“Fifty Shades Of Grey”, By E. L. James

I definitely picked up this book based on the publicity that it was getting in media and social networking sites and the way it was projected as Twilight like series and also the re-emergence of female erotica writers. But after reading “Fifty Shades of Grey”, I am now confused as to what I liked more in this book. Of course, the explicit depiction of physical relationship between Christian Grey and Ana is interesting to read. At the same time it is more interesting to follow the thought process of Ana that has been explicitly depicted in the book. You are looking into the mind of Ana all the time and sometimes wonder whether all women think so much and like this. It also reminded me of the movie Amelie that is featured from viewpoint of young girl.

The author E. L. James has managed to create an interesting topic as well as storyline and made it a legend with generous use of erotica. The story is about young college graduate Anastasia Steele and business magnate Christian Grey who wants Ana as his submissive. Ana is in love with Grey and also in awe of him but she is also fiercely independent girl with her own thoughts and draws her own boundaries.

When Ana is in presence of Grey, she is hardly able to express her thoughts but she is able to do that very well in emails. It is one of the first books where I found email communication added as part of the text and it makes an interesting reading. There is an element of thrill where you keep on wanting to know how their relationship will evolve. I am not sure whether I am going to pick up the sequels or not but I enjoyed reading the first part.

Timeless Characters And Their Names In Books

I was wondering why some characters and their names in the books become so famous and why some of them are completely forgotten even though the book itself may be quite famous. In some cases the title of the book itself makes the name of the character very famous like Harry Potter or Eragon but in other cases it is the strength of the character that makes it famous like Howard Roark in Fountainhead. But there are other books where you will find it very difficult to remember the name of the character. As an example, I do not remember the name of main character in Five Point Someone or Love Story. I guess it has also to do with the narrative style of the story as well. If the story is written in first person the name is used less often making it less memorable.

Is it necessary for the name of the character to reflect the nature? I guess not. I wonder how J. K. Rowling decided on Harry or Hermione or Ron. She has given lot of thought while deciding names of spells but she seemed to have picked up really common names for her main characters. Even the Bella of Twilight is a very common name. On the other hand, some books come up with very uncommon names like Eragon. Something that you have never heard of. If the name is so common, do we still start relating that name with the type of character if that character becomes famous. Will we think of very intelligent and sharp girl if we meet some real life Hermione?

There is another aspect of naming that I have found very amusing. When books are translated from other languages to English, the native names are still taken in and then it becomes difficult to remember those names like it happened with me while reading War and Peace. I guess many non-Indians will find difficult to remember names if they were to read Mahabharata in English.

I guess the naming of characters is a complicated process in the minds of author and mostly they also do not realize how it can turn around depending upon the success of that book.

Teenage Romance, Vampires In Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight”

I picked up this book after reading about it a lot everywhere. It was from a new author I did not know and genre did not interest me much. But the book turned out to be a good read, though I did not become a big fan of the series. Twilight, as everyone knows is the story of romance between teenage girl Bella Swan and Vampire Edward Cullen which starts when Bella joins her father in Folks, Washington to pursue her college studies.

I am not very fond of the concept of blood drinking vampires and that premise did not excite me much. The Cullen family has all the vampires who have learnt to live amongst the humans without harming them and they take care of their needs through hunting. But they still remain Vampires running away from sunlight and still turning vicious at the smell of blood.

What excited me though was the brutal romance between Bella and Edward. I say brutal because I cannot think of any other word to describe it. In the beginning when Bella sits next to Edward in class, he is traumatized by his urge to drink her blood and has to control himself and Bella even after knowing that he is Vampire continues to be with him because she cannot help it at all. It is a self-destructive love brutally attracting them towards each other.

The strong undercurrent and unstated violence in their romance is the beauty of this book. He is powerful and she is fearless. He is hunter and she is food. He can kill her in a minute but it is she who torments him all the time.

I think I would have liked this book even if the violence was suggested without bringing in the vampires but the world has liked it this way. I watched the movie as well and it was impressive though it did not capture the romance of the book.