Posted 11 April 2015 - 04:14 PM
The spirit of Fleming...that's a most elusive thing not easily defined. Is it the sense of middle-age contemplation one might get from Casino Royale? The fantastical-bordering-on-absurd adventurism of Moonraker and Goldfinger? The violence of Live and Let Die or the suspense of From Russia With Love? Fleming himself made a few changes and the books went through a definite metamorphosis over their run, especially once Fleming pursued film adaptations and introduced a couple of subtle but nonetheless significant changes to this end.
One example: Kingsley Amis in his James-Bond-Dossier located Bond in terms of fashion style between off-the-peg customer Inspector Barlow of Z-Cars (a popular TV series of the time) and dandy John Steed of The Avengers and stated it was clear to him Bond's suits never came anywhere close to Savile Row. Amis, due to his standard work, can justifiably be considered a capacity and somewhat of an expert on Bond.
And yet Ian Fleming himself, in one of his later interviews with Jack Fishman (007 and Me, included in the anthology For Bond Lovers Only) stated Bond's suits were just that, Savile Row - and hastens to add his own were of cheaper Cork Street pedigree. What happened?
All of Bond's enemies are invariably rich and often immensely powerful in their chosen profession or the live-in cover from which they operate. With the possible exception of a cheap Mexican knife artist Bond is nearly always up against big shots who can afford to light their cigarettes on his annual pay cheque. In Moonraker Bond is consequently depicted as well-off, yet he risks his salary for a year in a game of cards with a multi-millionaire and national hero extraordinaire.
Said millionaire is described in great detail, down to the - modest! - Cartier cuff-links and plain gold Patek Philippe watch. Other items depicting the charm of the filthy rich are a white Mercedes sports roadster with garish red upholstery and a shining new ballistic missile inside a shining new rocket base atop the Dover cliffs.
Bond frequently moves in the circles of the very rich and it cannot be said he sticks out like the tarantula on Chandler's cake. Yet he never makes the mistake of thinking he belongs in these circles.
At least not in the books, that is.
For the screen Fleming picked up on a number of things during the time of the Thunderball project and subsequently - or during? - put together a list of points for writers and producers concerning the tone and style of his vision for Bond-on-screen. One of the points was to avoid clichéed Britishness (a la Barbour and Landrover...wait...), another to keep an upmarket luxury air. This left traces in the books, too.
Suddenly it's Bond whose luxury camouflage is depicted, new suits with turnback cuffs like Drax - and Fleming - wore, gold watch with chain and another to break his hand with. Bond is still playing the rich man - as he was in Live and Let Die - but now he's also depicted as being perfectly able to afford these little indulgences. The suits he ordered, the watch he breaks, they seem to be taken care of out of Bond's pocket, and rather affordlessly one might add.
A similar shift of priorities seems to have taken place with regard to other elements and staples of the early books. Torture became less frequent or happened only off-stage after the events of Thunderball. Or shifted towards psychological torment. The Anglo-American 'special relationship' of Casino Royale and Live and Let Die changed into Britain being depicted as the underdog in a growingly alienated marriage. Finally, the Secret Service itself took a marked shift into the direction of Deighton's or le Carré's institutions.
So what is Fleming's spirit? Unless you contact him via a seance you can probably just as we'll take your pick.
As for the hardboiled label, that must probably be judged within the context of Fleming's contemporaries. There have of course been writers who fit the bill better in terms of moral ambiguity, violence, coldblooded killer instinct or self-serving bigotry. But there was also a huge number of writers who didn't dare going where Fleming went, not even close. Fleming himself was often annoyed when he was accused of undue violence. During the war he got knowledge of much more violent acts of bestiality, worse than anything he used in his books. Fleming was honestly convinced he had toned down the amount of violence in his works, and he also believed the violence he described was of a nature that didn't invite overtly sadistic notions, in contrast to some of today's entertainment.
On balance I'd surely consider him an early representative of the hardboiled subgenre, like Hammet and Chandler.