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Goldeneye - Ian Fleming's Jamaica


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#1 Guy Haines

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Posted 25 August 2014 - 09:12 AM

On Saturday afternoon I was in the centre of Nottingham and, to dodge a downpour of rain, I went into Waterstones Bookshop.

 

And I'm pleased I did because I bought a new book about Ian Fleming and James Bond titled "Goldeneye - Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica" by Matthew Parker. I'm going to start reading it properly this week (I daresay I'll get through quite a bit today because, inevitably, the British August Bank Holiday weather doesn't look that promising.)

 

However, having dipped into it over the weekend it appears to be an attempt to tell the story of that part of Fleming's life spent in Jamaica, and at Goldeneye in particular, combined with a look at the people he mingled with there (Noel Coward, for example.) Fleming's writing of the Bond novels and the links between them and the island and its people, and the state of post war Jamaica as it made the transition from British colony to independent member of the Commonwealth.

 

Ian Fleming liked appropriating the names of people he knew for characters in the books, and Jamaicans he knew or knew of were no exceptions. For example in The Man With The Golden Gun the "bedside board of enquiry" at the end of the book is presided over by "Justice Morris Cargill" - in real life Cargill was a veteran correspondent of The Daily Gleaner.

 

And as the film Dr. No was partly shot in Jamaica, the book covers this as well. I've dipped in to that chapter and was struck by just how many "locals" - actors and non actors alike - were cast in the film, and in credited roles, not just as extras. I suppose it seems obvious that if actors are available locally one might cast them but some of the casting was curious, according to this book. "Puss-Feller" was played by a real life night club owner; the woman who played Strangways' assistant was cast, according to Terence Young, because she owned the house in which her death scene was filmed; one of the bridge players in the Queen's Club was the manager of the actual club where the scenes were filmed and so was cast; and one of the "Three Blind Mice" assassins was, in real life a dentist! Timothy Moxon, who played Strangways, was a local, a pilot in real life, and he got to know Ian Fleming quite well, and said he, Fleming "was a good man at lifting the elbow. He knew how to put away the booze. But I found him charming."

 

I'm looking forward to reading this book properly, and I wonder if any other Cbn members have come across it yet?



#2 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 25 August 2014 - 02:52 PM

I will be keeping an eye out for this! Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Guy. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on it once you've finished.



#3 malcorn20

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Posted 26 August 2014 - 10:12 PM

Guy, keep us posted on the book that sounds like a very interesting read



#4 Guy Haines

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Posted 27 August 2014 - 06:13 AM

Will do. I'm on chapter two already. Incidentally the book also has a map of Jamaica pointing out significant locations on the island generally and in connection with Bond and Fleming.



#5 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 27 August 2014 - 01:55 PM

Sounds like a wonderful visual aid. Yet another reason for me to find this!



#6 SAWfinger

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Posted 27 August 2014 - 09:17 PM

There have been two recent news items on the new Parker book on the JBIFC website, which might be interesting for Fleming fans and those eager to read more (Go to: www.007info). There is also some discussion of the book in the JBIFC's latest Newsletter, available on their Facebook site. I have read through the book and I must say (IMHO) its a great read.



#7 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 27 August 2014 - 09:24 PM

There have been two recent news items on the new Parker book on the JBIFC website, which might be interesting for Fleming fans and those eager to read more (Go to: www.007info). There is also some discussion of the book in the JBIFC's latest Newsletter, available on their Facebook site. I have read through the book and I must say (IMHO) its a great read.

Thanks for the info! I'll be looking more into this for sure.



#8 Revelator

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Posted 28 August 2014 - 02:20 AM

The reviews have been unanimously positive, a very good sign.

 

Sinclair McKay praised it in The Telegraph

 

The Spectator

 

The Guardian

 

The Independent

 

The Financial Times

 

And no less an authority than Andrew Lycett gave his approval in The Literary Review

 

There's also an interview with the author, Andrew Taylor, on youtube.

 

Lastly, The Spectator also ran an article by Fleming's stepdaughter, titled "Was Ian Fleming as cool as his brother?"


Edited by Revelator, 28 August 2014 - 02:21 AM.


#9 Major Tallon

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Posted 28 August 2014 - 12:06 PM

OK, Guy Haines and Revelator, you've twisted my arm (obviously a titanic struggle!).  Ordered it this morning.  Sounds great.



#10 Orion

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Posted 28 August 2014 - 01:22 PM

I won this in a Facebook competition. Random House emailed me this morning to say they've just dispatched it to me, so am glad to hear it's good.



#11 SAWfinger

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Posted 29 August 2014 - 07:57 PM

That's a good list of reviews. Thanks.There is also a special article by Matthew Parker himself in the new issue of the BBC History magazine (September, 2014), on sale in the UK. It briefly summarises the arguments he makes in his main book. Might be of interest to 'completists'.



#12 Guy Haines

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Posted 30 August 2014 - 07:10 AM

Well, I'm over three quarters of the way through this book, and an interesting read it is too. It manages to combine an account of Ian Fleming's life in post war Jamaica, his turbulent marriage to Ann Rothermere, his encounters with the rich and famous from Noel Coward - who is a prominent character in this book - to the then Senator John Kennedy and his wife Jackie.

 

And of course once we reach 1952 - the chapters are headed by the years they cover - we start to read about the Bond novels themselves.

 

I've read the reviews listed in Revelator's post above and the reviewers pick up on a number of points made in Matthew Parker's book. Fleming does come across as a snob and something of a racist, an issue discussed on another thread here "Trouble Getting Through The Books?". Parker also argues that he was somewhat anti-American. I noticed that from my recent listening to the "Reloaded" audio books - for all his praise of Felix Leiter (A character we are told in Parker's book Fleming considered killing off in Live And Let Die until persuaded not to by his US publisher) Ian Fleming never missed an opportunity to have Bond disparage something about the US whilst on assignment there. It may have been down to a common fear amongst certain Britons post war - that the "Yanks" were supplanting the UK as the dominant imperial power, while at the same time the "Brits" were dependant on them as, frankly, Britain was broke. People like Ian Fleming couldn't quite handle that. Nor was he a fan of the post war British welfare state - ironic then that in the 1950s his wife Ann had a relationship with the Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell! (There's an amusing bit in the book in which Mr. Gaitskell turns up in Jamaica on a fact finding tour but has to dodge the attentions of the press, which had already noticed his interest in Ann Fleming, although I don't think anything was made of it in the newspapers - how times have changed!)

 

The book also covers how Jamaica itself changed, from a crown colony where black and mixed race Jamaicans had little influence compared to the white "plantocracy", to an island nation within the Commonwealth, but also within the US sphere of influence. Two politicians of the day, Alexander Bustamante and Norman Manley appear prominently when Parker covers this area, one I found particularly interesting as I had little knowledge of it. One thing Ian Fleming did dislike about the changing Jamaica was the development of holiday resorts and tourism, though he reserved his scorn for the "international jet set" who descended on the island rather than the ordinary tourist.

 

Of course, the books Ian Fleming wrote are covered, and what is interesting here is that, quite apart from the fact that three are set mostly in Jamaica, other incidents crop up in the books based on Ian Fleming's experiences there. His love of swimming and diving, for example obviously affected novels such as Thunderball and Matthew Parker notes incidents which found their way into that book and others. Matthew Parker's view is that as the UK declined in influence there was one area in which it still retained an imperial grip and that was in intelligence and Ian Fleming was determined to reinforce that through his Bond novels. Plus they provided an escape into another world for his British readers, still under post war austerity and rationing. Oddly enough, an espionage writer with a very different take on the field, John Le Carre, is mentioned and it's claimed he went into secret intelligence because it was one area where Britain could still wield influence world wide. Matthew Parker's view is that Casino Royale is probably the closest Fleming came to the kind of ambiguous world of espionage Le Carre created.

 

One of the reviews mentioned a mistake about Robinson Crusoe. I spotted another - as far as I recall Dr No brought down US missiles but didn't "collect" them to sell on to the Russians or Chinese. But so far this has been a very interesting overview of an important time in the life of Ian Fleming, and about "Goldeneye", a place that was very important to him, without which there might not have been a series of books about James Bond.



#13 Call Billy Bob

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Posted 30 August 2014 - 02:31 PM

Bless you, Guy, for your insights. I've finally found a copy at a store not far from my place. They are holding it for me, so I'll be off to pick it up this afternoon!



#14 Guy Haines

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Posted 31 August 2014 - 08:00 AM

I've finished it, having read the last two or three chapters about Ian Fleming's final years both in Jamaica and away from it. Amongst other things, as Jamaica became independent so some of the mostly white "expats" who settled there at least some of the year couldn't wait to leave, unconvinced that Jamaicans were ready for self rule and fearing that their privileged lifestyle was a thing of the past. Noel Coward, for one, decided he'd had enough.

 

Also, there's an interesting observation made by Blanche Blackwell - for some years an intimate of Ian Fleming and mother of Island Records producer and future owner of Goldeneye Chris Blackwell - about the short story "Octopussy". In the character of Major Dexter Smythe she saw the Ian Fleming of later years - the failing health, the preoccupation with nature and underwater pursuits, the overindulgence of drinking and smoking. Bond himself appears to have been based at least in part on Ian Fleming, at least in his tastes outside the dirty business of being a special agent. Was Dexter Smythe also Fleming's way of saying something about his later self? In spite of Smythe being a retired dissolute Bond type with a terrible secret? That seems to be Blanche Blackwell's view of the central character of "Octopussy", if I've read her correctly.

 

There's a slight mistake in Matthew Parker's account of "OHMSS" - Blofeld's "Angels Of Death" - of as Fleming almost titled the book "Belles from Hell" - are not themselves infected with disease to take back to Britain but are brainwashed to spread crop destroying viruses. But apart from that, I found the final part of the book as interesting as the rest. It ends with Goldeneye becoming a must see place for visitors, especially celebrities. Roger Moore visits it during the filming of Live And Let Die and is in awe of the place and the man who once wrote about Bond there. And the late Tim Moxon - one white who having moved to Jamaica never left it - is quoted as being hopeful about the future of his adopted country.

 

As a follow up to this - I might watch Dr No on the DVD!



#15 Major Tallon

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Posted 01 September 2014 - 06:45 PM

My copy's en route from the UK, so I'll have to wait a few days. 

 

Just a couple of observations.  Fleming was persuaded not to kill Leiter off by Naomi Burton, who worked for Austin Brown, Fleming's American literary agent.  Resurrecting Leiter actually took a fairly small amount of effort.  Fleming had  only to re-write the paragraph in Chapter 14 where the police surgeon discussed with Bond the nature of Leiter's injuries.  In the original manuscript, the surgeon told Bond that both of Leiter's arms were gone, that only half a leg remained, and that "great chunks [had been] cut out of the body," which had been "sort of torn to pieces."  When the ambulance men came, they "took away Leiter's body."  There were other wordsmithing changes, but nothing more relating to Leiter's death or Bond's feelings about it.  Fleming then added a couple of sentences, such as Bond's fear of disturbing Leiter's "fluttering breath," and the scene was changed.  Saving Leiter required very little effort on Fleming's part.

 

As an aside, my first visit to Jamaica occurred when I was on a cruise, and I took a ship's excursion along the North Coast.  We reached a little bay below a mountain, and the guide pointed out a house on the heights above us.  This was introduced to us as Noel Coward's home, Firefly.  One of my fellow tourists obviously didn't know much about Coward and asked if this meant he was the author who'd written the children's story Sam and the Firefly.  The guide obviously hadn't heard of the book and was no Coward authority either, and answered, rather uncertainly, in the affirmative.  The tourist was now very happy and proceeded to tell all her friends about how she'd now seen the home where the writer of Sam and the Firefly lived.  I've chuckled whenever I recall the episode, dealing with Noel Coward, that well known author of children's books.



#16 Revelator

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 08:21 PM

I contributed a lengthy review of Goldeneye to the Artistic Licence Renewed site. You can read it here: 

http://literary007.c...matthew-parker/

 

Short verdict: a required purchase for Fleming fans. 



#17 Major Tallon

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Posted 07 April 2015 - 10:43 PM

Yes, indeed, Reverlator.  Parker's book is in the required reading category and so, I might add, is your excellent review.  First  class work.



#18 glidrose

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Posted 08 April 2015 - 12:21 AM

I contributed a lengthy review of Goldeneye to the Artistic Licence Renewed site. You can read it here: 
http://literary007.c...matthew-parker/
 
Short verdict: a required purchase for Fleming fans.


Splendid review. One quibble tho': You duplicate the passage that starts "After one of his worst fights with Ann, who’d grown to hate Jamaica, Fleming...".

#19 Revelator

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Posted 08 April 2015 - 07:56 PM

 

I contributed a lengthy review of Goldeneye to the Artistic Licence Renewed site. You can read it here: 
http://literary007.c...matthew-parker/
 
Short verdict: a required purchase for Fleming fans.


Splendid review. One quibble tho': You duplicate the passage that starts "After one of his worst fights with Ann, who’d grown to hate Jamaica, Fleming...".

 

 

Thank you Glidrose, both for the kind words and spotting that error. That probably resulted from my harassing the poor webmaster with numerous last-minute drafts and revisions.