A Brieft Interlude -Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
So I was just looking at Goodreads and checked out what the most popular currently-reading books are....and I noticed Fifty Shades of Grey up there so I decided to read the reviews as it's been big talk in the office right now (no one has read it yet) and people seem to be of two minds.
Originally someone was going to read it because it was suppose to be a romance. And then another co-worker said: "I 'm going to read it. But I'll call a spade a spade; I'm going to read porn." To which there were horrified looks and backtracking, "Maybe I won't read it."
Anyhow, I snorted and said, "you aren't even going to call it erotica?" And they said no...it was porn, they understood what they were getting into. And there was some more talk and I quoted Neil Gaiman who once said something like, "One person's porn is a another's erotica" and then someone else said they weren't going to read it because in the summary it sounded like bondage...
Anyhow, I DIGRESS. So on Goodread reviews, all the reviews I read were one star and I saw something interesting. 50 Shades was not originally published as literature, the story was originally a TWILIGHT FANFIC and the published work is just a clever name-switch and an erasing of Britishisms.
I bet you Stephanie Meyer who green lighted fanfiction but sans the adult content is crying right now.
I'm just not sure how this is allowed to happen in the publishing industry. I cry for the future of literature where fanfiction is pawned off as literary work...
Which is not to say that I think that fanfiction in not literary or good. I just think publishing it going to far.
But here is an interesting article on librarians and how they order books.
Valley librarians dumbfounded by popularity of 'Fifty Shades'
~Nox