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In a note to readers on the dedication page of her new novel, “Grey,” E. L. James sounds a bit like the exasperated mother of whiny, demanding children.
在最新一部小说《灰》(Grey)的题献页上，E·L·詹姆斯(E.L. James)有话对读者们说，她的口气活像一个被嘟嘟囔囔，要这要那的孩子们惹火的妈妈。
“This book is dedicated to those readers who asked ... and asked ... and asked ... and asked for this,” she writes.
“这本书献给那些没完没了地让我写……让我写……让我写……让我写这本书的人，”她写道。
“Grey” is a 559-page retelling of Ms. James’s blockbuster erotic novel “Fifty Shades of Grey,” this time from the perspective of the moody billionaire Christian Grey. Readers who tore through “Fifty Shades of Grey” and the other books in the best-selling trilogy have been badgering Ms. James for this version since she published the books in 2011.
559页的《灰》把詹姆斯女士轰动一时的性爱小说《五十度灰》(Fifty Shades of Grey)重新讲述了一遍，不过这一次是从喜怒无常的亿万富翁克里斯蒂安·格雷(Christian Grey)的视角出发。
For many fans, the wait ended Thursday with the publication of “Grey,” which rehashes Christian’s seduction of the demure college student Anastasia Steele as he draws her into a dominant-submissive sadomasochistic relationship.
《五十度灰》讲了克里斯蒂安诱惑羞怯的大学生安娜斯塔西娅·斯蒂勒(Anastasia Steele)，带领她进入一段主仆虐恋关系的故事 ，对于许多《五十度灰》的书迷来说，上周四出版的《灰》意味着他们的等待终于结束了。
But others refused to wait for Ms. James to write more. Instead, they created versions of Christian Grey’s story and posted them online, where they are drawing huge audiences of their own.
但是也有一些人等不及詹姆斯女士的续集。他们创作出自己的克里斯蒂安·格雷故事，并把它们贴在网上，还吸引了为数众多的读者。
Gillian Griffin, a married, 58-year-old mother of three who lives in Surrey, England, was so smitten with the enigmatic, controlling character that she rewrote all three “Fifty Shades” novels from his point of view, and posted them on her blog, Meet Fifty Shades, under the pen name Christian Grey. It was mostly for her own amusement, she said, but others noticed. The novels, which took her a year to complete, have been viewed 8.8 million times. Ms. Griffin said she was eager to see what Ms. James has done with the same material.
吉莉安·格里芬(Gillian Griffin)58岁，已婚，有三个子女，住在英格兰的萨里，她迷恋格雷这个神秘莫测，充满控制欲的角色，于是从他的视角把《五十度灰》三部曲重写了一遍，并把它贴在自己的博客“相逢五十度灰”(Meet Fifty Shades)上，并使用“克里斯蒂安·格雷”作为笔名。她说这主要是为了自娱自乐，但是这引起了其他人的关注。她花了一年写成了这些小说，如今已经被阅读880万次。格里芬说，她很想读一读詹姆斯女士是怎么来写同样题材的。
“I’m very curious to see how her story is different from mine,” Ms. Griffin, who has also written “Downton Abbey” fan fiction, said in a phone interview. “It’s a little bit weird, because it’s her story, her work, her characters. I was just borrowing them for a bit of fun.”
“我非常好奇，想看看她的故事和我的有多不一样，”格里芬女士在接受电话采访时说，她也写《唐顿庄园》(Downton Abbey)的同人小说，“这有点奇怪，因为这毕竟是她的故事、她的作品、她的人物。我只是因为好玩才把它们拿过来。”
Fan fiction usually follows in the wake of a popular franchise, as readers take ownership of the characters and create their own stories. But in an unusual twist, Ms. James’s followers got out ahead of her, recasting “Fifty Shades” from the smoldering billionaire’s point of view well before she announced plans to do so herself.
一部流行的商业系列大作之后，通常会有同人小说随之而来，读者们借用作品中的角色，创作他们自己的故事。但情况不同的是，詹姆斯的拥趸们走在她前面，用书中这位闷骚的亿万富翁的视角重写故事，之后詹姆斯本人才宣布，她也有同样的写作计划。
“Every girl that read that book fell in love with him,” said a “Fifty Shades” fan in Glasgow who publishes fan fiction about Christian Grey under the pen name Scarlette Drake on the website Wattpad, a popular site for fan fiction and original stories. (She spoke on condition her real name not be used to avoid scandalizing her co-workers at a housing charity.)
“所有看过这本书的女孩都会爱上他，”一位格拉斯哥的《五十度灰》书迷说，她以“斯嘉丽·德雷克”(Scarlette Drake)为笔名创作这本书的同人小说，发表在“Wattpad”网站上，这是一个很受欢迎的同人小说及原创小说网站（她拒绝使用真名接受采访，以免遭到住房慈善机构的同事们的嘲笑）。
That fans would run amok with the story was probably inevitable. Readers today often behave more like corporate shareholders than consumers, demanding a say in the direction a story takes and adding their own flourishes and twists. With thriving online fan communities, devotees of a franchise can easily find their niche. There are 2,400 fan-fiction stories based on “Fifty Shades” published on fanfiction.net, and many more on Tumblr and “Fifty Shades”-centric sites.
书迷对原作的大肆删改似乎无可避免。如今的读者通常更像股东，而不是消费者，他们要求对故事的走向持有发言权，希望加入他们自己对情节的修饰和转折。网上的粉丝团体非常活跃，商业系列的忠诚拥趸们可以轻易找到组织。比如网站fanfiction.net上就有2400篇根据《五十度灰》创作的同人小说，Tumblr网站和“五十度灰”专题网站上还有更多。
Ms. James said she was flattered that readers have found her characters so engaging.
詹姆斯女士说，读者们觉得她笔下的角色很迷人，这令她受宠若惊。
“I’m delighted that people are writing fan fiction based on ‘Fifty Shades,’ though I haven’t read any of it,” she said, responding to questions through her publisher. “It’s a huge compliment.”
“我很高兴人们为《五十度灰》创作同人小说，尽管我自己并没读过，”她通过出版商接受了采访。“这是极高的赞美。”
And these writers are just following in the footsteps of Ms. James herself, who started writing “Fifty Shades” as free fan fiction, based on the characters Edward and Bella from Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight.” She changed their names to Christian and Anastasia, deleted her original fan fiction, and published the books with a small press in Australia.
这些写手其实是步上了詹姆斯女士本人的后尘，她的《五十度灰》本来也是免费的同人小说，原型是斯蒂芬妮·梅耶(Stephenie Meyer)的《暮光》(Twilight)系列中的角色爱德华(Edward)与贝拉(Bella)。她把同人小说中原著的名字改成了克里斯蒂安和安娜斯塔西娅，在澳大利亚的一个小出版社出版。
After Vintage acquired paperback rights to the trilogy and published it in 2012, the books went on to sell 125 million copies in 52 languages. A feature film released in February generated nearly $570 million in global ticket sales. The series even spawned an unlikely line of merchandise, from “Fifty Shades” branded wine and handcuffs to lube and massage oil, vibrators, bondage rope and something called After Spanking cream. Forbes named Ms. James the highest-earning author of 2013, with an estimated income of $95 million.
2012年，Vintage出版社取得了这套三部曲的平装书版权并出版，它很快以52种售出了1.25亿册。2月，根据该书改编的电影在全球创下了5.7亿美元票房。该系列甚至产生了不可思议的衍生商品，从“五十度灰”牌红酒，到手铐、润滑剂、按摩油、振动器、束缚带，乃至“掌臀霜”之类物品。2013年，詹姆斯女士获得9500万美元（约5.9亿元人民币）的收入，被《福布斯》(Forbes)杂志列为当年收入最高的作家。
“Grey” is already the most preordered digital book of 2015 on Amazon. Vintage planned a 1.25 million copy first printing and ordered two more printings based on demand, lifting the total copies in print to 1.6 million.
《灰》目前是2015年亚马逊网站上预售量最高的电子书。Vintage出版社计划首印125万册纸质书，之后根据需求加印两次，目前总印数是160万册。
Some fans are not impressed. On Thursday morning, just hours after the book’s release, a sprinkling of negative reviews on Amazon and Goodreads took aim at “Grey” as a lazy and unimaginative follow up with little in the way of an original plot. “All I got out of this book was a repeat of the original,” a reviewer wrote in a two-star Amazon review. “This book is just an attempt for the author to squeeze every last drop of $$ she can get from this franchise,” another wrote.
也有些书迷并不买账。上星期四上午，该书发行几小时后，亚马逊与Goodreads网站上就出现了少量差评，说《灰》是一部懒惰、缺乏想象力的续作，只是沿用了原著的情节。“这本书只有对原著的重复，”一个读者在亚马逊网站上给出了两星的评价，“这本书无非是作者想从这个商业系列中榨出最后一点钱的努力，”另一个人写道。
For many, though, more of the same is exactly what they want.
不过许多人要的就是重温老调。
“We fell in love with the story of Christian and Anna,” said Penny Brueggemann, 56, who lives in Illinois and works for Purina. “We all wanted more.”
“我们喜欢克里斯蒂安与安娜的故事，”56岁，现居伊利诺斯州，在普瑞纳公司工作的潘妮·布鲁格曼(Penny Brueggemann)说，“我们想看更多。”
She found it online, in the writing of Emine Fougner, 42, who lives in Mesa, Ariz., and works as a freelance linguist and translator for the United States government. About four years ago, Ms. Fougner and a couple friends were dissecting the plot and characters in “Fifty Shades.” They agreed that Christian was the darker, more interesting character. Ms Fougner’s friends urged her to write her own version of the story from his point of view, so she started a blog. “They said, ‘We don’t really care about Ana; we want to hear what he thinks,’ “ she said.
她在网上找到了伊梅恩·弗格纳(Emine Fougner)的作品，弗格纳42岁，现居亚利桑那州的米萨(Mesa)，是为美国政府工作的兼职语言学家和翻译。四年前，弗格纳和几个朋友详细讨论过《五十度灰》中的情节和人物。她们认为克里斯蒂安才是更黑暗，更有趣的角色。朋友们都劝她从他的角度来写这个故事，于是她就开始写博客。“她们说，‘我们才不在乎安娜，我们想知道他是怎么想的，’”她说。
So did a lot of other people, apparently. Her blog, A Walk in the Clouds, has been viewed more than 14 million times. She counts readers in 187 countries. Volunteers have translated her writing into six languages.
显然，很多人也有同感。她的博客“云中漫步”(A Walk in the Clouds)被浏览了1400万次。她统计读者来自187个国家。有志愿者把她的创作翻译成六种语言。
At this point, Ms. Fougner, who has published the equivalent of five novels totaling some 3,500 pages, has written far more about Christian and Anastasia than their creator has.
到目前，弗格纳已经发表了3500页的内容，相当于五本小说，都是关于克里斯蒂安与安娜斯塔西娅的故事，比原作者创作的内容还多。
“I prefer her writing to E. L. James’s writing,” Ms. Brueggemann said. “I don’t think anything can compare.”
“比起E·L·詹姆斯，我更喜欢她写的，”布鲁格曼说，“她无与伦比。”
Another one of Ms. Fougner’s devoted readers, Krystal Shores Bailey, a 32-year-old stay-home mother who lives outside of Birmingham, Ala., said that she read “Grey” when it came out on Thursday and found it lacking compared with Ms. Fougner’s version.
弗格纳的另一位忠实读者克里斯托·肖尔斯·贝利(Krystal Shores Bailey)是一位32岁的全职母亲，住在阿拉斯加州伯明翰郊区，她说上周四《灰》刚刚出版，她就马上先睹为快，觉得它不如弗格纳的版本。
“I know ‘Grey’s’ going to be a letdown for me,” she said. “I’ve already read it through Emine’s eyes, and I honestly don’t think E. L. James can touch her version of Christian.”
“我知道《灰》肯定会让我失望，”她说，“我已经透过伊梅恩的视角去看过这个故事了，诚实地说，我不觉得E·L·詹姆斯能写好克里斯蒂安的故事。”
