Rather taken by the blurb on the 1st edtion ppback of Octopussy (Uncle Zencat's excellent series http://debrief.comma...__fromsearch__1) that the stories...
"...remind us that it is the mastery of the world of things rather than people that gives Fleming his peculiar literary niche..." - Anthony Burgess
On the one hand this looks like a bit of a backhanded compliment - Fleming was good for describing stuff but there's no real humanity in there (I dunno though - is Burgess saying this?) - but a compliment nonetheless.
Have to say since reading this earlier today it's distracted me into thinking - was Fleming really a master of things, and by extraction, events rather than his work demonstrating much if anything about people? Does his work contain comment on human nature or is it largely that people are defined through their possession or attitude to things & stuff? Is there no "mastery" of the world of people?
I seem to recall an arresting passage (fnarr) in Casino Royale when Bond and Mathis debate the nature of good and evil, and there's plenty of pontificating of the sort from the likes of Dr No and Blofeld (but they're hardly representative of "humanity").
Just wondered - are there any "human" incidents that the "mastery of things" swamps? Quantum of Solace (t'story), there's another one.
Was Burgess being a bit, y'know, mean?
3 replies to this topic
#1
Jim
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Posted 23 January 2012 - 05:41 PM
#2
SecretAgentFan
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Posted 23 January 2012 - 06:26 PM
A bit full of himself? Envious? I think so.
I´m re-reading Fleming these days and I find his character portrayals very spot on. Yes, he is looking rather coldly at many of his characters. But that´s something Kubrick and later on the Coens have been criticized for, too. Unjustly, I believe. Just because their narrative intentions are not about making you feel good about the human condition does not mean they are lacking in narrative quality.
Of course, Fleming´s depiction of minorities (or majorities, for that matter) is prejudiced very often - and today this is sometimes hard to tolerate. However, one must take into consideration that a) this was the zeitgeist during that time, and
one must not mistake the narrator for the author. In a Cold War thriller about spies I do not expect a warm, cuddly view on human behaviour or viewpoints concerning foreign agents.
By the way, as a German I know a bit about prejudice myself, of course. Myriads of books and movies depict Germans as unemotional, hateful order-followers, and I know that this is not true. For most Germans. Unfortunately, it still is true for some.
I´m re-reading Fleming these days and I find his character portrayals very spot on. Yes, he is looking rather coldly at many of his characters. But that´s something Kubrick and later on the Coens have been criticized for, too. Unjustly, I believe. Just because their narrative intentions are not about making you feel good about the human condition does not mean they are lacking in narrative quality.
Of course, Fleming´s depiction of minorities (or majorities, for that matter) is prejudiced very often - and today this is sometimes hard to tolerate. However, one must take into consideration that a) this was the zeitgeist during that time, and
one must not mistake the narrator for the author. In a Cold War thriller about spies I do not expect a warm, cuddly view on human behaviour or viewpoints concerning foreign agents.By the way, as a German I know a bit about prejudice myself, of course. Myriads of books and movies depict Germans as unemotional, hateful order-followers, and I know that this is not true. For most Germans. Unfortunately, it still is true for some.
#3
Miles Miservy
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Posted 23 January 2012 - 08:34 PM
I've always felt that the reason Ian Fleming wrote so effectively was that he was more detailed when describing action sequences than he was describing character development. With chacter studies (& interarctions) ambiguous at best, it gives me (the reader) plenty of room for interpretation. I think that's why his legacy of books & films have lasted so long. I will certainly re-read them again & again, and I'm quite certain my kids will too.
Edited by Miles Miservy, 23 January 2012 - 08:35 PM.
#4
Dustin
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Posted 23 January 2012 - 09:20 PM
I think an important factor - maybe even the key factor - for understanding Fleming's impact on his contemporaries is the kind of paradigm shift that the WWI generation experienced and that Fleming - perhaps unwittingly - stands for. For the sake of the argument I'm going to allocate both Anthony Burgess (*1917) and Ian Fleming (*1908) to the same generation, but a mere nine years may be forgiven here.
Prior to WWI the industrial revolution was in full swing, but what was called 'consumerism' later ('a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts') was only in its first stages. There were some immensely rich people living in great luxury. But in the greater scheme of things they were few and didn't purchase goods on nearly the scale later generations did. Parsimony was a virtue, not the insult it's often turned into today. The majority of people bought things when they needed something new. And discarded them when they were broken beyond repair. A pursuit of happiness was considered flamboyant, pleasure for its own sake frivolous and certainly nothing one achieved by indulging beyond all boundaries, not in general at least.
With WWI industrial revolution arrived at modern warfare and Europe's youth was stuffed inside the great mincer by the millions. Whole generations of young men were squashed on an industrial scale, torn apart, burned, poisoned or simply shot; all rather unceremonously and incredibly fast (although not fast enough for the poor sods). Survivors were often marked for life, disfigured or blinded, shell shocked or fatally ill. Those coming back from the battlefields of WWI had a distinctively different view on the world from those young enthusiastic and naive boys that set out to win the war (the Great War, as people called it after the fact; ironically referring to the smaller of the two) in a matter of weeks. In the countries involved practically no family wasn't either affected directly, or at any rate knew somebody who lost a kin.
This great conflict, that defied imagination and description, changed the world in more ways than the results of the Treaty of Versailles showed. The survivors (and in a way everybody was a survivor here, because the war no longer distinguished between soldier and civilist) developed a craving for life. The Great War had shown them, how fast their existence could come to an end, how little the virtues of their elders meant when the time was up and there was nothing left than to prey. If one still preyed, that is. While the basic consensus of society still insisted on a traditional attitude towards consumption, enjoyment and extravagance, there was now a whole generation that was marked by an existential conflict they had barely survived and were set to make the most of the rest of their lives. The phenomenon of the Roaring Twenties is for a great part due to this fundamental change in values.
Fleming and Burgess now - no, I haven't forgotten my initial argument - both belonged to a generation that was still taught the pre-war set of values, while all around them the evidence of a different lifestyle became apparent. They both grew up into an awareness of this paradigm shift, they were both sensible for the effects and each dealt in his own way with it in their works. But while Burgess in his works frequently mourns the loss of virtue and value due to modern society, Fleming hardly ever notes a total loss of these and never denies basic values such as love, friendship, courage and even humanism. Fleming has particularly a soft spot for material consumption and carnal desires, that's true. But he's likewise able to give insights into characters and their motivations. There is a great little study of the masseuse caring for Red Grant, there is Fawcett at the picture desk of the Daily Gleaner in Jamaica, four paragraphs that draw the most detailed picture of a character that doesn't even have a role in the book, complete with first payment for a Morris Minor and a green eyeshade he feels makes him look more imposing. Not bad for a writer who supposedly is more at home with things than people, is it?
While Fleming is not always able to understand the nuances of characters Bond encounters, there is still a wealth of intriguing detail to be found that doesn't concern itself at all with 'things' as such. To the contrary, the best effect Fleming generally achieves when he couples the famed things to some emotion. The ugly Beretta that has saved Bond's life so often, which evokes an unfamiliar feeling of loss when he's ordered to leave it on M's desk.* The Bentley that's rescued by Bond from the hands of a rich fool who abused the machine by an unconventional maneuvre involving a tree. Carefully restored under great pains and endowed with a new heart that beats now in Bond's service on the roads of Europe.
You see, Fleming's 'trick' isn't simply to recite an endless list of brands and model specifications. That would make his books simply uninspired catalogues of yesterday's fashion. Fleming describes the emotions and feelings that merge with the item in question in his imagination. It's seldom simply about the 4 litre and a half Bentley, it's about the roaring machines that had whipped the blasted SSK's (with Caracciola, Brauchitsch, Lang and Seaman behind the wheels) almost as they wished. Before Bentley tamed them down into sedate towncarriages.
Fleming's style has earned him the dubious fame of being particularly good with things, while in fact he's particularly good with sharing his enjoyment of them. The difference is a whole world and the accusation (if Burgess' praise here is to be read as accusation, perhaps unwittingly) misreads Fleming in much the same manner the accusations of amorality and sadomasochism do.
*Btw: No, it didn't save Bond's life particularly often. It's his third Beretta model since Drax took the first with him to the ground of the Channel and Bond had to leave behind M's 'present/reminder' on board the Queen Elizabeth.
Prior to WWI the industrial revolution was in full swing, but what was called 'consumerism' later ('a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts') was only in its first stages. There were some immensely rich people living in great luxury. But in the greater scheme of things they were few and didn't purchase goods on nearly the scale later generations did. Parsimony was a virtue, not the insult it's often turned into today. The majority of people bought things when they needed something new. And discarded them when they were broken beyond repair. A pursuit of happiness was considered flamboyant, pleasure for its own sake frivolous and certainly nothing one achieved by indulging beyond all boundaries, not in general at least.
With WWI industrial revolution arrived at modern warfare and Europe's youth was stuffed inside the great mincer by the millions. Whole generations of young men were squashed on an industrial scale, torn apart, burned, poisoned or simply shot; all rather unceremonously and incredibly fast (although not fast enough for the poor sods). Survivors were often marked for life, disfigured or blinded, shell shocked or fatally ill. Those coming back from the battlefields of WWI had a distinctively different view on the world from those young enthusiastic and naive boys that set out to win the war (the Great War, as people called it after the fact; ironically referring to the smaller of the two) in a matter of weeks. In the countries involved practically no family wasn't either affected directly, or at any rate knew somebody who lost a kin.
This great conflict, that defied imagination and description, changed the world in more ways than the results of the Treaty of Versailles showed. The survivors (and in a way everybody was a survivor here, because the war no longer distinguished between soldier and civilist) developed a craving for life. The Great War had shown them, how fast their existence could come to an end, how little the virtues of their elders meant when the time was up and there was nothing left than to prey. If one still preyed, that is. While the basic consensus of society still insisted on a traditional attitude towards consumption, enjoyment and extravagance, there was now a whole generation that was marked by an existential conflict they had barely survived and were set to make the most of the rest of their lives. The phenomenon of the Roaring Twenties is for a great part due to this fundamental change in values.
Fleming and Burgess now - no, I haven't forgotten my initial argument - both belonged to a generation that was still taught the pre-war set of values, while all around them the evidence of a different lifestyle became apparent. They both grew up into an awareness of this paradigm shift, they were both sensible for the effects and each dealt in his own way with it in their works. But while Burgess in his works frequently mourns the loss of virtue and value due to modern society, Fleming hardly ever notes a total loss of these and never denies basic values such as love, friendship, courage and even humanism. Fleming has particularly a soft spot for material consumption and carnal desires, that's true. But he's likewise able to give insights into characters and their motivations. There is a great little study of the masseuse caring for Red Grant, there is Fawcett at the picture desk of the Daily Gleaner in Jamaica, four paragraphs that draw the most detailed picture of a character that doesn't even have a role in the book, complete with first payment for a Morris Minor and a green eyeshade he feels makes him look more imposing. Not bad for a writer who supposedly is more at home with things than people, is it?
While Fleming is not always able to understand the nuances of characters Bond encounters, there is still a wealth of intriguing detail to be found that doesn't concern itself at all with 'things' as such. To the contrary, the best effect Fleming generally achieves when he couples the famed things to some emotion. The ugly Beretta that has saved Bond's life so often, which evokes an unfamiliar feeling of loss when he's ordered to leave it on M's desk.* The Bentley that's rescued by Bond from the hands of a rich fool who abused the machine by an unconventional maneuvre involving a tree. Carefully restored under great pains and endowed with a new heart that beats now in Bond's service on the roads of Europe.
You see, Fleming's 'trick' isn't simply to recite an endless list of brands and model specifications. That would make his books simply uninspired catalogues of yesterday's fashion. Fleming describes the emotions and feelings that merge with the item in question in his imagination. It's seldom simply about the 4 litre and a half Bentley, it's about the roaring machines that had whipped the blasted SSK's (with Caracciola, Brauchitsch, Lang and Seaman behind the wheels) almost as they wished. Before Bentley tamed them down into sedate towncarriages.
Fleming's style has earned him the dubious fame of being particularly good with things, while in fact he's particularly good with sharing his enjoyment of them. The difference is a whole world and the accusation (if Burgess' praise here is to be read as accusation, perhaps unwittingly) misreads Fleming in much the same manner the accusations of amorality and sadomasochism do.
*Btw: No, it didn't save Bond's life particularly often. It's his third Beretta model since Drax took the first with him to the ground of the Channel and Bond had to leave behind M's 'present/reminder' on board the Queen Elizabeth.
Edited by Dustin, 24 January 2012 - 05:47 AM.