Art & Culture

What the new Fifty Shades of Grey book reveals about Christian

Priyanka SrivastavaJune 20, 2015 | 13:36 IST

As promised, EL James is back with Grey, released on his birthday, June 18, as announced. With Grey, she truthfully tries to take the readers beyond the red room of pain. In the process of describing Grey’s complex mind and elaborating his fetish for sadism, James has presented Christian as a combination of everything that one would expect in a man next door - a teenage boy gushing over his girl, trapped in the body of a hard-working billionaire, who incidentally owns choppers.

Grey hit the shelves on June 18.

The manuscript of the novel was stolen a few weeks before its release and fans had almost skipped a heartbeat. The most anticipated novel by Vintage Books, a division of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Corporation, saw more than a million copies being sold out on the first day. Not to forget the record Kindle pre-orders, the maximum for this year. To infuse life into a fictitious character, Penguin Random House in New Zealand had a cake cutting planned on June 18 as Grey hit the shelves.

Colleen Hoover’s The Bookworm Box sold as many as 500 tickets for an EL James book signing event in Texas and its proceeds will be donated for charity. The new novel was to calm down all those who despised Christian Grey for causing "all that hurt" to Ana. Don’t blame Erika Mitchell (EL James) for another erotica she wrote because we asked for it. She dedicates it to “to those readers who asked... and asked... and asked... and asked for this.”

Grey, James' fourth book, describes billionaire Christian Grey as diametrically opposite to what we thought him to be. Let’s see what makes the new Grey:

Christian is a stalker

Soon after Ana leaves after interviewing Grey, an intrigued Christian deputes someone to get all the details about her - including her relationship status, her choices, family and more. Most of us thought background checks are a must for those opting for an arranged marriage, we didn’t realise they are important for a sadomasochism (S&M)-loving millionaire too.

Christian has a grasp over literature

When Grey isn’t whipping, he passionately works in his office, makes profit worth billions, something that we didn’t realise while reading the previous books. Presumably, with a decent knowledge of classics — he gifts Tess of the d’Urbervilles to his girlfriend because he feels it is a better choice than Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, which Ana, an English Literature student, was reading.

Christian’s inner god is as real as his inner demons

The novel begins with Christian fighting regular nightmares of his dark childhood. Voices in his brain refer to him as "maggot", the name that his biological mother used for him. He is scared of virgin women who have "never been kissed" and deals with a sense of guilt while discussing the theory of the submissive and the dominant.

Grey can be a brooding dumped boyfriend

Have a heart people, it is not as if Anastasia’s leaving had no effect on Grey. He is not as cold as we thought him to be. It took a while for Grey to get a grip over his life after Ana left him. He goes to a therapist to cleanse his mind, taking some handy tips on winning back Ana, just like any of our other silver screen heroes.

Papa porn is in

This one’s going to be the most graphic narrative by James yet. All set to offer a new chapter in erotica writing, the novel has James giving us a vivid and in-your-face description of sex scenes. Yes, raunchier than what we read in Fifty Shades of Grey. Sticklers for the classics are dreading that there could be more versions of Grey in the pipeline.

Last updated: March 05, 2016 | 18:55
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