Fifty Shades of WTF at AWRF 2013

Angela from Readers Services was interested in the Fifty Shades phenomenon and went to see what she could find out at "Fifty Shades of WTF".   Here's her story:

I went to hear New Zealand author Nicky Pellegrino talk with former editor of the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly Sarah Stuart, Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka and New Zealand author Eleanor Catton about the publishing phenomenon known as 50 Shades of Grey.

The BDSM-themed 50 Shades of Grey trilogy by author E. L. James has sold more than 70 million copies worldwide since it was first  published in 2011. Interestingly, it started out as fan-fiction of the Twilight novels by Stephenie Meyer, and E. L. James changed the names of the characters and reworked the story before it was published.

I had read and enjoyed the Twilight series for what it was, but having read the first 50 Shades of Grey book I was annoyed by the obvious similarities, not in plot but in the characters. Thus I was really interested to hear what the panel had to say and I was not disappointed, as I found the discussion informative, thought-provoking and quite amusing at times.

Shehan Karunatilaka had only read the book for the panel and showed us his brown paper-covered copy, which he had been too embarrassed to read openly in public. He decided to look at the book as porn and a fantasy, and from that perspective, he didn’t think it was that bad. Yes, the character of Christian Grey is incredibly unrealistic – ‘a 27-year old gorgeous billionaire, who flies helicopters and plays the piano at midnight’ and the protagonist is a blank slate whom the reader can project themselves onto, but he thought it was perfectly targeted at its audience, just like Twilight was perfectly targeted towards its audience, teenage girls.


Eleanor Catton

Eleanor Catton enjoyed the book much more than the Twilight series, she thought the relationship between the two main characters was a healthier and more adult relationship than that of Edward and Bella in Twilight, which she believed was very damaging.

Nicky Pellegrino, on the other hand, had enjoyed Twilight and the relationship in those books and felt the relationship between Christian and Anastasia in 50 Shades of Grey was disturbing and unbalanced.

Sarah Stuart saw the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon as positive in allowing women to indulge their sexual fantasies. She thought it was great that women were talking to each other about erotica and that it had become acceptable for women to read it and talk about it. It was also brought up that many women over the age of 50, and even of retirement age, were reading it, to the surprise of some.

Overall, the panel surprised me. Except for the moderator Nicky Pellegrino, the other three panelists had generally positive things to say about the book, to the consternation of some in the audience going by the questions afterwards. Some questions referenced the relationship between the two main characters, which mirrored all the warning signs of an abusive relationship as suggested by Women’s Refuge. Another audience member was concerned about the implications for feminism, but Eleanor Catton said that as an author, there’s nothing you can do about how your work is perceived by others, you put it out there and from then on people make their own interpretations of it.

I felt that the panel looked at the book and defended it mainly from an author’s perspective, which is fair enough, as they are authors. It was a very entertaining hour and I was glad to have been there for this fantastic discussion on the publishing phenomenon of 2012.

-- Angela Kitt

Opening night at AWRF 2013: Great show!

New Zealand Listener Gala Night is the official name of the event which launched a thousand AWRF sessions -- well, maybe not a thousand exactly but lots, plenty for everyone, I'd say, even with two superstar events, the lunch with Sir Max Hastings and the concert by Leonard Cohen biographer, journalist and rock chick Sylvie Simmons plus New Zealand's own Don McGlashan, sold out. At the Opening Night party a number of tales were being told of the machinations and subterfuges being used by frustrated Cohen-Simmons-McGlashan fans attempting to procure a place at the latter. I'm not sure if Max Hastings fans were doing the same; they might be thinking of just walking on in, as Sir Max famously walked on in to Argentine-occupied Port Stanley ahead of the British troops during the Falklands war.

The Book Council's True Stories Told Live format was reprised for this AWRF 2013 Gala Night, an infinitely superior choice to those serial 10 minute readings which were always so unsatisfying. The storytelling is... I was about to start hunting for a suitably enthusiastic word when I remembered that tonight they had actually all been used by Carol Hirschfeld. Wild, wooly, serious, frivolous, entertaining, provoking ... and that was just during her introduction -- her wrap up had again as many. The adjective which at least for me was the most significant of all, she practically threw away. "Eight writers are here to share a personal story -- " pause, reload -- "personal and true, inspired by the theme An Open Book."

And they were all true, you could tell, while at the same time being such stories, which has to be different than being true, although not exclusively so, of course.

Scottish poet Jackie Kay's story was about meeting her Nigerian, bible-toting (in a plastic bag!) biological father for the first time and realising that the only thing they had in common was their toes.

Peter Bland told of living for years with a father who existed only in a photo, taken in Africa, showing a strapping young man with his foot on an elephant, presumably dead, and then one day coming home to find "an old, fat, bald man sitting there -- my Dad".

Shehan Karunatilaka was an unknown to me, a Sri Lankan novelist who landed in Whanganui with his family as a boy. It wasn't easy being a Sri Lankan in Whanganui twenty years ago. His story took place in 1990, when he was 15, depressed and despondent, spending his time alternately crying and masturbating. Send me a sign, he asked God, who dropped a copy of Mayfair magazine in his path in reply. In the magazine, as well as the girlie photo stuff there was an article about the Police, his favourite rock group, which sent him off to Whanganui Library for a biography of Sting mentioned in the article. And what followed that was Lolita, The Sheltering Sky and the rest is history, as they say. "The book that changes your life doesn't have to be Moby Dick", he said. "It can be an old Mayfair magazine, stuck-together pages and all."

 Demonstrating a flair for the obsessive, Carlos Ruiz Zafón had hunted down a bookstore called "Acres of Books" in his adopted city of Los Angeles, because it had been recommended by Ray Bradbury. It contained a place called The Fiction Annex where you needed a flashlight just to find your way. Was it the Cemetery of Forgotten Books? Who knows...

And that fantastic Fast talking PI poet, Selina Tusitala Marsh, was as always sharp, funny and loving: "I didn't grow up in a house with books", she began. "The Bible, the phone book... but the first open book in my parent's house was my PhD thesis -- being used as a doorstop".

Everyone will have had their favourite line, of course, and mine was Stephanie Johnson's almost Raymond Chandleresque opener (her hair style very Lauren Bacall to boot), "You reach an age when you are to yourself an open book".

An auspicious start to a long weekend full of good stories about books. Festival Director Anne O'Brien calculates that there are 150 "writers and thinkers" appearing, and not all at a cost. The Festival has way more free events than ever before, including readings sessions every afternoon. The full programme is here. Auckland Libraries staff will be out in force at the Festival of course, and giving you the lowdown here on Books in the City.

However you decide to do it, if you're a reader you owe it to yourself to sample the wares. As Anne O'Brien promised the faithful tonight, "Seduction is waiting for you around every corner". Or was that what Sylvie Simmons said when she was talking about her days as a rock journalist in the '70s, adding, "Not going to happen, you knew where it'd been".