Pre-reading and failing to read Fifty Shades of Grey

Abstract

This is a brief personal response to Fifty Shades of Grey which focuses on a male writer’s inability to finish the book and to comprehend the fantasies it embodies, despite his being a sympathetic ‘pre-reader’ eager to defend the book against its numerous critics. His failure to make sense of the book’s appeal is discussed in relation both to the writer’s masculinity and to a more general cultural snobbery towards ‘women’s texts’. The piece concludes with a tentative suggestion that the book’s decisive fantasy may involve submission to the dominant ‘overclass’ of triumphant contemporary neo-liberalism.