155 replies to this topic

[glidrose]

Boyd may not be writing a second Bond novel...

 

'But, [IFP director] Ms. Turner said, authors of Mr. Boyd and Mr. Faulks’s stature were unlikely to do it more than once. “They find it fun and enjoyable,” she said, “but they’ve got their own books to write.”'

 

http://www.nytimes.c...books.html?_r=0

[TheREAL008]

Good.

 

I'm so very very glad to hear that. I may be in the minority, or maybe the euphoria of a new Bond novel hasn't worn off yet...but William Boyd should never have written a Bond novel at all. In my mind he failed miserably and made Devil May Care seem like a better book by comparison. Indeed, reading Solo WAS like eating at McDonalds.

 

IFP should hire another writer to wash this away next year or quit with the past settings and continue on with what Deaver had started with Carte Blanche. With any luck Solo will just be a footnote in Bond literary history and hopefully something much better comes along soon.

[saint mark]

Good.

 

I'm so very very glad to hear that. I may be in the minority, or maybe the euphoria of a new Bond novel hasn't worn off yet...but William Boyd should never have written a Bond novel at all. In my mind he failed miserably and made Devil May Care seem like a better book by comparison. Indeed, reading Solo WAS like eating at McDonalds.

 

IFP should hire another writer to wash this away next year or quit with the past settings and continue on with what Deaver had started with Carte Blanche. With any luck Solo will just be a footnote in Bond literary history and hopefully something much better comes along soon.

 

Sadly I must agree with this sentiment. Having reread DMC after reading SOLO I can honestly admit liking DMC better even if it is a lot of pastiche work, SOLO is more of an insult as it portrays 007 as a well fed, boozing and smoking representative of Great Britain in Africa. His role turns out to be NO better in a post colonial era than that of the psychopatic mercenary in the end. And if that is the massage that Boyd did try to portrait I can only say FU.

[Dustin]

 

SOLO is more of an insult as it portrays 007 as a well fed, boozing and smoking representative of Great Britain in Africa. His role turns out to be NO better in a post colonial era than that of the psychopatic mercenary in the end. And if that is the massage that Boyd did try to portrait I can only say FU.

 

 

Really? I'm a bit astonished since Bond IS a well-fed, boozing and smoking representative of Great Britain, regardless if in Africa or elsewhere on the globe. Arguably the question would only be what he is beyond that.  How you arrive at the sentiment his role was not better than the mercenary's I can't really follow. I must have missed the parts where Bond pulled corpses up the trees...

[OmarB]

I will assert again that Boyd didnt get it.  He clearly tries to imbue class and opulence into the story but instead it is just drinking and boozing in every other scene.  If all these drinking and boozing scenes had godly level dialogue like LeCarre does then they would have been cool.  Why is there a recipe?  Why does the narrative stop dead for no damn reason?  Why does the narrative stop dead several times?  It clunks along like Victor F's monster but without the brute power.

 

Deaver's novel chugged along, had action, had a nice pace.  I was not bored with it.  It's a novel I have reread a couple times, some people say his Bond was too perfect ... this Bond was boring.

[saint mark]

 

 

SOLO is more of an insult as it portrays 007 as a well fed, boozing and smoking representative of Great Britain in Africa. His role turns out to be NO better in a post colonial era than that of the psychopatic mercenary in the end. And if that is the massage that Boyd did try to portrait I can only say FU.

 

 

Really? I'm a bit astonished since Bond IS a well-fed, boozing and smoking representative of Great Britain, regardless if in Africa or elsewhere on the globe. Arguably the question would only be what he is beyond that.  How you arrive at the sentiment his role was not better than the mercenary's I can't really follow. I must have missed the parts where Bond pulled corpses up the trees...

 

 

For me Bond represents the British Empire and their interests, he keeps eating, boozing all through the book (boyd loved writing about that) his role in Africa is more of a spectator than really participating, only in sense of a military adviser towards corpse hanging mercenary. He is hanging about to actually defend the British interest in natural resources and does really nothing at all. A nice view on post colonial African interests of the British empire

He goes to the US where indeed the US has to safe the day and 007.

He is a peeping Tom, shags the lady and dumps her with some dodgy reasoning which does represent the British Empire in decline through the role of 007.

 

Would Boyd be using this book to have 007 represent the state of affairs during those post colonial years in Africa, where the role of the UK became much smaller even if it really did not want to.

The little critism by Bond at the end of the book (finaly some critical thoughts from 007) on what had happend and his role was were he openly doubted his part.

 

And as for the mercenary, he did his job albeit with a little too very much gusto but he had a similar agenda as Bond only he stood more for a corperate interest.

 

These are some thoughts I have about Boyds book, henaturally has a different view on Africa having lived there. So I can see him working in some critism through the various parts in this book, the man is a very good writer after all and SOLO was by no means close to his best work imho.