Written by John Escher   

Just as the novel OBLOMOV by Goncharov is an allegory about old Russia getting up off of her couch, FIFTY SHADES OF GREY by E.L. James is about how Mitt Romney, if elected president, will put the United States down on a couch.

The fact that one of these novels is good and the other extremely horrid has little to do with our American prospects. Neither does the respective popularity of these books, revealing though that topic is. Nor is the actual sex life of Mitt Romney, as women know it, very relevant since all of it (just Mitt’s sex life and not that of his grandfather) will only fully bloom once he has bound the wrists of the United States together with a woven necktie.

What does this all mean? That Mitt is a homophobe who will remove the hair of any gay person as already happened at Cranbrook School? Maybe. More central, starting next February, we will have all private sector and no public sector any more. Is this current plan of Mitt even workable? In history? Where?

From the first pages of FIFTY SHADES OF GREY we can see that Christian Grey, “enigmatic CEO of Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc.” is a dead ringer for Mitt Romney.

And his suite of offices is high—very high in the top of a penis-like building.

He is a “dom,” we soon learn, just as the United States or the book’s protagonist Anastasia Steele is a “sub” in search of her inner Republican.

The thing about allegory is that anything can be substituted for anything else. Thus, either the word “amnesia” or “anaesthesia” can be substituted for the name “Anastasia.” And Ana’s typical utterances on every page, “Jeez,” “Jeez, this is hot,” “Oh my” and a series of mild obscenities can all be replaced by the single expression “Gee willikers!!”

Yes, that’s how properly to read the book and how to read the United States, too much of which has a not very hidden wish to be manhandled.

“Gee willikers!!” our nation of subs will say—as the nation itself goes away.