Synopses & Reviews
From its beginnings in Twilight fan-fiction to its record-breaking sales as an e-book and paperback, the story of the erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels is both unusual and fascinating. Having sold over seventy million copies worldwide since 2011, E. L. Jamess lurid series about a sexual ingénue and the powerful young entrepreneur who introduces her to BDSM sex has ingrained itself in our collective consciousness. But why have these particular novelspoorly written and formulaic as they arebecome so popular, especially among women over thirty? In this concise, engaging book, Eva Illouz subjects the Fifty Shades cultural phenomenon to the serious scrutiny it has been begging for. After placing the trilogy in the context of best-seller publishing, she delves into its remarkable appeal, seeking to understand the intense reading pleasure it provides and how that resonates with the structure of relationships between men and women today. Fifty Shades, Illouz argues, is a gothic romance adapted to modern times in which sexuality is both a source of division between men and women and a site to orchestrate their reconciliation. As for the novels notorious depictions of bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism, Illouz shows that these are as much a cultural fantasy as a sexual one, serving as a guide to a happier romantic life. The Fifty Shades trilogy merges romantic fantasy with self-help guidetwo of the most popular genres for female readers. Offering a provocative explanation for the success and popularity of the Fifty Shades of Grey novels, Hard-Core Romance is an insightful look at modern relationships and contemporary womens literature.
Review
“Hard-Core Romance is a wonderfully creative piece of cultural analysis. Writing from a feminist-sociological perspective, Eva Illouz tells us how Fifty Shades of Grey became an international bestseller by providing fantasy resolutions to real-life female dilemmas, and self-help for the douleurs of contemporary heterosexuality. A most timely intervention.”
Review
“A provocative text in its own right, Hard-Core Romance inventively employs the much-maligned Fifty Shades of a Grey to stage a philosophical and sociological conversation about relationship between fantasy, romance, sexuality, and popular literature. In a modern era where competing desires for autonomy and attachment in sexual relationships are lived realities but seldom theorized, Illouz bravely takes on the novels controversial sexual practices, finding in them a meditation on the anxieties and compromises that characterize heterosexual intimacy. This generous and original reading offers the tantalizing prospect that it will unveil the uncertainties and indeterminacies that inhere in the heterosexual compact—a promise that Hard-Core Romance masterfully delivers.”
Review
“[C]ompellingly audacious.”
Review
“[T]he first serious, book-length academic analysis of the Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Review
“Illouz rightly tags the trilogy a species of self-help."
Review
“A reasoned, thoughtful examination of gender relations, womens desires, and the role of passion in contemporary society. . . . Vital and interesting.”
Review
“A fantastic feminist reading of Fifty Shades of Grey offering publishing scholars and practitioners a profoundly troubling diagnosis for what truly makes a contemporary bestseller. Highly recommended.”
Synopsis
The Fifty Shades trilogy of erotic romance novels has been a publishing sensation, with over seventy million copies sold worldwide since the first volume appeared in 2011. Clearly, Fifty Shades is a cultural phenomenon worth serious scrutiny, and sociologist Eva Illouz provides it in this short, engaging book. Illouz first places the trilogy in the context of best-seller publishing, then delves into the nature of its appeal. She argues that the Fifty Shades trilogy is neither “mommy porn” nor anti-feminist hackwork. Rather, she shows that it affords intense reading pleasure to many women readers because it resonates with the sociological structure of mens and womens relationships today. Fifty Shades, she argues, is a gothic romance adapted to modern times in which sexuality is a source both of division between men and women and a site to orchestrate their reconciliation. But Illouz also wants to show that BDSM is as much a cultural as a sexual fantasy, for it functions here as a self-help category, a guide to a happier romantic life. In other words, Fifty Shades is genre fiction that weaves together a commentary on the deprived condition of love and sexuality, a romantic fantasy, and self-help instructions on how to improve the readers life.
About the Author
Eva Illouz is professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and president of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. She is the author of seven books, most recently Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Best-Sellers and Our Social Unconscious
2 How to Find Emotional Certainty in a World of Sexual Uncertainty
Epilogue: Sado-Masochism as a Romantic Utopia
Coda: BDSM and Immanence
Works Cited
Index