Fifty Shades of Grey: turned on to high art Is there anything that Fifty Shades of Grey can't do? Not only has EL James's erotic bestseller cheered up the sex lives of around 20 million households, but as The Daily Telegraph reported last week, it has had an unexpectedly invigorating effect on the sales of the Tallis Scholars" recording of Thomas Tallis's 40-part motet, Spem in Alium. The CD, to which James's protagonists listen while otherwise occupied, has leapt up the UK Classical Singles Chart, and it is impossible not to wonder what other productive partnerships there might be between erotica and high art. Alas, a grim afternoon spent slogging through a daunting assortment of literature from the closed shelves produced just one musical reference - to a band of Scottish bagpipers - in Alina Reyes, interactive erotic adventure Behind Closed Doors. In her essay The Pornographic Imagination, Susan Sontag reckoned that the books of the Marquis de Sade are "the Wagnerian music dramas of pornographic literature - neither subtle nor compact." But that probably isn't helpful for sales either of de Sade or Wagner. EL James aside, the recent fiction that has done most for high art is probably Howard Jacobson's novel The Act of Love, a sado-masochistic tragedy played out in the Wallace Collection - though the museum's joy at increased visitor numbers must have been overshadowed by having to keep a sharp lookout to stop anyone imitating Jacobson's protagonists, who leave notes with details of their assignations behind the priceless exhibits.