Hey, Everybody! Ray’s Back! Get… Excited?: Fifty Shades Darker Chapter 12

One of my friends was working in my room while I was writing this post, laughing at my disgusted and annoyed reactions while reading Fifty Shades Darker, because they don’t understand the horror.

Chapter Twelve

Christian explains that he told Elena to stay away from Ana, and then E L James gives up on characterization.

“I said that you didn’t want to see her, and that I understood your reasons why. I also told her that I didn’t appreciate her going behind my back.” […]
Oh, good. “What did she say?”
“She brushed it off in a way that only Elena can.”

It’s pretty easy to explain why this is shitty writing. So let’s pretend Harry Potter was written like this.

“Snape gave me detention!” Harry complained.
“What happened?” Hermione asked.
“Something that happened in a way that could only happen to me and Snape.”

See, that was easy. Let’s move on.

Pretend if instead of the whole backstory with Snape’s love for Harry’s mother, we were just told “oh, he hates Harry in a way that only Snape can. TOO BAD WE’LL NEVER FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS.”

Anyway, it turns out that Elena is being blackmailed! But then Ana leaves the room because she’s uncomfortable and they immediately stop talking about the blackmail and start talking about Ana instead, so I guess the blackmail thing isn’t really that important. Ana eavesdrops on their conversation about her and it’s mostly just the same conversation we’ve been reading all throughout the book. Which, in a way, is fine. It’s perfectly acceptable to depict a character who just won’t let something go. It would just be nice if every single character in the book wasn’t two-dimensional like this. Like:

  • Jack – only defining character trait is that he wants to bone Ana
  • Taylor – only defining character trait is that he insists that Christian’s a good guy, really
  • Jose – only defining character trait is that he wants to bone Ana. And takes photos. And is Hispanic, which is apparently still a character trait in 2012, dios mio
  • Ray – only defining character trait is that he likes sports
  • that Paul guy who worked at the hardware store Christian used to work at – only defining character trait is that he wants to bone Ana
  • Kate – only defining character trait is that she’s not in this book

Then Ana and Christian have an uncomfortable conversation about Christian’s past with Elena and the way he felt and now feels about her. There’s nothing really funny about it; it’s pretty rough to have to talk about a past relationship with the other person in a current one, and I certainly don’t envy them.

But now Ana’s gonna call her dad, Ray, so now we’re gonna have some fun!

It’s a brief conversation as per usual, but I ascertain he’s fine and that I’m interrupting an important soccer match.

Haha, oh Ray and how your only defining character trait is that you like sports!

“Hope all is well with Christian,” he says casually, and I know he’s fishing for information but doesn’t really want to know.
“Yeah. We’re cool.” Sort of, and I’m moving in with him. Though we haven’t discussed a timetable.
“Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, Annie.”

Wait… that’s the whole conversation? God, even E L James is bored of Ray.

You have a problem. I have a solution.

Ana goes to the library and falls asleep reading, then Christian carries her to bed, then she wakes up and finds that Christian isn’t in bed, so she goes off to find him, and then, well, this sex scene happens…

We couldn’t put it off forever.

Christian throws Ana on top of the piano and goes down on her and then they have sex there too. Thankfully, James skips the actual sex and only gives us the foreplay and the pillow talk, although this is a lot like saying thankfully the tornado skipped over your town and only your house burned down.

I’m not saying that reading shitty erotica is worse than having your home destroyed by a tornado, but I am saying that I used to live in Kansas and this is what I came up with first.

Once again, cunnilingus!

He kisses me . . . there . . . Oh boy . . .

Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. Let’s move on and talk about Christian’s nightmares from his tortured childhood. FUNNN.

“Do you wake up crying and screaming?” I try in vain to joke.
He looks at me, puzzled. “No, Anastasia. I’ve never cried. […]”

Christian Grey: HAS NEVER CRIED.

“There are definite advantages to waking up beside you.” His voice is soft and bone-meltingly seductive.

I’m having a hard time thinking of things less seductive than human bones melting.

The joke is “boned”. That’s the joke.

Anyway, Ana goes to work and emails Christian and calls Christian and talks to a co-worker about Christian guys I don’t think this novel would pass the Bechdel test. Anyway, Ana goes out to get lunch for Jack (because somehow this is part of her job) and meets up with Sawyer because Christian still fears for her safety on account of his homicidal/suicidal ex-sub at large.

Is Leila out there? Or are we all infected by Christian’s paranoia? Is this part of his fifty shades?

Hey, this would actually be a considerably more interesting novel. No, seriously, this could actually be worth reading if the conflict was actually genuine uncertainty about Christian’s grip on reality as opposed to his grip on a riding crop.

They meet up with Ethan (Kate’s brother, because I know you don’t remember either), and plan to get dinner, but they stop at Christian’s apartment and LEILA IS THERE WITH A GUN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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0 comments

  1. judy Reply

    Thankfully there are writers like Alison Bechdel but more people will always read/buy the E.L. James’.

  2. An4 Reply

    hi, I’ve just found your blog and I LOVE it! I’ve read 50 shades of grey and now I’m reading the second book. last night, I ended up reading your blog more than the book 🙂 as a former student of the English language (not my mother tongue) and literature and Comp Lit, I understand what an insult to (a literary) mind this book is, however, the plot is too compelling to let go. also, you have to give credit to E. L. James for successfully intertwining, in words of Russian formalists, form and content: it’s a book about pain and pleasure, which is so badly written that it’s painful to read it and yet its plot gives us some pleasure 🙂

  3. Bellomy Reply

    What I REALLY want to know is how you can “fish for information” and “not really want to know” at the same time.

    Oh Ray, what hidden depths do you truly hide under that gruff exterior?

  4. Irish Skye Reply

    “He kisses me . . . there . . . Oh boy . . .”
    With every one of these sex scenes you post, I am more and more convinced ELJ has never ever had sex. “Oh boy”? THAT is the best you can come up with? I swear, there is no bigger mood-killer in erotica than a “heroine” whose reactions to sex acts include the wordS< “gosh,” “oh my,” holy cow,” or “gee.” Like this one I read where the girl said, “Gosh, you fuck well!” Really? People who drop the F-bomb are going to be considered with using the word “God”?

    “Do you wake up crying and screaming?” I try in vain to joke.
    

    Jesus motherfucking CHRIST this woman is a tool. ANd I don’t just mean Ana, here, I mean ELJ. Who the FUCK actually JOKES about someone’s abusive childhood???? Sorry for all the “shouty capitals,” but this shit unhinged me right here. I have had an abusive childhood, and if my bf asked me if I wake up crying and screaming and did it in a way that sounded like he was trying to make a JOKE about it, I’d storm out of the room, telling him to pack his shit and get out of my bed and my house right then and there. Well no shit you are trying “in vain” because there is no way you can make a fucking joke out of that! Does ELJ own a fucking dictionary, because she really, REALLY needs to reacquaint herself with the English language and stop trying to just put down whatever she sees other people put down in other books.

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