As of now in 2013, Doris Lessing is 93. She was born in 1919 and her second novel, published in 1956, was titled Retreat to Innocence. All of this, coupled with her round, sweetly wrinkled face and penchant for wearing her white hair parted at the middle and pulled back into a bun, might give one preconceived notions about her temperament, character and preferred subject matter. But if you’ve read Doris Lessing’s work, you’ll know she is no kindly, simple old lady doling out pearls of grandmotherly wisdom. Her writing is shrewd, difficult, complex, and nuanced, and has even been called inaccessible. It is as challenging to read as it is enjoyable. She has earned countless literary awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.

The Zimbabwe-born author is also not one to shy away from controversy, whether in reference to her politics – she was prohibited from entry to South Africa and Rhodesia for vocally protesting apartheid and nuclear armament – or her outspoken comments to those who would pigeonhole her as a femnist writer. Labelled a feminist by critics and readers time and time again, Lessing has repeatedly lashed out in response to the term, expressing extreme distaste for her perspective of trends toward the belittlement of men and male writers, under the guise of empowerment of their female counterparts. She has repeatedly stated that she finds the term and its followers grotesquely oversimplified, and wishes to distance herself from it.

That said, much or her writing inarguably empowers women, and she writes bravely about issues of gender and sex without batting an eyelash. Perhaps the most notable example is her 2003 novella The Grandmothers. In it, Lessing tells the story of two middle-aged women, best friends since childhood, inseparable for decades. The two grow up together, intentionally marry two men who are friends, and move in next door to one another. Eventually, when the two husbands are out of the picture, each woman begins an affair – with her best friend’s teenage son.

It sounds like the stuff of a juicy and perhaps distasteful romance novel. That alone might make one uncomfortable, but when squirm-worthy subject matter is put in the hands of a skilled writer like Lessing, it becomes more interesting, less black and white, and harder to ignore. The story is surprisingly Ask anyone who has read Lolita – a talented wordsmith can be expert at challenging our absolutes and making a reader question his or her own certainties and opinions.

It is likely that complexity and challenge that attracted French filmmaker Anne Fontaine to option the project, and it will be her first English-language film as director. The film adaptation is set and filmed in Australia, and is called Two Mothers. It premiered at Sundance in January, and so far is scheduled for various very limited release worldwide throughout 2013.

Here is a taste:

Yes, there is a parody cookbook called Fifty Shades of Chicken by F.L. Fowler (apparently).

There is even a suitably sexy and tantalizing trailer for 50 Shades of Chicken. Behold.

For the annual observance of Banned Books Week last week, the Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Kansas decided to highlight the importance of freedom of information with a creative, artistic project. They put a call out to the local artists of the community to each create a unique, small-scale work of art, on paper, celebrating a banned or challenged or book or author, however the artist saw fit, with the end goal of a set of seven trading cards.

The call for submissions garnered 46 entries, which was narrowed down to seven top selections by the judges. The top seven were made into a set of trading cards, one for each day of Banned Book Week, and given away at the library and the Lawrence Arts Center. Demand and attention were so great that the library has done a second printing of the cards, available for purchase (in-person or online) for $7.00/set, with all proceeds going to the library and to the artists of the cards. You can see some of the submissions here, as well as reading each author’s statement about his/her piece, or buy the cards here (for a limited time, while supplies last).

And now, in case you want a little more variety in our erotica-themed baked goods, there is this: as found on the Cute Little Cupcakes flickr page – there are also 50 Shades of Grey cupcakes. I enjoy the thought and detail that clearly went into them – we have a cupcake with Christian Grey’s infamous tie, a cupcake with a flogger, a cupcake with a collar, a cupcake with handcuffs….a bra, a pair of panties, a blindfold, and a riding crop, as well as some titillating little sayings, and all are in varying shades of grey (or black and white) – except for one muscled, shocking pink torso.

One has to wonder, though…what flavor are they? Surely not vanilla.

Two vaguely literary items of note regarding the gorgeous golden god that is Ryan Gosling:

1) The web site “Feminist Ryan Gosling” now has an accompanying book, titled, appropriately, Feminist Ryan Gosling. Safer to take in the bathtub than a laptop, and is mostly new material. Its author, Danielle Henderson, is interviewed here about the new book. If you’re unfamiliar with the format of the internet sensation, it’s pretty cute – it involves photoshopping pictures of Ryan Gosling alongside inspirational feminist quotes.

2) And second, let’s talk about Fifty Shades of Grey some more. Have you heard of 50 Shades of Grey? Well – are you sitting down? Sit down. Good then. – it is still rumor and a big game of telephone right now, but the latest buzz is that the movie version will cast Ryan Gosling as Christian Grey. Even though some of us might have a hard time with 50 Shades in terms of literature, or even as a realistic or acceptable depiction of the BDSM community, if you’re in it just for the junk-food-fun of it, it’s hard to not be excited at the idea of Ryan Gosling playing Christian Grey. Love it or loathe it, the book has received unprecedented outpourings of attention, and is controversial both in terms of its quality and its content, and it’s been pretty fun watching this whole thing unfold.

Let’s see if it gets past the rumor stages and comes to fruition.

And now, I must set about finding some rare, antiquarian pieces of literature to showcase, as this may be the most lowbrow blog post I’ve ever written. Internet memes and mommy porn….oh dear.

According to the Time Magazine NewsFeed, who I can only pray are having some peculiarly-timed April Fool’s-style laugh at our expense, things are about to get a whole lot worse.

Publishers eager to cash in on the current craze of….”mommy porn”….*shudder* are reportedly planning to release steamier versions of some stories. Some classic stories. Some classic stories in literature that we all know and love oh god zombies were bad enough but is nothing sacred?! Sorry, sorry, I’m okay. Some of the titles to undergo the hideous sexy treatment are apparently Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights.

A publisher called Total-E-Bound is releasing the titles, and while money is (clearly) money, they do acknowledge that this may not be a popular decision with everyone:

“We recognize it’s a bold move that may have a polarizing effect on readers but we’re keeping the works as close to the original classics as possible,” Total-E-Bound founder Claire Siemaszkiewicz told the Daily Mail.

erm…as close to the original classics as possible, you say? I’ll just let this comparison of excerpts from the original and the new version communicate my opinion on the subject.

Original:

“‘Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still too.’ Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said — ‘Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another.’”

New Version:

“‘Jane, be still a few moments, you are over-excited. I will be still too.’ My master captured my wrists and secured them behind my back, imprisoning me and preventing my movements… He exerted the force of his will as effortlessly as he schooled my person, relentlessly and with an inexorable force, he commanded me against his body… No matter how I controlled my mind, my very flesh was weak.”

Yes. Right then. Am I alone in thinking it was perfectly sufficient and lovely to read Pride and Prejudice and concoct my own fantasies about Mr. Darcy? How lazy are we getting now?

Regrettably, these beloved classics are often the ones to fall victim to zombie and sexy shenanigans and such, since the copyright on them has expired, leaving them vulnerable to whatever grotesqueries we can think up next to inflict upon them. We do, of course, have the option to ignore the blasphemy entirely, reread the originals, and shake an embittered fist at the sky. But then, perhaps I’m just a fuddy-duddy.

Get off my lawn.

Apparently, yes.

Michelle Dean has a piece on The Rumpus exploring the outline of an unpublished story by Wharton, called Beatrice Palmato, which is, in passages, downright lurid in its pornographic – and highly taboo – detail. Assumed to be written when Wharton was in her late fifties, the story depicts an incestuous relationship in detail that would make anyone redden to their roots.

In her exploration of the fragment – of its meaning, its origins and the reason for its existence – Dean goes on to theorize that Wharton may have had some greater intention than shock, disturbance or titillation when she wrote the words.

For my part, I keep imagining this: Edith Wharton was not a stupid woman. The scholars vary on the timing but even so, when she drafted this, she is thought to have been no younger than her late fifties. She was several years from her divorce from Teddy and a few longer from her affair with Fullerton. She was an old grand dame by then, and most of her greatest books were behind her. When she picked up her pencil and wrote the pieces of Beatrice Palmato she likely did so in bed, because it was where she always said she liked to write. She lived in France, in the country, having left Paris and America for a quieter life. She knew what fame was, and she knew she had it. She knew most of all that it was a thing you managed.

Someone was guaranteed come along and read her papers. She had an idea of what people wanted to know and had, it seems, much of her life hidden it from public view. (Her memoir, A Backward Glance, doesn’t mention her troubles with mother, or her affair with Fullerton.) In her will she deliberately provided that they not be opened to scholars until 1968. She also knew that her good friend Henry James had destroyed many of his papers, including letters she’d sent him, at her death. Probably she was more interested in hiding her passionate letters to Fullerton than anything else, but it could not have escaped her notice that her unpublishable fragment wasn’t likely to remain so.

In any event, it appears there was more to Edith Wharton than at first meets the eye!

I’m sorry to come back to Fifty Shades of Grey once again but frankly there is a story a day at the moment. Richard’s Cakes (their tagline is ‘Quality Cakes for All Occasions’) from Manchester have sculpted, baked, created a Fifty Shades of Grey Cake. I love the handcuffs on the bed. The New Statesman was inspired enough by the Fifty Shades of Cake to parody the E.L. James bestseller with some cake-themed commentary.

When will the Fifty Shades of Grey bandwagon ever slow down? Not with the Christian Grey cake, I’m thinking. Look at those little fondant abs. Hee.

Which is exactly what Dr. Faye Skelton from the University of Lancashire has done, by asking a sample of women who have read the book to describe Grey, then creating a composite. The result:

A proposed Christian Grey. (Photo: UCLAN)

I don’t know. I think the nose is too long, or the eyes are too high and small, or something – he has a decidedly “Duuuuh” look to me. And if one is going to become a multi-millionaire with both private jet AND private helicopter by age 27, one must have one’s wits about them, no?

Meanwhile, the celebrity gossip world is abuzz about who will play Christian Grey in the 50 Shades of Grey movie, with guesses ranging from the sublime (Ryan Gosling, Chris Pine) to the ridiculous (Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman).

The novel is now the fastest selling paperback of all-time, even beating out Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

On the Island by Tracey Garvis-Graves was rejected by 14 traditional publishers and 40 different book agents. But Garvis-Graves, who lives in Des Moines, Iowa, persevered, published it as an e-book, and now has signed on for a seven-figure, two-book deal with Dutton & Plume, an imprint of Penguin Group USA. Physical copies will be hitting the shelves soon, and e-copies are available online now.

The story is one of a 30-year-old teacher, Anna Emerson. Anna’s relationship with her boyfriend is rocky and has an uncertain future, so she takes on the job of a private tutor to a 16-year-old (you read that right) student named TJ Callahan, who is recovering from a nasty bout with cancer. While the pair are aboard a seaplane near the Maldives (Anna’s tutelage is to take place as a working vacation on a tropical island – T.J. is behind in school from all the cancer and must catch up on his schoolwork over summer vacation), the pilot suffers a massive fatal coronary, and the aircraft hurtles into the Indian Ocean, washing the unlikely duo onto the shore of a small and uninhabited island.

Immediately the plot becomes one of survival (made easier by some well-stocked luggage also washing ashore)… and of course, keeping their eyes and hands off of one another.

…at least until TJ turns 18.

From the author’s personal web site (traceygarvisgraves.com), here are 10 assorted facts about her:

1. I love going to psychics.
2. I know all the dialogue from Sex and The City.
3. I love karaoke.
4. I like red roses but not on Valentine’s Day.
5. I can’t stand beef.
6. I read extremely fast.
7. I love stormy weather. Snow, thunder, ice, whatever. I love them all.
8. I believe in karma.
9. I’ve somehow never been arrested.
10. I pee my pants when I jump, cough, or sneeze.