The third time's the charm. Trifecta. Bad things come in threes. Triumvirate. The Holy Trinity.
No matter how you approach them, trilogies set grand expectations for readers. The very notion that a plotline and its characters can span multiple volumes (science-fiction fantasy worlds, anyone?) suggests a magnitude of polished story-telling and a general feeling of completion, even accomplishment. Fifty Shades Freed, the final installment in E L James' erotic BDSM trilogy, still feels incomplete and accomplishes little more than frustration.
Before I discuss Freed, I must make a disclaimer: this review contains spoilers, and I hereby make two apologies. First, to my readers, for revealing the plot (as it were), and to the author, for whom I have great respect and consider an inspiration in the self-publishing arena of the digital literary era. Mrs. James has established herself a shrewd businesswoman, pandering to the Twilight-bereft and most women under the age of fifty. She has inspired perhaps the second greatest sexual revolution among women in her time, encouraging women to embrace the idea of power through submission, or as she puts it, "topping from the bottom." Without this trilogy, fledgling writers of any sort, and especially those of erotic fiction, would not view publishing or the industry as a promising endeavor. Watching the increasing popularity of James, Hugh Howey, and other self-published sensations has given those of us who "sleep, perchance to dream" a renewed investment in the self-advocacy process that is often overshadowed by the academic and financial snobbery pervasive among agents and publishing-houses alike.
That being said, Mrs. James owes her readers an apology for the hackneyed and poorly-structured volume that concludes the would-be epic trysts between Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey. Her scope is too large. The final novel seeks a task bigger than the story itself - to finish up loose plot lines supposedly that drive the connection between the three volumes and to give readers a fairytale, happy ending for two characters they have come to care about. I'm no fool - I didn't expect James to crank out a literary achievement akin to the Lord of the Rings; after all, how does one compare a trilogy of handcuffs and silver balls to one with an invented linguistic system and complete fantasy universe that can be mapped? I did expect, however, a tighter, more neatly finished read. It's almost as if Freed is the print version of a 70's experimental rock jam (and not the good kind, like intentionally experimental Joycean verbiage or perhaps a Floydian slip). In short, Freed's prose actually communicates to the reader that Jamesdoesn't know what she's doing - and by the latter third of the novel- is flying by the seat of her pants. The last ten pages themselves induce whiplash on the reader - who snaps her head from one page to the other, asking, "huh?"
Newsflash: it is never a good idea to experiment with narration for the first time in the middle of a trilogy. It is even worse to experiment with it again in the conclusion, and throw in some flash-forward and flashback narrative just for fun. Yes, it is like doing the 'Time Warp' again. Add in the fact that James is doing this in the end of the book, between paragraphs, with no prior established pattern. All of a sudden, there are two Little Blips? There's Teddy? There's the emergency c-section--ahem, ahem, reminiscent of Bella Swan's except it is not fang-assisted. James concludes with a well-written epilogue narrated by Christian, not unlike Stephenie Meyer's too-soon-leaked-and-then-discontinued Midnight Sun.
Fifty Shades of Grey is a phenomenal piece of fiction - and in the purest sense of the word. It is a phenomenon, a trend, a fad, and one that will quickly fade as did the likes of Twilight and Harry Potter, albeit James is dealing with an entirely different kind of fantasy universe. James has inspired a wealth of new writers, many of whom are creating the sort of prose I dub the "pop-fiction formula," or writing what sells. Enter your nearest bookstore and see a display of black-covered novels with monochromatic, suggestive objects on the cover flanked by copies of Fifty.
Bottom line: these novels are good beach reading. Expect to wile away your hours and pass your time with mediocre narrative interspersed with eye-popping erotic passages. The height of James's talent soars in these climactic scenes. As for a polished trilogy that leaves readers with that all-finished, complete and satisfied feeling - look elsewhere. Looking back on my experiences reading these novels, I'm glad I read them. I'm glad they're out there. They break new ground in popularizing erotic fiction, a genre long deemed as one without merit. The novels allow women (and men) to explore and discuss a taboo topic sans fear of judgment because the topic has now gone mainstream, to certain degrees. At the end of the day, I can't say that Fifty was all that bad - in retrospect, I consider my time spent with these novels valuable in one way or another.
Perhaps the intent, after all, was delayed gratification.
