I had two Jameses on my mind this summer who (hopefully) bear no relation by blood and other family fluids. The first I could not escape: E.L. James, the author of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” I didn’t read the book, but I did hear a top-notch live reading by Gilbert Gottfried; it was delightful and bespoke eldritch abominations of the written language. The second I came quite voluntarily to: Henry James, the indomitable (and even to some English majors, a thoroughly frightening) prose maestro.
It’s fair to assume somebody who enjoys Henry James wouldn’t stoop to reading “Fifty Shades of Grey,” and a fan of E.L. James would regard Henry James as gilt gibberish. And I’m not comparing their relative merits when I bring them up. Besides, comparing Henry James to E.L. James is like weighing the merits of a Fabergé egg to a rotten chicken egg. No, E.L. James and Henry James are tenuously linked in my mind for one reason: sex.
A lot of “sex” happens in “Fifty Shades of Grey.” I use the term loosely because, from what I heard in the Gottfried treatment, E.L. James wouldn’t know sex if it popped up from a manhole cover and slapped her on the ass. Or at least she doesn’t know how to write about it. “Sex” drips from the pages of “Fifty Shades of Grey” like some puerile liquid ready to stain your clothes and prompt awkward questions from your parental units or your dry cleaners.
And what about sex in Henry James? What artful metaphors does The Master employ for the beast with two backs? Actually, the funny thing is that it’s almost nonexistent. Characters in Henry James novels have sex, but it never readily surfaces in the text. Steamy cannot be used to describe Henry James.
But at the same time sex is not absent from the works of Henry James, especially in his later novels. “The Golden Bowl” is about adultery that is by all accounts passionate. “The Ambassadors” tells of an American lulled into fragrant and sensual Paris only to have his rose glasses cracked by a personally revolting discovery.
Henry James has gotten some flak over the years for not being “bold” enough to depict sex in his works. Plenty of critics disparaged what they viewed as timorous and squeamish writing, wrapping up the juicy bits and the saucy intrigue in endless corridors of suggestion and uncertainty or flat-out omission. And it didn’t help that a lot of his books are about upper class types with names like Fanny Assingham and Baroness Eugenia-Camilla-Dolores Munster.
But there are a few things to consider about Henry James’ approach. First off, sex was hardly the only thing on his mind when he was writing. A lot of forces are in play in a Henry James story, whether it be avarice, jealousy, apprehension, fear, love, naiveté, etc. Sex was just one of the many tools in his writing kit.
Second, all that suggestion and uncertainty wasn’t a weakness on his part. It’s what makes Henry James one of the strongest writers of any epoch, and one of the most enlightening when you dwell upon his books rather than read them.
Of course, you may not be interested in dwelling on a book. And you may be infuriated at the lack of titillating bits in “The Europeans” or “The Spoils of Poynton.” But on the topic of sex, I find Henry James’ treatment—or lack of treatment—a far better alternative than “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the equivalent of a two-by-four with a nail driven through the head, going straight for the eyes.
There really is no right way to depict sex in literature, as you may or may not have learned yet. Discounting erotica, do you pull the old “and then they fucked” route or give it the full, painstaking play by play viz. the “Fifty Shades” treatment? Do you hint at it in a character’s expressions or indirect actions? Hide it in euphemisms? Let loose a stream of sweaty, bed-ridden profanities? Is it an act of love? Conquest? Freudian exorcism? Sacred? Profane? Biological offshoot? Distracting? Inconsequential or the sum of everything?
That’s the real kicker. I’m not going to lecture you on the significance of sex in literature, nor am I going to try and extrapolate it to the human condition or anything highfalutin like that. That’s your job. I will say that given the very intimate (and sometimes embarrassing) dimensions of sex, it’s usually better to keep it off the page and sort it out for yourself. Spare us stories about your shades of grey.
Was “50 Shades of Grey” your favorite summer read? Tell Sean why you enjoyed it so much at sreichard@wisc.edu.
