This is a long review, because a lot of terrible stuff happens in this chapter. “What kind of terrible stuff?” you ask. Well: manipulation, sexual assault, and stalking, for starters. There’s also a bunch of drinking and some vomiting, if you’d prefer not to read about that. Honestly, after reading this chapter, I can say with confidence that I would have preferred not to have started reading this book at all.
Recap: After the photo shoot, Christian invited Ana on a coffee date. The chapter ended with the two seemingly about to kiss for the first time.
Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter Four
I’m gonna show you how the chapter opens. Ready?
Kiss me damn it! I implore him, but I can’t move. I’m paralyzed with a strange, unfamiliar need, completely captivated by him.
This is typical of E.L. James’ writing. This is what our author types like when she is trying to be erotic.
Just so you know.
Ana continues to be paralyzed. Christian stares back at her for a little while, then shakes his head and tells her, quote:
“Anastasia, you should steer clear of me. I’m not the man for you,” he whispers.
Now, to be fair, Christian hasn’t done anything outstandingly terrible yet. His main crimes are being a little creepy, being kind of a dick, and being described using flowery adjectives. He doesn’t come off like a horrible guy; he comes off like a rich guy who’s a bit of a douchebag and who isn’t quite sure how to play the dating game. Kate’s wariness of him, while not misplaced (as we’ll see later), suggests precognitive abilities on her part as he’s been completely civil and well-behaved in her presence.
Also, some of his supposed bad behavior, such as being a “control freak” (Ana called him this a lot in chapter 1), exists only as an informed attribute thus far. Like, I know he is a control freak, I’ve read the whole book, but Ana wouldn’t have a reason to know that yet; his supposed “controlling nature” makes sense when you apply it to business, and isn’t really out of the ordinary.
But why ask Ana on a date if she should steer clear of him? Did he only just now decide that being with her is a bad idea? Why did he decide this?
Christian props Ana back up onto her feet, and Ana proceeds to internally freak out about the fact that Christian did not kiss her. Apparently she’d made it “pretty damned obvious” that she wanted to be kissed. I’m not sure how staring at him without doing or saying anything was supposed to indicate that, especially after he just confessed in the previous chapter that he has trouble reading her, but all fucking right. Couldn’t she kiss him herself? (Oh, that’s right, I forgot: she was paralyzed.)
Ana’s takeaway from the entire encounter is that Christian doesn’t actually like her, which makes fuck-all sense even factoring in her low self-esteem. Her narration made it clear earlier that she could tell Christian wanted to kiss her, but just held off; apparently she’s already forgotten about that.
(Actually, the problem is that this author doesn’t know how to show without telling, so essentially Ana and the readers are privy to all the same information [it being first-person] and Ana just “forgets” or “doesn’t realize” the parts that were supposed to be unclear to her. Even though her own damn narration goes so far as to spell it out for the readers.)
Ana thanks Christian for the tea and the photoshoot, and he wishes her good luck on her exams in the most anguished way imaginable. Ana acts all insulted and flounces off. Then she goes and has a cry.
For a few paragraphs, Ana goes on about how she’s never been romantically rejected. She explains that she never put herself out there because she has too many faults. What are these faults, you ask? Well, Ana is “too pale,” “too skinny,” “too scruffy,” and “uncoordinated.” Excuse me while I play the world’s smallest violin.
“Too pale” never stopped anyone from getting a date. Same with “too skinny,” unless maybe you’re seriously underweight due to illness or an eating disorder, but I very much doubt this is Ana’s problem. "Too scruffy”? Uh… shower more often? Brush your hair? And “uncoordinated” is more of a factor in screwing up dates than in getting them to begin with.
To be fair to Ana, she’s insecure, and insecurity often isn’t rational. It’s quite possible to see all these traits as bad things about yourself, despite society at large viewing them as positive/neutral. But the tone of this is so woe-is-me that I can’t help rolling my eyes.
Ana finally pulls herself together and heads home. As soon as she walks through the door, Kate notices that she’s been crying and asks — in a very aggressive fashion, mind you — what Christian did to Ana. Ana explains that he didn’t do anything, she just narrowly escaped being hit while crossing the street. Kate drops the aggression and switches to sympathy, asking if the coffee date was alright. Ana says it was fine but she won’t be seeing him again. Kate wonders why not, because even though Kate thinks Christian is bad for Ana she still seems to want Ana to be with Christian. Did the author take any time to think about the actual motivations of her characters?
There is a totally unnecessary reference to Greek mythology in this chapter. Ana imagines herself as Icarus flying too close to the sun, with the sun in this metaphor being Christian Grey. It is incredibly clunky and poorly done and while I originally assumed this would never be referred to again, now that I’ve finished the first book and am on to the second I know that the author actually really loves this metaphor and comes back to it often despite it never adding anything to the story.
Later that night, Ana ponders over what Christian meant by “I don’t do the girlfriend thing.” Somehow she skips all the possible conclusions that make sense, such as “I’m not interested in dating,” “I’m not interested in dating girls,” “I’d be interested in a sexual relationship, but not a romantic one,” “I don’t call my partners my ‘girlfriends’ because it’s not exactly that type of relationship,” and so on, and instead decides that Christian is saving himself for marriage. Yeah. He’s going to get married without ever dating. What, does she figure he’s going to get a mail-order bride?
Ana dreams of Christian again: “gray eyes, leafy patterns in milk, and I’m running through dark places with eerie strip lighting, and I don’t know if I’m running toward something or away from it… it’s just not clear.” In other news, E.L. James still doesn’t understand how symbolism works and that it has to mean something. (And that “leafy patterns in milk” thing is bothering me. I get that it’s a reference to the tea Ana had at the coffee shop earlier, but she used a teabag and she didn’t take milk in her tea.)
Time-skip to Friday. After taking finals, Ana and Kate head back to their apartment to get changed (they’re going out to a bar that night to celebrate), and find a package has arrived, addressed to Ana. There’s no return address or sender’s name, so Ana assumes one of her parents sent it because… I don’t know, do they usually not put their return info on packages? She opens it up and, of course, it’s from Christian Grey. He’s sent her a three-volume set of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and enclosed a card with a quote from Tess. The quote in question is:
Why didn’t you tell me there was danger? Why didn’t you warn me?
Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…
By the way, in the book this is in one of those horrible pseudo-calligraphic fonts, 24-point. Please picture that so you have an idea of the full effect.
Upon opening one of the volumes, Ana realizes it’s a first edition. This tips her off as to the sender, as who but Grey could afford such a thing? Also, who but Grey would try and “warn someone off” with a gift costing multiple thousands of dollars and a vague, intriguing warning? What a dick. I’ll wait till the end of the review to complain more about this.
Ana decides she’ll send the books back to Christian with a quote from some other part of the book (Kate suggests “the bit where Angel Clare says fuck off”) and packs them back in the box. After toasting the end of exams, Ana and Kate head off to the bar.
At the bar, they’re joined by José, who isn’t graduating that year but just wanted to party. Hang on — if he’s a junior and Ana’s a senior, how did Ana meet him on her first day of college like she said she did? Author, are you paying any attention to this stuff? José asks Ana what she’ll do after graduation. Ana explains that Kate’s parents bought Kate a condo in Seattle, so they’ll be moving up there. José’s comment on this is “Dios mio, how the other half live.” Bad author. No. Stop.
Everyone is getting very drunk, especially Ana. I have to give the author credit, because drunk!Ana is actually pretty amusing. Kate, who has “the constitution of an ox” (of course she does, her surname is Kavanagh), tells Ana to get her another drink, so Ana staggers towards the bar before deciding she should probably go to the restroom first. There’s a line, so she pulls out her cell phone for something to do while she waits. Ana sees Christian’s number in her call history and decides to give him a ring, maybe to ask about the books he sent.
Christian picks up the phone, and Ana asks him why he sent the books. He quickly figures out she’s been drinking and asks her where she is. She tells him she’s in a bar, and when he asks again specifies that it’s a bar in Portland. Thanks, that’s so helpful. Christian asks how she’s getting home. She tells him she’ll find a way. Now, this really should be the end of the conversation, because she’s an adult and should be able to handle the situation on her own, but of course it’s not the end of the conversation because naturally Christian has to swoop in and “be a hero” or something like that. He keeps asking her where she is, she keeps asking about the books, neither of them get answers, Ana hangs up. She feels pleased with herself for a second before realizing that he didn’t tell her about the books, but she’s drunk and can’t hold onto that thought for very long.
This scene is surprisingly bearable, and, dare I say, even entertaining, so I’d like to give a shout-out to drunk!Ana for being better than the regular version. When drunk, her narration loses all the whininess, pretentious references to literature, and random talk of her “subconscious” that made it so awful. She stops being painfully shy, actually seems to gain a sense of humor (albeit a completely infantile one), and acts self-satisfied with her own drunkenness, which definitely beats her acting insecure about her own gorgeousness. Instead of thinking everything Christian does is sexy, she thinks that everything Christian does is fucking hilarious. When drunk she also has an attention span of about two seconds, which is kind of amusing on its own.
Anyway, onward. Christian calls Ana back while she’s in the bathroom. He says “I’m coming to get you,” then hangs up. How does he know where she is? Ana freaks out momentarily, then remembers that she didn’t tell him her location and it’s a long drive from Seattle to Portland anyway.
Ana promptly forgets all about Christian and goes to get the beer for Kate. (Somehow she remembers this even though she’s forgotten about everything else that’s happened in this scene. I don’t know.) After drinking a little more, Ana begins to feel nauseous and tells her friends she’s going to step outside for some fresh air. Outside, she starts to realize exactly how drunk she is; she’s seeing double and feels like she’s about to be sick.
José joins Ana outside and asks her if she’s alright. She tells him she’s had too much to drink, and he says he has too. He offers her a hand (for what?) but when she refuses he wraps his arms around her anyway and tries to kiss her. Ana protests, tries to push him away, but he ignores her and starts kissing the side of her face. I know he’s really drunk, but still — is he so drunk he hasn’t noticed that she obviously wants him to stop, or is he just being a complete shithead?
Before José can actually kiss Ana on the lips, Christian shows up. José, startled, lets go of Ana, who promptly vomits all over the ground. Christian helps her over to a flowerbed and holds her hair back while she throws up a few more times. José watches this for a bit and then slinks off.
Ana’s narration stops being amusingly drunken. I don’t know if this is because a non-amusing thing just happened, or because the alcohol is wearing off, or because Christian is there, but I suspect it’s because of Christian. Ana is really embarrassed to have just thrown up in front of Christian, and apologizes to him for it and the phone call. He asks her if she’s been drunk before. She hasn’t.
Ana begins to feel dizzy and lightheaded. Christian holds her so she won’t fall and tells her he’ll take her home. I still don’t know how he found her, or how he got there so quickly. (I guess he wasn’t in Seattle? Maybe he was still at the hotel?) Ana says she needs to tell Kate that Christian is giving her a ride. Christian says his brother can tell Kate, because, as it turns out, Kate and Elliot are talking right now.
Christian explains why and how he and his brother are there. Christian is still staying at the Heathman. His brother was there with him when Ana called. Christian found Ana by tracking her cell phone.
Tracking her cell phone.
Ana thinks that this sounds like illegal stalker behavior, which it is, but she doesn’t mind because it’s Christian. Well, I fucking mind, and Ana should too, since she barely knows the guy. Tracking someone’s phone is illegal, it is stalker behavior, it is a huge invasion of privacy, and it’s not excusable in this situation. I’d let it slide if Ana’s life was in danger; hell, even if she let it slip that she felt threatened, there’d be some justification. But at the time Ana called, she wasn’t in any sort of danger, unless you count being in danger of losing her lunch. Christian didn’t know about the José thing because it hadn’t happened yet, and his showing up at the right moment to save her (the precise moment before José was about to kiss her on the lips) was nothing more than an extremely contrived coincidence.
And, alright, I guess I get why Ana isn’t too bothered about this right now — she feels really sick, she just got assaulted by a friend, she’s drunk, maybe the stalking thing feels like the least of her worries. But once some time has passed and she’s sobered up, you can bet she’s not gonna be mad about it. Because Christian happened to be there at the right moment to save her ass, and because she thinks he’s hot, he gets a free pass on any bad behavior. I hate this.
We’d be here all night if I kept complaining. On with the chapter, I guess.
Ana tells Christian again that she has to talk to Kate, otherwise Kate will worry. I don’t know, none of your friends seemed too worried about you being drunk out of your mind when you’ve never gotten drunk before, so I don’t know why getting a ride home from Christian would be so much more worrying. Christian is annoyed that Ana wants to tell Kate she’s getting a ride home. Because…? There doesn’t seem to be a reason. Okay, so now Christian is legitimately being a control freak, but Ana doesn’t seem to think this is control-freaky behavior, even though she thinks practically everything else he does is control-freaky.
This book is such garbage.
Ana goes back into the bar with Christian. She finds their table, but Kate’s not there. Neither is José. In fact, no one is there except for Levi, the photographer for the student paper. He tells Ana that Kate is on the dance floor. Ana finds Christian and suddenly gets turned on because… he smells nice? I don’t know, read it yourself:
I touch Christian’s arm and lean up and shout in his ear, brushing his hair with my nose, smelling his clean, fresh smell. Oh my. All those forbidden, unfamiliar feelings that I have tried to deny surface and run amok through my drained body. I flush, and somewhere deep, deep down my muscles clench deliciously.
He smells clean, you say? How sexy! The bare minimum in personal grooming! Also, Ana, stop referring to your genitals as “somewhere deep, deep down.” It’s not the fucking Underland. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that that nice feeling originates from between your legs, you nitwit.
Christian gets called a control freak by the narration again. This time it’s because he… ordered Ana a glass of water. And was served it immediately. How long is it supposed to take to give someone a glass of water? If I had a hard copy of this book instead of a PDF, I would throw it against the wall. Actually, I’m kind of tempted to just put the PDF on a flash drive and throw that against the wall, but I don’t want to risk breaking the flash drive.
After Ana drinks the water, Christian leads her onto the dance floor. Ana freaks out because she can’t dance and — wait, why are they dancing? They’re supposed to be finding Kate, then getting out of there because Ana can barely stand on her own two feet. But no, they just start dancing. Ana speculates that she’s able to keep up because she’s drunk. I doubt that is how that works.
They spot Kate, who is flirting aggressively with Christian’s brother Elliot. Ana is shocked by this for some reason. It’s not that she’s concerned that Kate might not be thinking clearly because she’s had a lot to drink, so I guess it’s because she thinks Kate is being awfully slutty or something. I hate this book. Christian says something to Elliot (who was probably Jasper in the original, because he’s tall with curly blond hair). Kate spots Ana and just grins and waves. After all that, Ana doesn’t even tell Kate about going home with Christian, because Christian pulls her off the dance floor. Sure, he probably told Elliot what was going on, but still — this is legitimate control freak behavior, and it isn’t even commented on. I hate this book.
Ana thinks vaguely about finding Kate and giving her the “safe sex lecture,” but that thought doesn’t last long, as her head begins swimming, the world goes foggy, and she passes out in Christian’s arms.
The chapter ends there. Thank god.
Holy Cow! Alert:
Holy cow – he’s leading me onto the dance floor.
Bonus: two “Holy shit!”s, two “Holy crap!”s, one “Holy fuck!” and — wait for it — one “Holy Moses!”
And Now, A Word From Ana’s Subconscious Alert:
[Ana is sad because Christian didn’t kiss her] What would Christian Grey want with you? My subconscious mocks me.
[Ana is still sad because Christian didn’t kiss her] Stop! Stop Now! – My subconscious is metaphorically screaming at me, arms folded, leaning on one leg and tapping her foot in frustration.
[Ana wonders if Christian is saving himself for marriage] Well not for you, my sleepy subconscious has a final swipe at me before unleashing itself on my dreams.
[Ana wonders if it’s legal for Christian to track her phone] Stalker, my subconscious whispers at me through the cloud of tequila that’s still floating in my brain, but somehow, because it’s him, I don’t mind.
[Ana is embarrassed that Christian saw her drunk] Oh Ana… are you ever going to live this down? My subconscious is figuratively tutting and glaring at me over her half moon specs.
There’s also a special appearance by Ana’s “psyche,” which screams NO! when Christian doesn’t kiss her.
Great Prose Alert:
Oh no… not the Katherine Kavanagh Inquisition. I shake my head at her in a back-off now Kavanagh way – but I might as well be dealing with a blind, deaf mute.
Yes, I manage to sound matter of fact.
Inside I’m doing graceful cartwheels around my head, knowing full well that’s the only place I can do graceful cartwheels.
I recognize the quote from Tess. I am stunned by the irony as I’ve just spent three hours writing about the novels of Thomas Hardy in my final examination. [Okay, normally I prefer to post these without comment, but… holy shit, the author has no idea what “irony” means.]
Okay… so his gray eyes are still haunting my dreams, and I know it will take an eternity to expunge the feel of his arms around me and his wonderful fragrance from my brain.
“I’m not the strange one, you are,” I accuse. There – that told him, my courage fuelled by alcohol.
His tone is so, so dictatorial, his usual control freak. I imagine him as an old time movie director wearing jodhpurs, holding an old fashioned megaphone and a riding crop. The image makes me laugh out loud.
In my groggy frame of mind, he looks yummy.
Foreshadowing Alert:
In the back of my mind, my mother’s often-recited warning comes to me: Never trust a man who can dance.
(Is that an actual saying? Is this a saying in the UK? Did the author make it up? I know I’ve never heard it.)
Thoughts So Far:
This chapter started out bad, went through a brief period of being okay, then took a nosedive into Completely Fucking Awful territory.
To start off with something relatively minor: Christian’s not kissing Ana in the beginning. I’m not going to pass comment on Christian’s change of heart, because we don’t know his reasoning yet, but I am going to complain about Ana, or, more specifically, what it says about the author that Ana believes that women cannot be the ones to initiate the first kiss. The thought that she could kiss Christian does not even cross her mind — it’s a given to her that he would have to make the first move, and this implies that the author expects it to be a given to the readers as well. And I don’t even think I have to explain why that’s shit.
But there are bigger problems in this chapter. Christian’s present to Ana, for example. What the fuck? What kind of asshole tries to warn someone off with a gift worth thousands of dollars? I mean, outside of a context where someone is getting paid to stay quiet, this makes no sense, and I can’t even tell whether it’s intended as manipulation or is just incredibly thickheaded. Giving someone a present that expensive is a way of making them have a debt to you, especially when it’s someone you don’t know well; it seems a little too likely that Grey is doing this because he wants Ana to owe him something. But, on the other hand, it could be the gesture of a clueless rich dude who doesn’t understand that a gift worth pocket change to him comes off as outlandishly extravagant when given to a middle-class acquaintance. I have no idea if I should be mad at Christian for being manipulative or if I should infer from this that Christian doesn’t know how to interact with people other than by throwing money at them, and that in itself pisses me off.
I think I’ve already made my point about how awful the cell phone tracking incident was, but I want to emphasize: just because something ended up working out for the better doesn’t mean it was okay to do in the first place. The author has a big problem with this (as we’ll see in later chapters); she’ll have Christian do something that’s basically horrible, but because it ended up causing something good to happen, or because Ana didn’t mind (or actively enjoyed it), the implication is that what Christian did was okay. And it’s not. And I hate that I even have to explain this because it should be obvious as hell.
I don’t want to overlook José’s behavior in this chapter, but, since the way his assault of Ana is handled by other characters in later chapters is really weird, I’ll wait to talk about it.
The only thing bearable about this chapter was drunk!Ana, a character we sadly never see again despite Ana being drunk at several other points in the story. Rest in peace.