7 replies to this topic

[ChickenStu]

I actually really enjoyed this one. Thought it was very clever the way Pearson placed Our Man in a context of realism, his relationship with Fleming, all that. I found it to be a highly engaging tale, a tale in which Our Man comes across quite sympathetically despite some of the questionable deeds he performs in the course of his life and career. 

 

Has anyone else read this?

[glidrose]

No. You're the only one to read it. Even the author, publishers and Fleming estate didn't read it.

[ChickenStu]

No. You're the only one to read it. Even the author, publishers and Fleming estate didn't read it.

 

Oh you are the very epitome of drollness sir.     

[freemo]

I've read it, CS, and I too found it really enjoyable.

 

Lots of wonderful original vingettes, both of Bond in his formative years (the luminous reader, time in Paris, etc), a latter ones not mentioned in the books. Gets a little "and then he did the mission recorded in Thunderball, and then he did the mission outlined in The Spy Who Loved Me" during the back nine (the interview and "Bond is a real person" conceit is okay, and it captures Bond's voice well, but it's at its absolute best when just telling stories), but a serious contender for Best Continuation Bond book.

[billy007]

Read this before you read Wood,Gardner,Benson or any of the current continuation novels.
It survives the passage of time,and is just as good today as it was when first published.
I always wished Pearson would have continued writing 007.

[Odd Jobbies]

For me it's the best non-Fleming book featuring Bond. As you said, it's very clever in it's oblique angle on Autobiography. I believe Pearson knew Fleming fairly well, so perhaps that's why he's been the most successful at continuing the narrative, in a manner of speaking. Only the opening of Colonel Sun comes as close IMO.

 

To any Bond fan that hasn't read it, you're missing a real treat.

[glidrose]

I always wished Pearson would have continued writing 007.

Absolutely. Great shame he never wrote the Australian sequel. It really is one of the best Bond novels. Even IFF chairman Peter Janson-Smith said it's the most underrated Bond book of all.
 

I believe Pearson knew Fleming fairly well.

 
He was Fleming's hand-picked assistant at The Sunday Times.

[Guy Haines]

I've already mentioned this on another thread but one amusing part of the "authorised biography" is the explanation of how Ian Fleming got away with writing his Bond novels, given that in Pearson's book Bond is supposedly a "real person". If you haven't read Pearson I won't spoil it save that if you've read Bond's obituary in the novel "You Only Live Twice" there's a hint in there as to why MI6 didn't stop the Bond novels, and Pearson takes that a stage further in his book.

 

And I agree with glidrose - the end of the Pearson's biography of Bond hinted at a great showdown with an arch adversary in an unlikely location taking the plot of OHMSS a stage further as well.