. See, the core contradiction in this novel is never going to be resolved. The conflict in this book is either between Ana and Christian, or, thought of in a bit of a different way--each has their own personal conflict, which is that neither can just kinda relax and accept the other's love and not be a jealousy monster all the time.

But here's something annoying: EL is always offering her characters excuses to follow their worst impulses. CG is a hideous control-monster, yes, but he and Ana are being stalked by some kind of downmarket super-villain, so events basically justify his paranoid thinking. Ana is staggeringly jealous and insecure, but why shouldn't she be? Her husband's exes are always showing up and trying to get back into his life, and literally every woman who crosses his path displays a Tex Avery-style overreaction to his good looks and basically begs for a trip to his sex dungeon. That's absolutely everyone besides his lesbian personal assistant. Only the people interested in bedding zero men are not trying to bed Christian Grey. So maybe Ana should be jealous! I don't know!

But anyway--maybe at the end of this book, CG will be like, "I'm relaxed! We caught that one super villain so we no longer need to worry!" And Ana will be like, "I'm ok with the shockingly high proportion of humanity that wants to have sex with you!" But even if EL tries to force through a late-game arc like this, I just don't think I'll believe it. I expect I'll feel exactly the same about both of these characters: not mature enough to be in an adult relationship.

But hey. While we're waiting around in vain for all that, let's check in on the car collision that we're all so worried about!

So where were we? 

50 Shad3s: Chapter 16

TLDNR:

That thing with Leila ends up fine but then I guess Ray is hurt or something. 

So Leila's return means that this book is in full-on wrap-up mode. So that's something! Makes me feel like the end is near! Cool. V important for my dwindling motivation.

Have we talked about Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans before? Probs. Let's again tho! So the thing with that movie is that it's kind of gleefully hostile to the idea of plotting. Toward the end, there's this scene where Nic Cage is back at police HQ and there's almost a literal line of minor characters just waiting to come up to him and say, "Oh hey remember our subplot from earlier in the film? It's all taken care of so don't worry about it! Thanks!"

After spending several chapters eschewing any dramatic tension, EL now ends two in a row with out-of-left-field cliffhangers involving tertiary characters that are impossible to worry about. I think it's because EL just doesn't succeed in making me feel like many of the characters are real people. More like little puppets that EL moves around as needed. Does that make sense? I mean, I know that everyone in this is a caricature character. But I feel a bit like there's a hierarchy. Some of the characters, like Ana and CG, have some kind of motivations and wants and needs and so on. But that's pretty much just Ana, CG, and Kate to a lesser extent. All the other characters are just so underdeveloped that they don't feel like people. Just devices. So that's not a great sign, obvs. But that's what we've got going on.

Meaning that when Leila--a lady who threatened Ana with a gun!--shows up, I'm quite unconcerned. I know that Ana isn't going to get murdered. And I know that Leila is probably just here to wrap up her little thing and will, in all likelihood, just be on her way in no time.

And when I read this chapter, and got to the next cliffhanger, I just kinda roll my eyes. Because it's another bit of pointlessness with a side character. Looks like EL is just trying to wring one last little bit of business out of everyone in this. Means José will be back soon enough, for instance.

But anyway! Let's catch up with Leila.

So where were we? 

50 Shad3s: Chapter 15

TLDNR:
Leila shows up at the very end after nothing happens.

So here's a thing I don't get, blogger: how come I type these things in Times but they end up in I don't know, probably Helvetica? [Editor's note: Arial.] That's fine. But I don't get it. I always use the "default font" and then I publish and it's something else. These are the mysteries that plague me! Like an actual plague!

Anyway. This book. I still kinda have this fantasy wherein I'd take these books and pare them each down to about a hundred pages. Wouldn't be hard--just time-consuming. Basically EL left in this whole Aspen chunk that legit never should've made it past her editor's first glance. It's all pointless, and it's just so comically padded. You know the phrase "gilding the lily"? This is like the opposite of that. Greasing the fat. EL is taking this stuff that ought to have been trimmed and just packing it with extra lard.

Seriously, throughout the series, there must be a hundred pages of Ana waking up. Nothing happening. No new information. Just Ana waking up. And she always wakes up in this weird way that, I expect, has little in common with anyone else's morning. Granted, when I'm going to sleep, I do tend to take stock of my whole life, my position in the universe, and all the terrible choices I've made throughout the day. So if she did that, I'd buy it. But something close to 10% of this book is just Ana waking up, describing how the bed feels, thinking about Christian, and kind of being surprised by everything. It's as though she didn't so much go to bed the night before, but instead just passed out somewhere and has to be like, "Ok I'm awake. Now to figure out where I am, and how I got here, and whether or not I'm in immediate danger." Just has nothing at all to do with the mental routine of any other human being ever, I'm rather sure.

And yet, it get such a prominent position in this book. I should do a Harper's index of this thing. Do a final count of just how many chapters end with Ana going to bed and how many start with Ana waking up.

This one starts with Ana waking up.

So where were we? 

50 Shad3s: Chapter 14

I'm a little bit like a shark with this, I think. Got to keep moving. If I don't, I'll probably stop again, and if I stop again, who knows how long it will take me to start again? Or if I'd even be able to start again?

Basically all of my regular readers noticed my last post, even without me telling anyone to, and I am pleased. Just goes to show that my numbers are great in the venn-diagram overlap between "my friends" and "people who use RSS readers." In hollywood, they talk about "quadrants" of popularity. Pretty much just different kinds of white guys. "This blockbuster is huge with all four quadrants! Young white guys, middle-aged white guys, old white guys, and 'other'!" I think that's how they do it anyway. Friends with RSS readers is not a quadrant. Something much smaller than a quadrant. That's ok.

So yeah Chapter 14!

So where were we? 

50 Shad3s: Chapter 13

Ok so here's the thing:

I kinda quit this, obviously. And part of me is sorry, of course, because there were literally several of you reading it. But also I kinda couldn't take any more of this book, and a lot of that is about how this chapter here that I'm going to write about just kinda breaks the informal contract that a book has with its readers. The contract goes something like this: "Ok so I might not be a good book but I am going to kinda like keep talking about the same stuff and totally not go off on any dumb tangents for no reason."

Yeah so this chapter is just a dumb tangent for no reason. Let's talk more about it!

But seriously tho: this all started as a procrastination project, and yeah, I'm procrastinating again. I was doing this to procrastinate from writing fiction and then at a certain point I somehow ended up in a band and started writing songs as an even more involved act of procrastination, and I still do that, but in the meantime I've put certain efforts into writing fiction again, and that has been a rough process, so I say, "Hey let's do this again! Maybe catching up with 50 Shades will be like catching up with an old friend! Or at the very least, like catching up with a weird kid you kinda sorta remember from elementary school, who's now a billionaire but used to eat glue. And maybe still eats glue."

The thing about being in a band is this: if I write a song, my band has to listen to it! And even help me with it! You just cannot buy that type of gratification! It's basically unpossible! Blogging is solitary work that you just kinda shove out into the aether and hope that maybe someone notices other than Russian spam bots but you know that probably it's only going to be the spam bots. And even this is far, far more rewarding than trying to write fiction when you don't have anything established. When you're basically unpublished and you're seeing your peers get book deals and do stuff and things and you're like, "I could do that, maybe, if I could." But I don't know how and I don't know how anyone knows how so then I'm like, "Maybe I'll try to figure out that song about how drivers are jerks, because at least my friends in my band will have to listen!"

Here are the songs I'm working on:

1. This one is about cars and the only lyric I know so far is, "Honk your horn and we'll all go faster." That's a joke because obvs honking your horn doesn't make anyone go faster. IRONY!
2. Here's this one about how the internet is full of garbage monsters: "Don't read the comments! If you read the comments, you'll vomit!" That's a great rhyme and you know it! Hey and if any of you Russian spam bots have bands? Well. If you do, you're probably working in some super obscure sub-genre of EDM, I expect. But if any of you are in any kind of band that has lyrics don't you steal my sweet rhyme! It's a good rhyme, and worthy of being stolen. But don't!

Ok. Let's do this thing. 

WHERE WERE WE:

Shit I dunno. I think Aspen? I think this is like a side-quest or something? 

The Complainist Sings!

So, there are a few reasons my posts have been so sporadic. I used to work less than I do. And I used to not be so burnt out on this book. So here's to a more productive 2016, somehow.

But one other little reason is the time spent working on these ditties. Please. Enjoy.

We're really not that sweary of a band, but when an album [Editor's note: we'd be very generous if we called this an EP. It's certainly not an album.] has "Fuck you!" right in the title, I suppose I don't need to tell you that this isn't safe for work. The other songs are not likely to, I dunno, get you an extra holiday bonus or whatever if you play them at work, but they are decidedly lower in swears.

Anyway. Now you know.

And hey. Merry Christmas or whatever.