When it comes to erotic writing, the more explicit it gets – the more heaving, the more panting – the more I want to laugh. Erotic writing is said to have a noble pedigree: the goings-on in Ovid, the whipping in Sade, the bare-arsed wrestling in Lawrence, the garter-snapping in Anaïs Nin, the wife-swapping in Updike, the arcs of semen hither and yon. But it’s so much sexier when people don’t have sex on the page.
So says Andrew O'Hagan in exposing the inferior quality of erotica in E.L. James' blockbuster, Fifty Shades of Grey.
So how does such shitty stuff sell so much? For one, shit does sell, as evidenced by the huge success of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. Secondly, shit sells because a majority of shit-buyers do not have the discerning and experienced reader's ability to call a shit a shit.
No comments :
Post a Comment