Chapter Four
Lacking the agency to kiss the man herself, Ana simply screams internally that she would like Christian’s lips on hers and hopes that will work.
More head shaking. More strangely italicised thoughts.
Christian clearly wants to say something as he starts speaking, hesitates and doesn’t know how to continue. He eventually says ‘“Good luck with your exams”’ and Ana is frustrated that he looked so ‘desolate’ when this was all he wanted to say. Ana apparently has no idea how to read between the lines.
Ana’s ‘dashed hopes’ and ‘dashed dreams’ as Christian ‘rejects’ her cause her to cry irrationally and uncontrollably in a parking garage. Once again I am captivated by the wide variety of adjectives used in this book.
Ana explains that the only time she has ever been rejected – before now – was when choosing teams for sports. This doesn’t surprise me at all – she’s already established herself as a gangly bookworm who can’t walk two steps without falling over, so of course she’s bad at team sports.
Gradually Ana’s subconscious is growing a body as she metaphorically screams at Ana, folds her arms, leans on one leg and taps her foot in frustration. Again, I’m not sure how a subconscious could literally do these things, so stating that this was metaphoric is completely unnecessary.
Ana arrives home looking upset. Kate asks her what is wrong. Kate asking a single question because she is concerned about her friend is apparently called the beginning of the ‘Katherine Kavanagh Inquisition’. Of course it couldn’t just be that Kate cares about you, Ana.
Kate offers to show Ana the finished article. Apparently José took some great photos and this is still surprising. Ana is too obsessed with Christian’s face to actually read the article her friend put so much hard work into writing. She convinces herself that the reason Christian told her he didn’t want to see her again was because he considers himself too attractive. That’s the most ridiculous reason for somebody to refuse a second date that I have ever heard in my life.
In reaching this realisation, Ana describes herself and Christian as being ‘poles apart’ and ‘from two very different worlds’. She considers herself as ‘Icarus flying too close to the sun’ and ‘crashing and burning’. Cliché count: 11.
Lying in bed, Ana recalls begging Christian with ‘every fiber [sic] of [her] being’ to kiss her. Cliché count: 12.
I find Ana’s musings that Christian might be ‘celibate’ or ‘saving himself’ laugh out loud funny given we all know how far from the truth that is. I’m looking forward to the moment poor, ignorant Ana realises how wrong she is.
So far, the styling used to signify a time slip between scenes has been a line break and four bold, capped words; however, here we see a simple 1.5cm line divider between paragraphs. I am curious how time slips will be depicted throughout the remainder of the book and if any sort of pattern will form as to when one stylistic choice is chosen over another.
‘I might even get drunk!’ Ana exclaims after finishing her last exam. Of course sweet, innocent, bookworm-who-can’t-play-sports Ana has never been drunk before.
To celebrate, ‘Inside [Ana is] doing graceful cartwheels around [her] head.’ Firstly, Ana is doing these cartwheels, not Ana’s subconscious, which establishes that they are two different personalities, thus confirming my previously-documented suspicion that Ana is insane. Secondly, this action is not described as ‘figurative’ or ‘metaphoric’, so either there is some literal cartwheeling going on or E L James has finally realised that it is not necessary to use these terms to signpost every instance of personification. Lastly, the phrase should simply be ‘inside her head’; the use of the word ‘around’ makes me think that her head has been detached from her body and now she is cartwheeling around it, like one might circle a fire in an attempt to summon a demon.
In as many paragraphs, three different font faces are used – the default, a script font to indicate a handwritten note and a stereotypical ‘old typeface’ in one of the first edition novels Ana has just received. It appears E L James just discovered the drop down list of fonts in her word processing software.
Ana, the girl who has never been drunk before, has champagne, five margaritas and decides that it’s time for a beer. Ana, the girl who has never been drunk before, is going to pass out before this night is through.
Ana is now in the bathroom and decides drunk-dialling Christian is an excellent idea. Yes, what could possibly go wrong?
Christian figures out that Ana is drunk and demands she tell him which bar she is in. Ana dismisses this as him being ‘his usual control freak’. She hasn’t known him nearly long enough to have established his ‘usual’ and if this is in fact his usual, that would be setting off all sorts of alarms for a rational human being.
Ana is pleased with herself because her head is swimming uncomfortably. ‘Well the exercise was to get drunk’ she thinks as she demonstrates how binge drinking works. What a great role model. ‘Probably not an experience to be repeated’ she adds in pointless italics. Of course she has already decided to never get drunk again, even before the hangover hits, because she is sweet, innocent, bookworm-who-can’t-play-sports Ana.
As Ana pulls her jeans back up, I’m so thankful that Ana going to the bathroom was included in this book. I feel as though the plot really benefited from that.
Ana tells Kate that she needs to step outside for some fresh air. Kate thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to let Ana, who is completely trashed at this point, go outside alone. Yes, I see nothing wrong with this plan either. Ana is full of excellent ideas tonight.
José, who until this point has seemed like a lovely friend with a few misplaced feelings towards Ana (who is apparently undesirable and yet every male character she is not related to in this book so far has desired her), tries to take advantage of Ana in their mutually drunken state. Christian arrives in perfect time to be the literary hero of Ana’s dreams.
After throwing up in the garden and regaining her senses, Ana asks Christian the completely valid question: ‘How did you find me?’ Apparently he tracked her phone. This man Ana just met wanted to pick her up because she sounded drunk, so he tracked her phone and found her. How romantic.
Ana’s ‘muscles clench deliciously’ and my spidey sense tells me this is a phrase I’m going to read a frustrating number of times throughout the rest of this book.
Ana’s subconscious is back to figuratively doing things; specifically, she is tutting and glaring at Ana ‘over her half-moon specs’. I wonder when Ana’s subconscious developed vision impairment. And eyes.
Christian has been with Ana at the bar for quite some time now, but she takes this moment to create a mental note of every item of clothing he is wearing and to describe him as ‘yummy’. I might not have had five margaritas, but even I’m starting to feel queasy now.
Before she leaves with Christian, Ana wants to tell Kate where she is going. Kate is on the dance floor, apparently. She tells Christian this and next thing she knows, he is leading her towards the floor. Ana immediately begins panicking about the fact that she does not dance. Maybe he doesn’t want to dance with you, Ana? Maybe he is simply taking you to the place you said you wanted to go?
But it turns out he does want to dance. And, of course, he is incredibly good at dancing because it’s a well-known fact that all well-dressed rich men are.
Kate is dancing with Christian’s brother, Elliot, because apparently best friends dating brothers is a necessary plot line for this book and heaven forbid any girl be attracted to somebody who isn’t rich. Ana tries to describe Elliot but can’t determine his eye colour beneath the flashing lights. I’m disappointed, because this information is very important to me and I was in the process of compiling a list of the incredibly story-relevant eye colours of every character.
In the end, Christian steers Ana away from Kate before they even have a chance to talk. Ana’s main concern about this is that she didn’t get to give Kate a safe sex lecture. It has been fairly well-established at this point that Ana is the innocent one and Kate is the experienced one, so I’m not sure what Ana was planning on saying that Kate doesn’t already know.
Ana swears, falls over and the chapter ends.
One more chapter until we start getting to the really NSFW stuff. I'm both excited for the prospect of ripping poorly represented scenes to shreds and terrified of the prospect of having to read them. I hope you all have strong stomachs!