Nate Briggs's Blog, page 2

Sunday Literary Life: April 9

Sunday Literary Life – April 9

The disclaimer at the beginning of Alfie states that any resemblance to known reality is coincidental – but that is not quite true. The characters do not duplicate anyone in the known world, but Jonah's church is my church. Or, more accurately, it stands in for all the churches I knew growing up. It does not represent ALL Bible churches, since any kind of broader generalization is dangerous. But I know what I know about the congregations I was forced to attend and the theological views described in Alfie are a true and faithful report of those places.

They were all “Full Bible”. All independent. Many with unpaid clergy. All tiny (sometimes my father found himself preaching to less than 10 people). And all tribal in the sense that everyone was assumed to be in agreement. But often, while everyone agreed what the Scriptures SAID – there was occasionally disagreement on what the Scriptures MEANT.

Once the “burning rubber of error” grew too strong (Garrison Keillor’s phrase) there could be Schism – and the subdividing of Bible congregations is so common I felt compelled to offer a short description, along with the implications for a teenage boy expected to marry “within the tribe”:

“By the time he turned seventeen — a high school senior, accomplished self-gratifier, and secret agnostic — Jonah was still being dragged to services five times a week, and was feeling well and truly trapped at the same time the Church of the Last Word faced the most deeply-felt crisis in its short history. It was, itself, a schismatic church. A splinter group which had broken off from the Uptown Church of Christ back in the 1960s.

“Now — after years of Scriptural sniping, a running battle in which Bible verses were lobbed back and forth like grenades — four families split off from the Last Word to form the Church of the Last Word (Reformed and Non-Instrumental) — clumsily renovating an old convenience store: where they met to pray and frailly sing while sitting on folding chairs.

“The thunderheads of disagreement had been building for some time. But, when the split came, it was all over in a couple of weeks…There was no turning aside. The “splitters” split, and left only about 120 people to carry on the Gospel work in Jonah’s building: people not only being asked to attend frequent services, but also to work as volunteers: cleaning and maintaining the place without pay.

“The Splitters Splitting hit Jonah particularly hard, because it was assumed — from the time he was a child — that, like most children of strictly religious orders, he would choose a wife from his own tribe. He couldn’t look forward to any kind of happiness in the Afterlife if he didn’t. His “brothers and sisters in Christ” were certain that — after the savage battle of Armageddon — members in good standing in the Church of the Last Word would be the only ones welcomed into the arms of Jesus, since only their understanding of the Bible was totally complete and correct. Everyone else on the entire planet, all of whom were “misbelievers”, would be cast into the lake of fire — and that would be that.
“Heaven would be very cozy: populated by only about a hundred people, and — if Jonah wanted to be numbered among the Saved — he would have to choose a wife from the young women who were left after the reckless Splitters of the Last Word (Reformed and Non-Instrumental) had broken away.

“Earlier in his teen years, Jonah had assumed that he might have six, or seven, options if he was somehow forced to marry within his church. Now, on the verge of graduating from high school, his options had been reduced to just two…the Phlipp sisters were Bible aristocracy. You could tell by the obscurity of their Bible-derived names: Huldah (from the Second Book of Kings), Makeda (from the Second Book of Chronicles), and Apphia (from the book of Philemon).

“Although Biblically satisfying, the names were not very practical for day to day use, so — by accident or by practice — they had been distilled down to Huldie, Mackie, and Alfie. All were young women of impeccable righteousness: although it was generally agreed that it was Alfie who had the edge in looks, and personality.
“Unlike her sisters, who were very heavy across the waist, she could be said to have an actual figure. No matter how Biblically she dressed, it was also hard for her to hide the fact that she probably had very photogenic breasts.

“But now she was married, leaving Jonah to be mated with one of the others if he couldn’t manage to get out of town.”

Sunday Literary Life: April 2

This month’s featured short novel is “Alfie” – subtitled “A Born Again Romance” because much of it discusses the tribal norms of Bible people inside a Bible church: referred to as “born again” because they are not considered to be "saved" until after full immersion baptism as children or young adults.

The easy inspiration for "Alfie" was the story of Rachel and Jacob in Genesis 29. A story which is the natural response of any Bible kid to the objection that the Old Testament is just bunches of people murdering each other.

These are verses of affection and fascination, and – in case you don’t have the Scriptures at hand – some of it goes like this (King James version of course...the only Bible I heard while I was growing up):

“And it came to pass, when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister's son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and kissed him, and brought him to his house...And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be?

"And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel; and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter. And Laban said, It is better that I give her to thee, than that I should give her to another man: abide with me.

"And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.

"And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast. And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her.

"And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me?
And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfill her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.

"And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.”

As we well know, the essence of Romance is obstacles: either before, during, or after. If absolutely nothing gets in the way of Unity and Reconciliation it is difficult to make any kind of argument for Romance. In this case, Jacob – an epic trickster himself – meets his match in his sly Uncle Laban: the victim of the first “bait and switch” in Bible history. Along with the first recorded example of a man crying before sex, instead of after.

Jacob was upset, getting stuck with the "tender-eyed" one. But it should be noted that he stayed on the job another seven years after getting Rachel – so he couldn’t have been too upset.

My Sunday School teachers offered little insight into what the phrase “tender eyed” might mean: some of them insisting it was the same as saying that Leah had a good personality. She was certainly a solid choice for a man promised descendants without number. She reeled off ten healthy sons in a row, and what is often lost the glow of Jacob'n’Rachel is news that the Almighty didn't like Rachel that much. He favored Leah: stepping in to balance the books in favor of the ill-favored.

Likewise, “Alfie” is a narrative about a love long delayed and blessings (whatever their source) being offered in a form which is very hard to recognize, at first. I picked an ill-starred Old Testament name for the hero of my story – Jonah – since almost nothing is expected of him, at first, bearing such a burden of innocence and misinformation.

Like Leah, he understands that the Romantic deck is stacked against him. Like Jacob, he sees no other option than the woman he is meant to have – and, of course, technically speaking this is a “comedy” since its final resolution – after years and years of discouragement and misdirection – is a marriage.

More literary notes on "Alfie" this month. I hope you stay tuned.

Sunday Literary Life: March 26

Sunday Literary LIfe - March 26

Pressed to name the date when representative government in America began to run off the rails I think you can make a splendid case for November 22, 1963 – a date that those old enough to recall it all acknowledge: most of us with very personal memories of the day. Where we were. What we were doing. How we heard.

I was happy to get an early weekend as a very somber Mr Trout, struggling with his emotions, sent our class home. Then I was plunged into unhappiness: my mother more or less falling apart. Had she been aware of one-tenth of JFK’s misbehavior in the White House she probably would have killed him herself. But all that startling knowledge lay in the future. In ’63, Mom admired JFK without reservation (despite his strange religion) and his sudden death made America seem foreign to her.

Shot and killed in broad daylight? That was the kind of thing that happened in other places. People with darker skins. People who didn’t speak English.

An awful day. An awful weekend. And being off school on Monday didn't compensate.

Then, over time, the official story came out (26 volumes), and the long grind of Doubt began. After more than 50 years, I am confident that every possible alternative theory has been explored – and yet the sterling credibility of the Warren Commission conclusions still endures in the mind of most people.

Because falling out with the Warren Commission requires a couple of adjustments in thinking which make most of us uncomfortable.

1) That “regime change” occurred within the United States – one president out, a new president in – in the same way that we had cynically arranged changes of administration in other places (“darker skins”, “don’t speak English”). That someone in secret had concluded that Kennedy was not “sound” – and that, for the benefit of themselves and others like them, they needed Lyndon Johnson instead.

2) That someone in government can keep a secret…forever. Half a century has passed. No one has come forward. No one has said a word. “Government by leak” has become so routine that this is inconceivable: particularly since the first Kennedy assassin to make a book deal would become wealthy overnight.

Uncomfortable thoughts. But not impossible if you can feel comfortable with the conclusion that a lot of people wanted JFK dead – a lot more people didn’t mind that he was dead – and the kind of people who might reveal a conspiracy were too frightened to say anything.

The graphic shows three items: the fundamental argument in all of them that the Warren Commission simply manipulated evidence to support a foregone conclusion: lone gunman, secondhand rifle, sixth floor, three shots from behind, and a remarkably relaxed assassin (Oswald didn’t even bother to leave the Book Depository immediately after the president was shot – he went to the breakroom for a soda).

And as far as the explanation for this unspeakable deed? Nothing convincing has ever been offered.

And every question about the Commission report brings us to a strange circularity: we know what we know because we know it - because it could not have happened any other way. Because "we say so".

The meat in my JFK graphical sandwich is Oliver Stone’s 1991 film “JFK”. A bloated and unhappy project for most of its length. But in its last third – Jim Garrison’s summation to the jury in the trial of Clay Shaw (later revealed to be an operative of the CIA) – the movie begins to soar as Garrison starts with the known evidence and moves FORWARD: using ballistics, witness reports, the all-important Zapruder film, and common sense about how an assassination team would operate to compose a thoroughly believable alternate story.

But uncomfortable: since it requires us to fact the prospect of taxpayer-supported “regime change”. A coup d’etat, in our own country, cleverly conceived, ruthlessly executed, and thoroughly covered up.

One president out. A more hawkish president in.

And the level of discomfort increases: because it means coping with the idea that not quite three years after Eisenhower delivered his memorable address about the growing power of the “military-industrial complex” that same complex got rid of a chief executive they didn’t like. They killed him. And they got away with it.

And, if that's true, representative government – government “by the people” – began to disappear in Dallas in ’63, and I think a significant number of Americans might argue that it's been slowly disappearing ever since.

Sunday Literary Life: March 19

The great literary river of Amazon keeps on delivering incredible bargains: especially if you happening to read 19th Century authors. All the full-length novels of Charles Dickens, for example, in a single collection for $1. And this bargain at $2.51: three full-length translations of the “One Thousand and One Nights” by eminent Victorian Arabists – among them one of the most amazing men of his time, the African explorer and linguist Sir Richard
Francis Burton.

Just a short recital of Burton's astonishing life would fill the rest of the space I have available, so I would encourage those who are curious to visit the comprehensive Wikipedia article that explains everything you need to know (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard...).

Following my research into Burton's life, I’ve had the opportunity to read his rendition of these stories several times, and here are som remarks, in no particular order:

- To the surprise of those familiar only with the Disney versions, these stories offer a lot of sex. In an era when well-bred people did not admit that such intimacy even existed, Burton was very willing to include erotic elements that the other two translators ignored. For those unfamiliar with the premise, a powerful ruler and his brother are both betrayed by their wives. Persuaded that all women are perverse and deceitful, the Ruler decides to marry a different virgin every day, sleep with her that night, and then execute her the next morning – so none will have the opportunity to be unfaithful. The Grand Vizier's beautiful and fearless daughter, Scheherazade, realizes that the kingdom will soon run out of virgins if this keeps up so she volunteers to be married, and begins her plan to tell a new story each night - but not completing it of course.

Just for fun, here is Burton’s rendition of the scene where the Shah is betrayed by his wife (NSFW, as you will see):
“….out of it came twenty slave girls surrounding his brother’s wife who was wondrous fair, a model of beauty and comeliness and symmetry and perfect loveliness and who paced with the grace of a gazelle which panteth for the cooling stream...they advanced a little way into the garden till they came to a jetting fountain...then they stripped off their clothes and behold, ten of them were women, concubines of the King, and the other ten were white slaves. Then they all paired off, each with each: but the Queen, who was left alone, presently cried out in a loud voice, “Here to me, O my lord Saeed!” and then sprang with a drop leap from one of the trees a big slobbering blackamoor with rolling eyes which showed the whites, a truly hideous sight. He walked boldly up to her and threw his arms round her neck while she embraced him as warmly; then he bussed her and winding his legs round hers, as a button loop clasps a button, he threw her and enjoyed her….”

- This sexual element might not appeal to everyone, but another charming element of these stories is how one story is nested inside another, nested inside another, nested inside another. A natural strategy to adopt if your intent is to spin out a tantalizing tale over several nights.

- The name of the Prophet is never far from anyone’s lips, yet the stories are full of magic and spirits: evidence of supernatural beliefs before the arrival of Islam. Spirits, spells, witches. The threat and promise of the supernatural are everywhere. A spirit can occupy almost any inanimate object – including jinns trapped inside bottles – and these beings have astonishing powers. Very few of them are inclined to be generous. Most of them are grumpy and bad tempered – although they do try to be fair when dealing with mortals.

- From time to time, characters break out into poetic expression, the way characters in musical theatre burst out into song. None of the other translators choose to render these: perhaps because they thought their audience wouldn’t be interested.

- And lastly, what better work to show the importance and power of Storytelling? Those of us who invent imaginary occurrences typically are hoping for a sense of validation, or a little extra money, but Scheherazade is spinning stories because her life – and the lives of many other young women – hang in the balance. For a thousand nights, she keeps her powerful husband interested enough to let her live, until (finally) he forgets what he was so mad about in the first place. He stops lopping off heads, and settles down to a contented life.

Sunday Literary Life: Feb 26

Quality Time with Scott n'Zelda

For quite a few years Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald have been the gift that keeps on giving for authors of both fiction and non-fiction: with perhaps most works about the couple suggesting that, when we talk about them, we’re talking about something called Romance (capital “R”, of course).

The fact that their relationship had elements of something other than Romance is confirmed by the teams supporting one side or the other.

There are at least two full-length biographies of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in print. Pretty remarkable for a woman who only wrote one book – and spent the last third of her life institutionalized. But the feminist voices supporting Team Zelda are pretty strident.
This inventive essay, for example: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/zelda...…. (Reminding me of a character in PG Wodehouse who insists that Emily and Charlotte Bronte stole all their published work from their drunken brother, Branwell, cheating him of recognition).

Team Scott also has some raised voices: among them Ernest Hemingway, who declared Zelda to be “insane” in print, and – in retrospect – judged that Scott never had the time to explore how much literary talent he had because he was too busy churning out commercial boilerplate to keep up with Zelda’s pathological spending.

Thus we have two teams. And here we have two novels: “Save Me the Waltz” published by Scribner’s in 1932 – and “Tender Is the Night”, offered by the same publisher in 1934.

Despite statements by Zelda to the contrary, both writers were drawing water from the same well (their time in Europe in the 1920’s) – and Scott was furious that his wife had gotten there first. “Tender Is the Night” took him nine long, grinding, desperate years: during which he probably rewrote the book, from the ground up, more than once.

Zelda wrote her book in a surge of literary ejaculation: finishing her manuscript in six weeks. Getting back to team spirit, maybe we can guess who stole what from who.

His(story), and her(story). In many ways, the same story, with the same elements: the hollow idleness of enormous wealth - the means to go anywhere linked to the feeling that it’s just the same people everywhere – expatriate life as a kind of penance – brittle displays of wit – sexual frustration and blunted aspirations – and, at root, a marriage slowly melting like an ice cube in a morning cocktail.

Here at the beginning of the Big Fitzgerald Project I wanted to read both books: to get an impression of what the team leaders of Team Scott and Team Zelda had to say in the devastated calm of the 1930’s when they both started to realize that during their time as Socially-Certified Crazies they had been more of a spectacle than respected - and started to suspect that all of the strange chemicals they had consumed over ice in Prohibition-era America might have damaged them for good.

And, of course, by the 1930’s, they had run out of money. In the crazy years they had gone through immense sums like a house afire. So it’s no wonder that both these books have a lingering taste of ashes.

Sunday Literary Life - Feb 19

Sunday Literary Life:

In 2005, after hovering over the manuscript for three years like a cat waiting for a goldfish to surface - and thinking that it was the greatest Great American Novel I could write - or that perhaps anyone had written - I queried various literary agents about my fresh new novel "Dry, and Severe".

The universal response, without reading the manuscript, that it was "terrible". (Later on, I was to discover the weary consistency of this reaction. Agents never need to read something to know that it's "terrible". LOL)

After all that effort, it seemed a shame to just drop the thing in a drawer - print-on-demand was something people were trying - I had book design skills - and so "Dry, and Severe" became a reality between covers before I cheerfully handed out copies to friends: thinking something good almost had to happen.

What's happening now is that I think the books I gave as gifts are the ones I am slowly buying back. What I thought was the best book possible in 2005 turned out to be an embarrassment when I looked at it again in 2014.

New title in 2014 - two chapters completely thrown out ("terrible") - new narrative line - and the thing rewritten almost completely.

Time changes everything. And so a minor project lately has been locating all the mildly embarrassing copies of "Dry, and Severe" that still hanging around for recycling. I have acquired most of them for recycling at around $8 apiece. But you'll notice that some ambitious re-sellers are marking them up to almost two hundred.

Are those copies "collectors' items"? Do these booksellers know something I don't know?

Maybe cockeyed optimism is what you need, these days, in the book business.

The Charm of a Small Place

So where is Elsinore exactly?

It's in the Department of Imagination - AKA Fiction - so it's exact location is suitably vague. Probably a couple of days drive from Lake Wobegon. And maybe a little less than that from the Simpson's home town of Springfield. And, even though winters in Oklahoma can be pretty miserable, Elsinore is well south of Frostbite Falls.

You can get there by bus. But they took the trains away in the 1960s. The tiny airport allows private planes, but most people arrive by car.

According to conversations I've heard from people who live there, Elsinore is about an hour from Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City - and a morning's drive from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, if you stay within the speed limit.

Nothing much has happened there, specifically, in terms of history. Its most traumatic connection is with the Dust Bowl. It was a starting point for Okies headed to California when times got bad. It's modern historical connection is with the iconic Route 66 - the "Mother Road" - even after Route 66 has been swallowed up by I-40. (The publicity still is from the old television drama "Route 66". I doubt that anyone would tune in to a series called "I-40".)

My own Elsinore - my own home town - was bypassed by the Interstate system: giving that place an intense feeling of isolation: being "out, and away". But I wanted Elsinore to be near a big road - because sometimes it's convenient to include that kind of river of commerce as part of certain stories.

Elsinore is within easy driving distance of some attractive lakes. Since most people own their own homes, apartments are generally shabby, and hard to find. The town is very walkable - but almost nobody walks. And, like so much of the Heartland, there are more seniors than children because young people with energy and talent go away to School...and never come back. (More on this later).

It is an ordinary, unexceptional place. A green sign along the divided highway. A sign that slides along the passenger side window, and then is left behind. Which means that Elsinore, OK, only offers only hundreds of stories of life and death - love and loss - happiness and unhappiness within its borders. Unlike a place like Brooklyn: where all the possible stories number in the millions.

The advantage Elsinore has is that I know it: right down to the ground. And, like all the rest of us, the time I have for storytelling is limited.

Visions in Small Places

“Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all....” - Fitzgerald

As our culture slides into its post-literate phase, the names of writers left behind will inevitably grow longer: authors of "difficult" books vehemently debated in graduate seminar...but nowhere else. Even Shakespeare gets farther and farther behind in the rear view mirror, for reasons explained in an essay of mine: https://medium.com/@T…/shakespeare-fu...…

When a woman told William Faulker that she’d read “The Bear” three times, and still didn’t know what it was about, Faulkner replied: “Then you should probably read it again....” — and that’s why I’m sure he'll be among the most easily dismissed of the difficult writers of the late 20th Century.

I don't agree with him that readers should serve an apprenticeship of comprehension.

But where we do meet (and shake hands) is the idea — summarized by Fitzgerald, above — that maybe it can be best to write about what’s close to you. Looking at one particular place long and hard...for a long time.

The American Nation is now divided along several major fault lines. But one of the least discussed is the gulf between Urban and Rural. New York is vastly overrepresented in our current media, and Middle America vastly underrepresented.

For most of his work, Faulkner used the people, the landscape, and the history of northern Mississippi in a place he invented: Yoknapatawpha County. Terminally rural. A place in the middle of nowhere, you might say. Unworthy of attention, according to majority opinion.

But, the longer he looked at it, the more interesting it got.

A strong sense of place gives fiction a useful depth: the “universe in a grain of sand”. John Cheever hardly ever strayed from Long Island, and Garrison Keillor has been living off Lake Wobegone for decades.

Why not the Great Plains, I thought? There is no poet laureate for the modern Bible Belt — that peculiar slice of nowhere. And so this series of posts will be introducing the not-quite-lost town of Elsinore — where you can pull off the Interstate if you want to (but most people don't want to) — where the weather is pretty awful about 300 days of the year — where the smart ones have left to make their fortunes, and the loyal ones stayed behind — where nothing much seems to happen and yet, where the whole human landscape is on display as much as anywhere else.

As usual, stay tuned....

The Reviewer's Corner: Help! I'm in Love with the Sound of My Own Voice!

Background note: I've recently joined a structured review group, which puts me in the position of seeing a lot of self-published books being offered. The group’s prevents us from posting reviews of books that receive a personal rating of less than 3-stars. Since only about half the books coming my way receive a “3”, I think it useful to point out some of the trends that I’ve noticed. Your mileage may vary—but at least there might be some notes here worthy of your attention.
_____

The #1 failing of most self-published work is the simple fact of falling in love: as in “falling in love with the sound of your own voice”.

There are financial considerations, of course, in hiring a professional editor. But, more than that, I believe, most DIY authors simply do not want bad news: as in “Chapters 7, 8, and 9 aren’t really doing anything”.

Long form work is hard, and grueling. A lot of people who sit down to write a lot feel that they have a lot to say. So they fill page after page after page. They really don't want to see any of it go away. It sounded so good at the time!

That’s how you end up with a book of 150,000 words selling for $2.99. The bargain of the century, to be sure. But—if they’re writing a tight thriller, or a crime piece, or steampunk—you can pretty much bet that they started typing, and somehow couldn’t stop, because, for most genres, 150K is too much. Other books: it’s obvious that the author believes that he (or she) is truly fascinating—and they’re sure that you’ll agree.

One book of more than 500 pages was described to me as “the greatest American novel since Moby Dick”. Turned out that it wasn’t. It was just really, really long.

Nobody likes to cut. That much is clear in my mind. But the line between “essential” and “blather” is one that a storyteller has to cross in order to improve. Eventually you have to start tapping the DELETE key—even though it hurts every time you press it.

Until next time....

Fixing Oedipus: Ancient Symbolism in “Fifty Shades of Grey”

Paradoxes take us to places where we don't anticipate going. I believe that to be part of their enduring charm.

Thus we see the film version of the first book in the trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey breaking attendance records in—of all places—the Deep South, where billboards praising the Saving Power of Jesus are as common as roadkill raccoons.

Above and beyond that, reports are widely circulating that grown women (and virtually all of those attending are women, for reasons explained below) are observed walking out of the theatres in tears—and not because the acting is so bad, the story is so trite, or because Dakota Johnson is so homely.

The movie has made a mark because the books—clumsily-written-not-the-least-bit-original works—hit the zeitgeist lottery. The story meeting the moment, and pushing men almost to the edge of terminal confusion: "Wait...you mean all they wanted—all along—was to be tied up...knocked around...treated like dirt?"

Well...no. To clarify what this trilogy is about, in as few words as possible: Fifty Shades is not a story about "love", or about "lovers".

Push through the smokescreen of Sex—which American Culture never seems able to cope in any kind of mature way (like middle school kids giggling at the magazine rack in the convenience store)—and you find vivid threads of not only of Sigmund Freud, Greek Myth, and Christian symbolism.

Sex is just the frosting—but it is the symbolism underneath the sugar that makes it meaningful to the people who aren't making fun of the narratives.

This is not a tale about a man and a woman forging a transcendent romantic moment. It is a story about mother and son. Punishment, redemption, and substitutionary suffering. Christian allegory—and thus the male character's name is instantly and easily explained.

Anastasia Steele, for her part, is also aptly named. She is just that: a woman of steel, and—at the beginning of the tale—conspicuously, a virgin. A virgin mother. A Madonna determined to repair this petulant, impatient, angry, arrogant, ultra-rich little boy by allowing him to do, to her, what he wanted to do to his birth mother, but never had the chance.

Virgin Mother meets Oedipus Rex. He gets to punish her, and then to penetrate her. Everything he ever might have wanted, and—without thinking too hard about it—we understand that, underneath the gloss of what seems to be an affair, we're moving into very deep currents of human belief and behavior.

No wonder the story reverberates so strongly. No wonder the books have sold so well.

A common reaction among those posting to Amazon, and other review sites, is that the sex depicted doesn't feel all that erotic. Partially, this is because the writing is so bad. More than that, however, it's because surrogate incest will probably never catch on as a spectator sport.

The Girl of Steel—the "mommy"—has to give herself up to make Christian a more complete man. She lets him fill her up, because she's famously empty. Although she narrates the stories, Anastasia Steele is not a source of complex insights. She's consistently passive—innocent, in kind of an odd way—not so much acting as re-acting—and there's abundant evidence that she's not very bright.

It's useful for her to be insensitive, not a "deep thinker". She just needs to be steady and resolute: coincidentally repeating the mantra that millions of abused women have repeated to themselves as they've waited, aching and bleeding, in emergency rooms and clinics: "He's broken...but I can fix him. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one who can...."

Christian Grey is the classic "fixer-upper" boyfriend, and there's an enduring appeal to that kind of limping little boy: a boy who needs to work out his fears, his rage, and his disappointment.

Someone who needs to be "saved" from himself.

This sets the arc of the whole trilogy. Ana's going to "save" him — and it certainly doesn't hurt that he's stinking rich (without much of an explanation about where all the money might be coming from...it's just a given, in the same way that Superman gets to do all he does because the sun in our solar system is yellow).

And Ana does accomplish her mission. She transitions from the "bad mommy"—who is eagerly battered and bound—to the "good mommy", the savior, who ends the series by bearing Grey's own child: literally becoming the "good mommy" of someone else.

At the risk of sounding smug, I can tell you: "Thus ever thus...."

Those who might consider this to be a breakthrough in "romantic" fiction can quickly be corrected. It's not a step forward—it's a step back: keeping in mind that Jane Eyre didn't turn to Rochester's side until he was blinded (essentially taking on the role of his mother); remembering that Catherine often sounds as much like Heathcliff's mother as his lover; and remembering that what Elizabeth finds intriguing about Mr Darcy is his petulance and roughness (the kind of man who would need a mommie to straighten him out).

The gray neckties, and the handcuffs are somewhat new. But everything else in Fifty Shades is very old: going back to Sophocles, who explained that the urges to kill, to punish, and to ravish could all be directed toward the very same person.