One of the joys of fiction is that it can transport you utterly to another place, another time, even inside the mind of another person. However, the alchemy is a fragile process and it doesn't take much to shatter it. Sometimes all it takes is a tiny reminder of the outside world.
The means of communication used by the characters in Looking for Buttons may strike some readers as a little behind the times: they text and e-mail and sometimes (heaven forfend!) actually talk to each other. No-one tweets or posts status updates to Facebook. This was deliberate. It is not just that I am a dinosaur (an eleanorbrontesaurus, perhaps). As I wrote, I was aware that techonology moves on apace and using the wrong gadget would date it far more than the actions of the characters. (One of my guinea pigs was quick to point out that at one point Kate Harper, the narrator, was watching a video rather than a DVD. I didn't even consider bringing Blu-Ray into it.) Even so, I'd far rather that someone thought I was a little old-fashioned than be jolted out of the book completely by something being so odd that it made them question the workings of the world within the book.
And what prompted this post? It wasn't even a book I've read. No, it's the behemoth that is Fifty Shade of Grey (again). And the thought that is going to prevent me ever being able to buy into the story, should I read it, is this:
What does Christian Grey's cleaner think of it all? Or does he dust his dungeon himself?
It never does to have a practical nature when dealing with escapist fiction.
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