Fifty Shades of Black and White?

I have been hearing about E.L. James novel Fifty Shades of Grey since it was first released. Some of my female friends have loved it. Some are disgusted by it. There seems to be no middle ground in this debate. It is either the stuff of romantic daydreams or it is creepy misogyny and a lack of feminine common sense.

Me, I like a good erotic read now and again. My idea of incredible sexual tension is primarily as a complimentary addition to good writing--writing with more than just the sex to carry the story. Take, for instance, the scene between Connie and Mellors in Lady Chatterley's Lover, when he watches her watching the newly-hatched chicks and the consequent descriptive action with which Lawrence stokes that fire. (No, I am not going to tell you what happens. If you have read it you know, if you haven't you should!) Some of  Anaïs Nin's work has that elegance of detail as well; read Delta of Venus sometime.

There is a fine line (which is perhaps the difference between erotica and pornography) between that slow build of sexual tension through elegant sensual description and the hard (no pun intended) blunt details of a sexual act. Granted, the description of the sex act in all it's gloriousness/perversity (depending on your perspective) is not easy to portray in words. In literature it has to be developed with the character--we have to like the characters, want them to feel pleasure.

The review that follows (originally posted on Goodreads) was the most compelling review I found. I am still going to (try to) read the book, but I will take it out from a library now instead of buying it.

(BTW, I don't know where she found it, but I love Anzu's first image here of "wanted/expecting/got"! Reminds me of some Online Dating experiences.)

Anzu's Goodread's review of Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James  

bookshelves: dropped, contemporary, lots-of-kisses-and-mushy-stuff,sucks-ass, buddy-or-group-read, fat-kitty-judges-you, dafuq-did-i-just-read,is-it-just-me-goddammit, whiny-bitches, kill-it-with-fire, reviewed-2011, authors-i-want-to-stab, lust-at-first-sight 

I didn’t want to start this book. Many people are praising it, but I’m simply not into erotica, it’s too cheap for me. But here I am in the mind of the innocent waiting to be devoured by the big bad wolf. Sounds pornographic, doesn’t it? That’s because it is…

Christian Grey. A hot dude that melts a woman’s panties off with just one look. The perfect sex toy set out to conquer an innocent girl. Grey (the sick f*ck) is considered one of the hottest characters out there but he doesn’t get to me. His dominance is too much for me to handle and his attitude tends to be annoying and slimy. Plus he’s just wrong in the head so there’s no need to add more about this creep.

Anastasia is an immature insecure desperate idiot who wants to become the whore of Babylon. She just wants to listen to her inner goddess (wtf?!) and have creepy monkey sex with Grey. She has no personality nor will whatsoever, she gets excited over the smallest and most idiotic things you can imagine and even though she sees how wrong Grey (the sick f*ck) is, she still goes for it. She’s always mooning over Grey like he’s some kind of god that she’s supposed to worship. He tells her that he doesn’t want a serious relationship just sex and she’s still ok with it. Why? Just because he’s hot? He’s a damn disgusting pervert. He hurt her the first time they made love, she was a virgin for Christ’s sake (and I don’t buy the crap with it being perfect, surely she had vaginal cracks after that), and is treating her like a slave. Even though he’s a successful businessman and he’s rich and famous he still can be a psychopath. Just watch American Psycho and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Now to pick on one of my biggest problems regarding this book: THE CONTRACT. WTF may I ask? Signing paperwork in order to have sex with him? Is he a natural hazard or what? I get the whole Hey look at me I’m badass, I have my own company and helicopter gig ‘cause the guy is stinking rich but the contract??? Isn’t anyone getting angry with this?



I guess not...

“Why would I do that?”
“To please me” 

Wtf?? All women want to please him? Why? ‘Cause he’s hot? He’s a perverted assh*le that’s what he is. He’s acting like he owns everyone! Aren’t you guys angry?

“I have rules, and I want you to comply with them. They are for your benefit and for my pleasure. If you follow these rules to my satisfaction, I shall reward you. If you don’t, I shall punish you, and you will learn,” 

Learn this! *kicks him in the groin* Creep!

“It’s about gaining your trust and your respect, so you’ll let me exert my will over you.” 

Heh *right eye twitches* exert my will *eye twitches again*
Aren’t you guys angry with this yet??

…

Question for all the people who gave this book great scores. If Grey wasn’t so hot would you still have given it such great ratings? I doubt you would. So this means that the reason why you love the book is mainly Christian Grey being hot and an uber alpha? Shallow much? Or maybe you’re into all the monkey sex and torture. Psycho much?

But who am I to judge.

This book is just a desperate woman’s sick fantasy to be treated like a sex slave. I’m sorry but it doesn’t work for me. I DNF’d this because I find it disgusting and degrading.

[Thanks, Anzu for allowing me to cross-post this here. ]

Watch this now. Really. Right now.

Did You Know 4.0

The Graveyard Book: be afraid of live people...really!

Stumbled on this today as I was preparing my syllabi for Spring semester. And since I am using The Graveyard Book in my Fiction Appreciation class I thought I would post the clip of Neil Gaiman's interview with Stephen Colbert here for my students and all of you to enjoy.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Neil Gaiman
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

And if you haven't read Neil's books . . . what the hell is wrong with you?

10 Ways to Keep Books You Love in Print

There are books you love, books that change your life, books that make you realize that you aren’t alone. But sometimes, those books go out of print and are no longer available. You gnash your teeth and curse the vagaries of publishing. You feel helpless and frustrated, but you know that there’s nothing you can do about it.

Not so! You can do something! Publishing is a capitalist enterprise, driven by sales and profit (as well as a love of books). But even if you’re too broke to buy a paperback book, you can influence book sales and affect a publisher’s profits.

What can you do?

#1 Review the book you love online in a newsgroup, on a webzine, on an e-commerce site, or on a personal web site. This is an easy way to tell a lot of people about a fabulous book. People pay attention to reviews. Hey—authors read reviews. With a good review, you can make an author’s day.

“Of course I read my reviews on Amazon.com. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. When readers write and say they loved my work, I’m ridiculously happy for days.”—Pat Murphy, author of There and Back Again.

#2 When asked what you want for your birthday, or Hanukkah, or Christmas, or any other gift-giving occasion, answer with your favorite author’s current book.

“Ask for books as presents! Not only do you get a present you like, you get bonus karma points because you’ve been a decent human being and haven’t forced your friends to rack their brains and run all over town looking for some gift for you that you probably wouldn’t have liked anyway.” —Michaela Roessner, author of The Stars Compel.

#3 Give books as presents. If someone has a favorite author, buy that author’s latest title. If the gift recipient doesn’t have a favorite author, buy a book by an author you like. If your friend likes the book, you’ve done the author a big favor by creating a new fan.

#4 Ask for books by your favorite author at your local library. If the library doesn’t have a book, request it. Checking a book out of the library helps establish that there’s a demand for that author’s work. Demand leads library systems to buy books.

#5 Tell writers how much their work has affected you. Go to readings—even if you can’t afford to buy the book. Urge your local library bookstore or your school to invite the writer to do a talk, a reading, or a class visit. Sometimes writers just need to know that someone is listening.

“I remember the first time anyone ever made a comment to me about a published story. Since writers aren’t allowed to carry Tip Jars, this kind of validation is quite meaningful.” —Leslie What, author of “The Cost of Doing Business.”

#6 Talk about books and authors at work, among friends, and in other not-necessarily literary environments. If you belong to a writing group, recommend your favorite authors to the group. If you add a book to your reading group, tell your favorite bookstore what you’ve done and buy your books there. The bookstore may put them out front on display.

“I named my dog Rhodry after a character in Katharine Kerr’s Deverry novels. This has led directly to at least a dozen people reading her books, including my sister, who has now read most of them twice. (‘That’s an interesting name, where does it come from?’) My truck is named Tesah, after a starship in Rebecca Meluch’s first novel. I got a couple of people to read her work as a result, but you don’t call your truck as often as you call your dog—at least I don’t.” —Susanna J. Sturgis, editor of The Women Who Walk Through Fire: Women’s Fantasy and Science Fiction.

#7 Point to good books in the bookstore and tell people, even total strangers, “That one is great.” If you see someone looking at a copy of a book you like, encourage them to buy it.

“I like to turn waiting time (especially in airports) into a guerrilla act—I find my favorite authors’ books in the bookstore and turn them boldly facing out. Then I run for my plane before a clerk catches me.” —Ellen Klages, author of “Time Gypsy.”

#8 Carry around a copy of a book you love. Read it on buses, in waiting rooms, and in other public places. Be prepared to wax eloquent about it—spontaneously or only when asked; that’s up to you.

“Ooh ooh, I’ve got a wicked idea! Make book covers out of your favorite titles and put ‘em on whatever book you’re reading!” —Susanna J. Sturgis.

#9 Just because a book is out-of-print doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t get it. Lightning Print Inc. is currently asking for suggestions for books to reprint. You can vote now at their web site: . Then from their “Resources” menu select “Nominate titles for POD and eBook”, then tell them what books you’d like to see reprinted!

#10 Nominate your favorite authors for awards. Any year that you are a member of the World Science Fiction Convention, you can nominate and vote for the Hugo Award. Nominate gender-bending works for the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award and works with gay or lesbian content for the Lambda Literary Award. If you subscribe to Locus Magazine, you can nominate works for the Locus Poll and Survey. And yes, it’s worth taking the time—awards make a difference to an author’s sales and that helps keep books in print.

Above all else, keep reading!

Read more books!

Eat more cookies!

this blog post was re-blogged (read: stolen! but also shared like all good ideas and writing should be!) from the James Tiptree Awards Website at http://www.tiptree.org/

the Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente

My review rating: 5 of 5 stars I picked up this book because of the title which caught my eye. What a great line for a poem, I thought. Then as I read I realized I had to have this book. The language is part Arabian Nights and part pure poetry. In fact most of the chapters are in themselves little prose poems, or perhaps flash fiction pieces. Valente (a poet herself) layers image on image with a richness of sensory detail and a wicked sense or surreal humor all of which contributes to a romp through a multi-layered tale within a tale within a tale of fallen stars, bird people, cities made of paper and detritus, the wedding of a sultan's daughter in the dead of winter, women made of grass and tree bark and cows and serpents all from a girl with stories inked on her eyelids (I said surreal, didn't I?). Part Mirrormask, part Arabian Nights, part Charles Dickens, part Jeanette Winterson, and part James Tate, Valente's prose is as beautiful and intriguing as it gets. View all my reviews.

Mean Streets

I just finished reading Mean Streets. Being a huge fan of Jim Butcher, Kat Richardson, and Simon Green, I was happy to find this collection of stories on the library shelves.

The Butcher story is a Harry Dresden one. A succinct little vignette that lets a bit of light into both Harry and the character of Michael Carpenter, the Knight of the Sword who was injured in the last Dresden novel. The story seems quite straightforward at first, but takes some interesting philosophical turns. I give it 5 stars.

I am a fan of the Green Nightside tales, always have been--much like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, The Nightside invokes a titillating combination of desire and disgust. The John Taylor story here, however, is not as well crafted as those I have come to expect from Green. Recently Green has been developing another series, with a protagonist named Eddie Drood, one that is all wisecracks and special effects. This Taylor story reads more like that one. Not my taste at all. The things I liked about the tales from the Nightside are those inexplicable, unexpected moments--Taylor's Sam Spade / film noir attitude, and his personal relationship with demons, or Merlin living in the basement of a bar, or the Walker character who reminds me so much of John Steed in the Avengers. Unfortunately this ending is not only predicitable, it also left me wanting to say "so what?" I give it 3 stars at best. (C'mon, Simon, you can do better. Remember Drinking Midnight Wine?)

Fortunately Richardson's story, which fits well into her Greywalker series, is a delightful romp through Hispanic culture while presenting a mystery with an unusual surprise twist at the end. Masterfully building suspense Richardson kept me guessing until almost the end, and I will say no more. Greywalker fans should read this for themselves. 5 Stars!

The last author was one was one with whose work I am unfamiliar, Thomas Sniegoski. Writing about another series character Remy Chandler, an angel living on Earth. The story reads like a bit of detective noir crossed with Christian mythos and fantasy. It, too, has an interesting twist at the end. In fact it nicely parallels the Butcher and Richardson stories in many ways. And now I need to find his other books. 4 stars.

So over all a book worth reading. Three out of four ain't bad.

Why We Do It

The other day, after running into two disgruntled students, I was wondering if I am doing anything useful as a teacher. Today I remembered what I love about teaching.

This week in my World Literatures class we are reading Abeng by Michelle Cliff. This is a coming of age story of a creole girl in 1950s Jamaica. It has three (at least) story threads running through it: the childhood and sexual awakening of Clare Savage, the protagonist; the story of Clare's plantation owning ancestors on the eve of independance in the mid-1800s; and the fight for freedom by the "maroons," escaped slaves under the leadership of Nanny, an Ashanti woman who escaped slavery in the 1700s.

The thing that is interesting is that I have a primarily white classroom full of very suburban kids. But I also have one African-American male student and one Muslim female student. I sometimes worry that I shouldn't draw attention to differences--the very P.C. thing to do these days is to ignore the differences we have. Politely pretend they don't exist. But that also allows us to ignore the very real problems that arise out of not seeing people as they are, which allows us to later see them as "other." Today I called on the black man in my class and asked him to give us his take on the slavery and racial issues in the text. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then he said "Oh, I just read the books for what they are. It is just literature." So I didn't push him anymore, but one of the themes I have been pushing the class to look for in the texts are the similarities between ourselves and other cultures. So I called on the women in the class to look at the choices the character, Clare, is facing--whether to embrace her mother's black heritage or her father's white culture, live within the middle class life of the paternal family or embrace the rural poverty of her maternal grandmother's culture, accept the docile domestic roles offered to women or choose masculine roles and with that embrace her nascient lesbianism.

The character of Clare is torn between two worlds. She visits the maternal poor black culture in the summer, but can return to the safety net of the middle-class paternal culture at any time. Her black friend Zoe has nothing before her but poverty and the drugery of a life of "woman's" work. Clare will go to college and leave Jamaica, Zoe has no such chance, limited as she is by the color of her skin.

As we are talking about this, suddenly my black student wants to speak. He makes the comment that many of these same students in this class are in his African-American literature class, too. And there they also discuss the issues of race and social class and the disenfranchised vs. the priviledged. But the thing that strikes him is that all the white students can close the book and go home. Maybe they have felt some empathy, but in the end they are the recipients of white priviledge while he will always be judged by the color of his skin no matter what he does.

I see people around the room looking uncomfortably down at their books. I see some nodding in understanding. And I think that, no matter what else we say about this book, nothing will compare to this one young man's courage to say what we all know but rarely acknowledge--that in some way we are all complicit in racism by not only our deeds, but by our lack of doing.

After class he hangs around for a moment and I thank him for speaking, and he thanks me for making him want to talk. Also hanging around is the Muslim woman. She wants to talk about her up-coming paper, she says, and we discuss the options for that. But as we are walking out together she very quietly asks: do I know what she needs to do to become a teacher? Who should she talk to about her major? She thinks, she says, that she'd like to someday teach a class like this, on literature from the non-western world. She wants to do what we do in this class--find and appreciate the similarities between the many different peoples of the earth through the beautiful things--the literature, the art, the music. Because, she says, she can see now how we are all more alike than we ever are different.

And suddenly I am reminded of why I love teaching.

Perceptions and Realities

You ever run into someone you know doesn't want to see you and you don't really want to see them, but there is no way to avoid it? I had two such (maybe one and a half) run-ins today. First was in a hall of the student center. A girl I had a year ago in a literature class. A kid with problems... shy, had a stutter, couldn't write her way out of a paper bag. Somewhere some high school teacher, or maybe the grad student who taught her composition class must have given her high marks for using "big" words. What she wrote sounded impressive on the surface, but it was a lot of what I call mental masturbation--the "scholarly" voice that tries to sound impressive but really says very little and even that very little would be more impressive if it had been said honestly and straight forward. The kind of voice that calls a housekeeper a "domestic sanitation engineer" or a mail carrier a "publication communique delivery specialist."

Of course my line to students is..."I know there is a horse in there somewhere because I see a whole pile of manure... don't make me get out a shovel to dig for the pony."

So in this class I get this student. Not at all socially "ept," in fact as inept as they come. And she thinks she can write. And I tell her to cut the bullshit out and do the paper over. I remember telling her I thought she had a good idea, I remember praising her effort. I suspect what she remembers is not that I met with her a half dozen times and worked with her to get that paper reasonable enough to earn her a B- in the class. What she remembers is the first F, and the criticism of her language. She thought she was doing so well with words on paper and saying there what she couldn't articulate in voice. And I stuck a big fat pin in that balloon.

And today I see her coming straight at me down the hall at the student center.

I smile, she doesn't. I stop, she wants to keep walking, but I am in her way. I say "Hi" and "how have you been?" She is inarticulate. I see her struggling to say something. I see her scowl and I suddenly know she wants to call me terrible names and tell me what I did to her self image. But she says "fine" from between clenched teeth, and moves around me, moves on. And suddenly I remembered for a moment an English teacher I had in freshman year in college in the seventies.

In a debate in the class (was it a real cockroach or just a metaphorical bug in Kafka's "Metamorphosis"?) he embarrassed me in front of everyone. I said it was a metaphor for something else. He said no. Told me I was wrong and didn't know anything. So I argued with him. He told the class not to listen to me. Or at least that is how I remember it. And suddenly I am wondering... Was he really the mean, obnoxious asshole my memory has painted him all these years. Today he would be in his 70s. Probably retired from teaching. I could probably look him up somewhere on the internet. I could ask him what he really thinks of Kafka. I could lay that ghost to rest--if I could remember his name.

I was so upset back then by what he said to me that I didn't go back to that class for two weeks. Nearly failed because of that little "attendance problem." I suspect even if I found him, told him that after all these years I forgive him for damaging my critical view of myself as a "scholar"--lo, those many years ago--he would not really care, would not really know who I was. I am sure he forgot all about me a semester after I was gone out of his class. If he did remember me at all I am sure I was "that kid with all the unexplained absences."

How funny and how fragile we humans are. What little it takes to hurt. What little it would take to avoid the hurt. Should I not have critiqued this girl's paper? No. That was my job as a teacher. But perhaps I could have been gentler in my delivery of the bad news. Should she not have taken such offense? Probably she couldn't help but take offense. She reacted just as she had to as the product of her own preset self perceptions, reacted just as I did those many, many years ago. And if she looks me up in ten or twenty or thirty-eight years and one semester later, I hope I remember her. I hope I say something nice.

The other, much smaller, encounter wasn't much of an encounter by comparison. It was mere minutes after the first one. It was another girl who had been in one of my classes two years ago. A girl who I failed because she stopped coming to class. I didn't say anything to this girl. I saw her coming, she saw me coming. I prepared to say "hi." She turned abruptly and went out the side door. Avoided me entirely? Or just needed to go that direction? I don't know. But I had to think about it. And here is the thing that made me think: for the life of me I could not remember her name. I just knew her as that kid with all the unexplained absences. Now I am wondering why.

Sometimes perception is everything.

And they're off!

So the semester has begun. I have three classes to teach: 2 Chinese history and culture, and 1 non-western literature. I am also taking a doctoral level class in post-colonial literature at another university. Shoot me now. The good news is I should get in better shape this semester--I have to walk across campus for my classes! And, oh yes, I am still putting in 20 hours a week in administrative work for the MFA program. And trying to finish a thesis, a manuscripts of poems. And, silly me, I'd like a life outside of work, too!

Should be Grading papers. . .

It is Sunday. It is evening. I have 2 manuscripts to proofread, I'm behind on articles I need to read for my MFA classes; I have 2 classes worth of China Civ. quizzes to grade and have barely scratched the surface of the 45 freshman English essays that should've been graded last week.

So am I hard at work? No. I have an irrepressible urge to play computer games. The saddest thing is that I'd even rather clean house at this moment than read those quizzes and essays.

For all you procrastinators like me out there, here's a list odf my favorite timewasters:

If you like word games, try Bookworm, Text Twist, or What Word.

Good at spacial relationships or patterns? Try Collapse, Alchemy, or Cubis Also fond of bling-bling? Try Bejeweled /Diamond Mine, or Jewel Quest.

For a my all time favorite time-waster try Settlers of Catan--you get to build monopolies, trade goods, attack you neighbors and take over the world. Do you suppose this is how George Bush started?

Okay you readers out there!

Here is is almost July and I don't have my textbook list for Fall up. (Bad prof, no biscuit!) I am teaching a World Literature--really Non-Western Lit--class this fall and so I am soliciting ideas for the reading list. Got any?

So far I am planning on using Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, The Pillow Book of Lady Murasaki, Dream of the Red Chamber, First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung, Family by Pa Chin. Need something by Jose Borges, and something from the Middle East or maybe we should just watch "Kandahar"....

So ideas anyone?