44 replies to this topic

[Bond111]

Yes I noticed that too. When I was reading GF I realized that there was something funny about it (no pun intended). It seemed more outlandish than the Bond books I had grown to love, but not as comedic as the movies, though. And does anybody know if Fleming was actually going to kill Bond off in FRWL? That ending confused me a bit.

[marktmurphy]

Originally posted by Icebreaker
[BThe first five books were really gritty and realistic (for the most part). But after that they started to have 'movie-bond' plots...
[/B]

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense (And please don't use that colour- I have to highlight your text just to read it): a big-headed man with underground lairs; another big headed man (who's an ex-Nazi working for the Ruskies) with a big rocket that'll blow up London; a 'spangled' gang with headquarters on an old train and a Wild West town. I could go on. And in each case one amazing man is able to save the world and get the girl.
This is what I call top-drawer silliness: don't be fooled by the serious tone or any bits of gore as its all a smokescreen to stop you from noticing how ridiculous it all is. If you think a man like James Bond is realistic, you've got a big surprise coming.

[Jim]

Agreed on both points (first point being it's easier - much - to read stuff written in white than any other colour. What one says should be emphatic enough. Blue against a black background is damned near impossible)

Save that Bond is rarely "saving the world" in the Flemings (save for Thunderball I guess), I'd agree that postulating the grotesqueries of Fleming in the first five books as "realistic" is bananas. They always were fantasy, bizarre adult fantasy. The first five books are gloriously, outrageously silly in almost every detail - just not stupid. The personal history of Le Chiffre; the physical nature of same; mashing a man's testicles with a carpet beater; mystical voodoo-sexual ritual; crazed German loony builds warhead and the British don't notice because they're blinded by his title; boiling folk to death in mud baths; vats of boiling oil in cabins of cruise ships; depraved frog-like Russian lesbians hatching plans to sexually compromise British government.

This is all very, wonderfully, staggeringly, artfully silly. That it convinces as "real" is the skill of the writer involved, not the nature of the incident itself.

[Cesari]

Bond books are pulps. Well written pulps, with incredible "fleming sweep and style". But they are pulps.

[Jriv71]

Originally posted by Loomis


Yeah, but that said, I don't automatically dislike "silly" Bond. I like MOONRAKER, and I absolutely love THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. I don't dislike DAF because it's silly so much as because it's boring. I just find it deeply, deeply dull.

I agree totally. I grew up on MOONRAKER and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, and I still love them today. There is just soooo much wrong with DAF, that I shouldn't have said that it was its mere 'silliness' that turns me off. I'll leave it at that with DAF.

[Harmsway]

Originally posted by bond111
Yes I noticed that too. When I was reading GF I realized that there was something funny about it (no pun intended). It seemed more outlandish than the Bond books I had grown to love, but not as comedic as the movies, though. And does anybody know if Fleming was actually going to kill Bond off in FRWL? That ending confused me a bit.

Alan Dulles, friend of Fleming, said he did in fact try to kill off Bond! But then the books suddenly became successful, so Fleming picked them up again. Apparently Fleming was bored with writing Bond. He wasn't getting money, so he was going to move on and write something else.

[BONDFINESSE 007]

i think he would be happy that his creation is still going strong after all these years

[Icebreaker]

Let me correct myself a bit...its not that his plots were anymore serious, I said 'for the most part' for a reason. In the first five novels he didnt really recognize his outlandish plots. He wrote it seriously and as someone else said, convinvingly. But after FRWL, you could tell he wasnt trying to hide the fact that his plots were outlandish. He was more open about it...Its pretty obvious when you read the novels in order



~ICeBReaKeR

[Truman-Lodge]

Originally posted by Jim
Agreed on both points (first point being it's easier - much - to read stuff written in white than any other colour. What one says should be emphatic enough. Blue against a black background is damned near impossible)

Save that Bond is rarely "saving the world" in the Flemings (save for Thunderball I guess), I'd agree that postulating the grotesqueries of Fleming in the first five books as "realistic" is bananas. They always were fantasy, bizarre adult fantasy. The first five books are gloriously, outrageously silly in almost every detail - just not stupid. The personal history of Le Chiffre; the physical nature of same; mashing a man's testicles with a carpet beater; mystical voodoo-sexual ritual; crazed German loony builds warhead and the British don't notice because they're blinded by his title; boiling folk to death in mud baths; vats of boiling oil in cabins of cruise ships; depraved frog-like Russian lesbians hatching plans to sexually compromise British government.

This is all very, wonderfully, staggeringly, artfully silly. That it convinces as "real" is the skill of the writer involved, not the nature of the incident itself.

You totally ignored what Mark said, Jim. "If you think a man like James Bond is realistic, you've got a big surprise coming."

How is James Bond not realistic? Sex, alcohol, and no real future? Have you ever been to an arts faculty? Yes, the world of Bond is ridiculous, but Bond himself isn't. And it's what Fleming had always said.

Pay attention, gentlemen!

[Dr.Carl Mortner]

With even the most outlandish film plots (DAD included), Fleming would have been jealous that he hadn't thought of it first. We're talking about the same man who suggested to the American military that they produce a "beard bomb" that would cause all the men in Cuba - including Castro - to lose their beards and thus their perception of virility, thus leaving them vulnerable to the enemy.

[Jim]

Pay attention yourself; you'll note that my points were actually in response to the chap(ess) who persists in writing in blue and made various comments about the plots.

I agree with mtm on both his points, but that doesn't mean what I was doing was expanding on either of them.

I'm sure the arts faculty joke is very funny.

[MarkA]

I totally disagree with the statement that Flemings novels are childish. They are full of the likes, dislikes, snobishness and predjudices of the time and the person who wrote them. In that way I find them really interesting as a reflection of the time they were written. Having read all of them again recently its a crime that some, apart from the titles and certain scenes, have been botched for the cinema.

In a alternative universe, the EON series had finished and a new series had begun in which the books had been made faithfully in the period in which they were written. Something I think maybe television could do superbly. The way the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes went back to source.

[Truman-Lodge]

Originally posted by Jim
Pay attention yourself; you'll note that my points were actually in response to the chap(ess) who persists in writing in blue and made various comments about the plots.

That's what this is for, friend.

It helps avoid the confusion.

[Thunderbird]

In all this debate I thought it might be amusing to think of what the great man might add in this very thread...

"Great Literature?

You asked me what makes great literature? I don

[Pussfeller]

Harumph! Ian Fleming would not approve of any of this nonsense!

If Fleming had, by some stroke of fate, lived to this day and never had any control over the Bond franchise, of course he would hate what had become of his character! But it's probably of little concern to him now.

Bond was a completely different guy in the novels than in the films, even the very early ones. Even I, a Fleming purist, will admit that he was something of a bigot and certainly an antihero. Such a character would never survive in Hollywood, at least not to the extent that Bond has. The people at Eon knew this, and Ian Fleming did too. If he had given a tinker's cuss about artistic integrity, he would have done like most "upstanding" authors: made sure his character was thoroughly dead (legally, I mean) and thus never risk him being bastardized. But Fleming didn't do this of course, so we can make a fair assumption that Bond's continuity wasn't a major priority. The films were a business opportunity, and who can blame Fleming for indulging the producers to some degree? He was, unlike most great writers, a good businessman.

I don't think there will ever be a true replacement for the genuine Fleming books. They are pieces of history that must be read with an understanding of when they were written. Perhaps some day we will have a faithful adaptation of the literary Bond onto the big screen, but I wouldn't worry about it. Ian Fleming sure didn't.