James Bond: not Sherlock Holmes, but another immortal (at least for a couple of generations, until the movies stop coming out). Ian Fleming, the author, who died young at 56 from the high-life he let his hero get away with without harm -- drinking, smoking, rich foods, and a cleanliness fetish like three showers a day, etc. (plus dangerman stuff which Ian Fleming did NOT do personally), lucked out after publishing five or six reasonably popular books about his licensed-to-kill spy James Bond. The John Kennedy publicity machine, when they wanted to promote him as a reader of popular fiction (which he wasn't) picked Fleming, and James Bond has never lost popularity since then, especially with the continuing movie blitz long after the author's death. But who's to criticize that? James Bond ranks right up there with, not Holmes, but Batman and that ilk.
Fleming wrote about 13 books about James Bond (there is some doubt about whether some were ghost-written), and there have been several sequels, mostly by the 'official' posthumous writer, John Gardner -- although these don't really match up to the originals. The books are not really that well written, even if a hell of a lot better
than the works of Sax Rohmer or Mickey Spillane. What they all have in common is
a carefully researched new setting, Jamaica, Japan, etc., and new background training for Bond's undercover assignment, gold bullion, diamonds, heraldry, etc., all
of which Fleming researched carefully and pretty fully, probably doing it on expense account and with a lot of help from his friends in the newspaper and intelligence services. The gambling backgrounds are particularly good. A villain in a Bond book
is always first suspect because he cheats at bridge or golf or something like that,
definitely proving himself no gentleman in upper society Britain. And that's what Bond
(Fleming) supports above all, as long as it is truly patriotic and aristocratic. Another nice thing about Bond, that is politically incorrect now (and improbable), is that
he will happily screw any woman who isn't repulsive, smokes like a fiend, and always has a few strong drinks before he starts the dangerous part of his mission. And he is compulsively snobbish and contemptuous of everybody who is not British, with exceptions for some Americans and 'decent' piratical types from Corsica or wherever.
I have undertaken lately to re-read all the Bond books, and don't find them as fun as when originally read when they came out, but still damned good.
Added spice these days is references to the quonset huts at Idlewild Airport in NYC
(now Kennedy, and totally different), and BOAC Stratocruiser prop planes, which actually had bunk beds in them and took 14 hours to cross the Atlantic, and also ocean liners, and a real love of old-fashioned passenger-train services. Fleming would have been appalled to find his old nemesis, the Soviet Union, gone the way it did. Too bad. Here are capsule summaries of the books:
- Casino Royale: Pretty mild; JB is sent to disgrace a Russian spy-master,
who has a cash-flow problem based on his addiction to gambling in the casino, by beating him at his own game (Baccarat). We read incidentally that Bond has been with the Secret Service at least from 1938 -- oh, well. Ends up being tortured in a
nasty way with a carpetbeater, but this is not a landmark book except for being the first. The enemy then was SMERSH, the Soviet spy-killing agency. Later on, SPECTRE, a more private enterprise, became the big evil.
- Live and Let Die: This is the first one I ever read (in 1961 or so) and got me hooked. In retrospect it is pretty crude and politically incorrect about 'Negroes'. But it's really good and establishes the basic groundwork for all subsequent plots in the series.
- Moonraker: Really laughable idea about a rich ex-Nazi (who cheats at cards) who is a hero of Britain and builds an advanced rocket missile for the country out of his philanthropic heart, actually to blow up London. But space science
back then really was a matter of amateurs with visionary tendencies (early 1950's), when rockets had fins and the scientists were all kidnapped Germans from Hitler's V2 project.
- Diamonds Are Forever: Famous for the opening scene with the scorpion,
which they even kept in the movie. Otherwise, it's gangsters, diamond smuggling, and Las Vegas. Not a great one in the series, although we get some interesting background about the diamond industry/cartel. [This was the last JB movie Sean
Connery did, but the movie hardly resembled the book at all.]
- From Russia, with Love. One of the all-time classics (especially as the
movie). A plot by the Russians to destroy JB as a scapegoat and destroy the credibility of the British Secret Service. Great stuff in Istanbul, the Orient Express, etc. This is really one of the best of these books, especially villains like Rosa Klebb and Red Grant.
- Doctor No: The first one made into a movie, and who will ever forget the
'three-blind-men' opening? The plot is totally absurd, but it works on all cylinders so who cares? [Sean Connery established the role here, even though he doesn't really
resemble the JB of the books, who was said to look like Hoagy Carmichael, whoever he is/was.]
- Goldfinger: Another of the classic first three movies. This book has a ridiculous plot too (kill everybody living in Ft Knox KY and then rob all the gold in the bullion depository). Also has Pussy Galore, the Lesbian gangster, one of the
silliest names/personas among JB's legion of girlfriends. As a book, it doesn't hack it, but the film was good, especially Oddjob the Korean killer.
- Thunderball: Controversy over whether Fleming really wrote this, but it reads as though he did, even though it was commissioned by Hollywood for the movie, which was the first of the really high-tech ones that went way beyond the book in special effects. But it's really damn good anyway.
- For Your Eyes Only: Collection of five short stories (Fleming was on a rest cure) from previous sources like Playboy magazine. "From a View to a Kill" is
hackwork, "For Your Eyes Only" is one of the best stories of this sort EVER WRITTEN (I mean it!), "Quantum of Solace" is an attempt at doing a Somerset Maugham tale, "Risico" is entertaining enough and foreshadows OHMSS, and "The Hildebrand Rarity" ends this nice collection with another of my favorite JB stories -- this also ranks in major anthologies even though it is not technically a spy story.
- The Spy Who Loved Me: Didn't like this when it first came out -- no super-villain or world-shaking conspiracy. On re-reading, it now strikes me as being the first Stephen King novel (in his non-supernatural sense) ever written, which can only increase one's respect for Ian Fleming.
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service [OHMSS]: This is the best JB book. Starts out in Royale (shades of the past), involves a cover story as an agent of the College of Heralds, has a bang-up ski/bobsled chase in the Swiss Alps. Bond ends
up getting married (briefly). This was the first JB movie without Connery, had an
unknown George Lazenby, who was actually very good -- and had Diana Rigg as the
heroine, which made it perfect. All in all, the quintessential James Bond book, including some nice nasty villains like Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Irma Bunt. Why after his plastic-surgery makeover after Thunderball, Blofeld had a syphilitic nose
is a puzzle, however, although having his ear-lobes removed makes sense considering his quest for a ducal title.
- You Only Live Twice: Wonderful, the most exotic of the series [but perhaps ghost-written by Roald Dahl -- not sure about this]. Has the Garden of Death
and the first exposure to the general public of the ninjas (although they took more notice of that in the movie). The general tone is rather contemptuous of Japanese culture, but that's to be expected in a JB book.
- The Man with the Golden Gun: Does not measure up to the earlier books -- Fleming was fatally ill when he wrote this -- he even changed Mary Goodnight's hair color from raven to blond [Mary was the replacement for Bond's secretary, Loelia Ponsonby, who went off and married a Canadian bank manager]. My edition of the book (Signet, 1966) is also very poorly edited: "James Bond's had turned" for example, and there are sentences that don't make any sense at all. This is a half-assed JB novel, which is a pity. But has its moments, such as when the villain Scaramanga casually blows away two tame birds in a tea shop; like with the earlier villains who cheated at cards, this makes him a cad. This book is rather like the "Return of Sherlock Holmes" -- he just wasn't the same person again after his return from trauma and death in the previous stories.
- Octopussy: Posthumous collection. Three random stories that had appeared in magazines before or just after Fleming's death. "Octopussy" -- a really good story (in spite of its silly title), which deserves to be anthologized. JB is minor to it, just acts as Nemesis; really good send-off for Ian Fleming, since it wasn't published until after his death -- maybe he'd written it earlier and hadn't published it. This is one of the best stories Fleming ever wrote, a real 'mea culpa'. "The Living Daylights" -- amusing enough, and it shows Bond being sent off on a straight double-0 job (assassination, pure and simple). "Property of a Lady" -- anecdotal crap about an auction at Sotheby's, giving Fleming an opportunity to name-drop his friend Peter Wilson the auctioneer.
December 18, 1999. Have run out of the book marathon. Hell!
Sequels. After Fleming's death in 1964, there were several sequel Bond books, by various authors (including, I remember vaguely, Kingsley Amis and Anthony Burgess), but notably John Gardner, who is a decent
writer in his own right -- the Moriarty books, for example. However, even though there have been like a dozen of these, none of them are the 'real thing'. The originals
are always short, quirky, and full of travelog, food, wine, women, and the rich life; plots really absurd and simple-minded -- after all, what true famous spy is going to
go around saying "My name is Bond, James Bond" when he comes on the scene?
(a trademark, like "Elementary, my dear Watson"). I read a couple of them, but have
not followed up. What we have is sufficient. As for the movies, after Sean Connery gave up the role, except for Lazenby's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", which was damn good and had the wonderful Diana Rigg, one can't say much in favor of the Roger Moore ones (especially with Telly Savalas and his damn white cat), and I haven't even seen any of the Pierce Brosnan's. The first three Connery's were great, even though they have dated a lot -- not such wild
special effects as we have come to expect in this sort of movie, but closer to the spirit of the books. And the opening formula, some sort of novel and exciting vignette, always works well.
All in all, although many fans won't agree with me, my favorites are On Her Majesty's Secret Service, From Russia, with Love, and two short stories: "The Hildebrand Rarity" and "Octopussy".
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