Postby sarobah » Sat Nov 24, 2012 4:11 pm
In defence of Fifty Shades, one might quote this famous passage from Aldous Huxley (Point Counter Point):
“A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author’s soul.”
On the other hand, few people are aware of the next three sentences:
“But the bad author’s soul being, artistically at any rate, of inferior quality, its sincerities will be, if not always intrinsically uninteresting, at any rate uninterestingly expressed, and the labour expended on the expression will be wasted. Nature is monstrously unjust. There is no substitute for talent.”
The impact of Fifty Shades shouldn’t be underestimated. A majority of the women I know – intelligent, educated and sophisticated – have read or are intending to read it. Not surprisingly, their husbands/boyfriends are very supportive :o)
While I appreciate that it has brought BDSM at least partially into the mainstream, it’s a pity that it’s the wrong book to do so.
Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.