19 replies to this topic

[IanFleming.de.vu]

Hi!

The events of Live And Let Die occur between:

January 2 to January 27 1952

Dates calculated by Walter von Tagen III

LALD is just an example, my question is:
Who is Walter von Tagen III, who calculated the dates and has this melodious name?
Which facts prove these dates?

Gr

Edited by Mister Asterix, 05 May 2005 - 05:01 PM.

[Mister Asterix]

[mra]Walter used to have a very thorough website on the James Bond timeline. Unfortunately the site is gone now and I

[David Schofield]

[quote name='IanFleming.de.vu' date='5 May 2005 - 16:45']Hi!

[quote]The events of Live And Let Die occur between:

January 2 to January 27 1952

Dates calculated by Walter von Tagen III
[/quote]

LALD is just an example, my question is:
Who is Walter von Tagen III, who calculated the dates and has this melodious name?
Which facts prove these dates?

Gr

[Mister Asterix]

Well, most of his dates are plain wrong. For example, on LALD as you say Tagen says 1952 and yet at the start Bond thinks about the state of SMERSH, considering events which took place in late 1953! Doh!

Who is he? No idea.

[mra]I don

[IanFleming.de.vu]

Ok, thanks very much!

imo The derivation of LALD is hazardous, but after all it's a good thought to calculate the dates by reading the passages about the moon...

The site msut be great, a pity that it's off.

[David Schofield]

[quote name='Mister Asterix' date='5 May 2005 - 17:23'][quote name='David Schofield' date='5 May 2005 - 11:03']Well, most of his dates are plain wrong. For example, on LALD as you say Tagen says 1952 and yet at the start Bond thinks about the state of SMERSH, considering events which took place in late 1953! Doh!

Who is he? No idea.

[/quote]

[mra]I don

[spynovelfan]

It's an interesting game, and I liked the guy's site a lot - but the game does presuppose that Fleming himself had decided the book was set during a very particular time sequence. He may well have just decided on having a 'three-quarter moon' because he liked the sound of 'three-quarter'. He worked a lot like that, I think. Is Bond's number 007 because of Marlowe connections and Naval codes and so on. Sure, probably, partly. But I suspect he mainly chose that because it sounded cool. Same with his names and lots of other stuff. So I think, unless there's evidence that Fleming was meticulous about the time he set his novels in, it's a bit of a wild goose chase.

[Mister Asterix]

That said, I'd prefer to pick and chose from Fleming than rely on phases of  the moon!

[mra]Yes, but Fleming tells us in Goldfinger that Casino Royale takes place in 1951. And then in Live And Let Die he has Bond

[Skudor]

I love this stuff. But at the end of the day it doesn't tell us what the author intended.

[David Schofield]

[quote name='Mister Asterix' date='5 May 2005 - 19:00'][quote name='David Schofield' date='5 May 2005 - 11:38']That said, I'd prefer to pick and chose from Fleming than rely on phases of

Edited by David Schofield, 06 May 2005 - 08:22 AM.

[Mister Asterix]

(Frankly, it is all bollocks and down to Fleming's own chronological inaccuracy and lack of thoroughness. However, its a nice game to play to try put the Bond adventures in the historical context of the years in which they take place)

[mra]Exactly. Walter had an extra long bit on setting the date for Moonraker showing how some things point to the book taking place in 1952, some to 1953 or 1954, and some to 1961. So as you say it is all a game, and really doesn

[WvT3rd]

Yes, who is this fellow?...oh, wait a minute. It's me!  And the name is von Tagen, Walter von Tagen III.  Yes, the early Bond novels are a bit of a mess, aren't they?

 

But Casino Royale was plainly set in 1951 in Goldfinger, Chapter Two ("Living It Up")  where Mr. Junius Du Pont says "France,'51, Royale lea Eaux."

 

In LALD, there is a short flashback scene to where M. tells Bond to have plastic surgery on his hand that had been carved into during the events of Casino Royale.  At the time Bond was reflecting back at the last time he had seen M., "at the end of last summer."  The events of LALD clearly start in January of the year following the events of Casino Royale, ergo, 1952.  You have to remember that Fleming was writing the stories pretty much a year after they "occurred" for the most part.

 

 Oh, and as far as I know, Raymond Benson and I are still friends.  Have you read his Black Stiletto Series?  Good stuff!

[WvT3rd]

Here's the bit where I talk about Moonraker - which I place in May of 1952.

 

 

The dating of Moonraker

Moonraker presents conflicting information concerning not only when it occurs, but how old Bond is at the time. 
As I have stated elsewhere, Fleming sometimes got confused as to when the event occured versus when he was writing the story (see my comments on Dr. No for an example.   Fleming did not really start settling down his dates for Bond until Goldfinger.)

 

As an aside note, when I first started figuring this chronology, many, many years ago, I used the rough guideline of

1.     The events took place.

2.     Fleming wrote about the events the following year.

3.     The story was published.

This actually works quite well until the last two books!

 

 

Part of Moonraker calls for the story to be placed in 1954, when Fleming actually wrote the story (published in 1955). The other part calls for it to be placed in 1952, and finally, using 1924 as Bond's birth year *, part of it calls for "Moonraker" to be set in 1961 - 1962!

 

The 1952 pointer: 
The primary one occurs in M.'s office. M. and Bond refer to Bond's last assignment Live and Let Die, and M. remarks that Bond is "still sunburnt" from his Jamaican assignment. A sunburn does not last for over a year, which is why I placed Moonraker in the same year as Live and Let Die.

 

The 1953 / 1954 pointers:

• Drax addresses a letter to the Queen ( HMS Elizabeth II ascended the throne upon the death of her father in 1952, however, the coronation was not until June of 1953 )..
• At the end of the novel Bond buys a 1953 Mark VI Bentley.
• It is remarked that Bond already has his C.M.G.

The 1961 pointer:
In chapter one Bond is mulling over the fact the he would most likely be killed before the "statutory age of forty-five", when he would automatically be taken off the 00 list. "Eight years to go ...."

 

my rebuttal:

The Mark VI Bentley's - the 4 1/2 liter engine version, was only in production in 1951 and 1952 (source: A Pride of Bentleys by John Adams and Ray Roberts ). 
As for the other pointers, Fleming was writing in 1954. By then Bond had been awarded the C.M.G. and Fleming was being proper in having this as part of his name. Much the same way we would say Dame Diana Rigg portrayed Emma Peel in the televison series The Avengers. She was not a Dame at the time, but her title is the proper one to use. This is why in "From Russia with Love" it is noted that Bond was awarded the C.M.G. in 1953. Logically, saving London from an atomic bomb is more worthy of the award than recovering lost Pirate Treasure. 

The "eight" years to go may have originally been "eightteen", referring to 1970 as when he would have been taken off the 00 list. (NOTE: Fleming once stated in an interview that Bonds' age was, and always will be "in the middle thirties".) 
And the Queen to whom Drax wrote could have been either the Queen Mother or Elizabeth II. Or Fleming could have merely changed the reference from King to Queen because by 1954 HMS Elizabeth II sat on the throne of England. 

 

 

*1924 in the Japanese zodiac was “The Year of the Rat”, which we discover Bond was born in that year during the events of “You Only Live Twice”.

[AMC Hornet]

Toward the end of the chapter titled 'Dead Reckoning', there is a footnote on the page where Bond reflects on the secure life of the crew of the Goodwin Lightship:

"* Bond was wrong: Friday, November 29, 1954. R.I.P."

Clearly Moonraker takes place the summer - or year - before the lightship and crew was lost.

[Major Tallon]

There's also a very general clue as to the dating of Moonraker.  In chapter 20, Gala described hearing a radio broadcast by the prime minister, "the voice of all the great occasions in her life."  This, I believe, was a reference to Winston Churchill and would place the adventure during his second premiership (October 1951 to April 1955).

 

This dating obviously doesn't answer the question of whether the story took place in 1952, 1953, or 1954, but I mention it only for the sake of completeness as to the hints in the text regarding the adventure's date.  And it does, I submit, rule out 1961!

[Double Naught spy]

Mr. von Tagen - are there any plans for you to restart the aforementioned defunct web site?   I noticed a couple years ago when first seeing your work that your chronological placements began drifting into 'Gardner' territory (up to Icebreaker if I recall correctly.)  That inspired me to go through the Gardner and Benson novels and come up with my own sets of dates for each one.  My work isn't ready to be seen yet, but someday I'll throw my findings up on this discussion board for review.  Now that I know you're a poster on this site, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to say "Thank you very much" for inspiring me to research the Gardner/Benson novels. 

 

Also, to further the overall chronological placement discussion that's going on here - has anyone read John Griswold's "Ian Fleming's James Bond - Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming's Bond Stories?"  I purchased it a year or so ago and have found it to be an amazing feat of work.  Whether or not you end up agreeing with Mr. Griswold's conclusions as to the days/years the events of the novels took place, the shear amount (currency conversion charts in re 007's salary and other stated amounts in today's terms, the maps of Cold War Europe, etc.) of work put into this book is sure to fascinate and please any 007 fan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[glidrose]

WVT's posts here make fascinating reading. I'm glad he bumped this thread and I'm glad he took the time to research this minutiae. I was never impressed with Griswold's or Chancellor's chronologies.

[WvT3rd]

I do have, and have read, Griswolds book.  And no, I don't agree with most of his dating.  Chancellors book is interesting reading on background of what was happening - it is called The Man and His World for a reason, but again, I don't think much of his chronology.

 

Getting back to Moonraker, for a moment, when Bond is thinking about events that took place in '53....That was probably "done in post" - added after Fleming finished the book, but added later to keep the book up to date by talking about recent or current events.

 

I lost the website because I hadn't bothered to update it for six months, plain and simple.  Still have everything, though....Although I can't remember if I did any dating for Devil May Care....really don't like that one...

 

Oh, and thanks to one word in YOLT, I think I can finally piece together Bond's life from 1940 to when he received his Double-O in late 1950!

[Dustin]

My own impression with regard to the dating of Fleming's books was always that they are set in a somewhat 'flexible' year and reality. One can enjoy them easily enough, provided one is prepared to ignore the odd continuity and factual error. But that's of course the whole point of trying to nail these dates, the fun of chasing every hint and detail and trying to fit them into a proper time-scale 

[glidrose]

 

My own impression with regard to the dating of Fleming's books was always that they are set in a somewhat 'flexible' year and reality. One can enjoy them easily enough, provided one is prepared to ignore the odd continuity and factual error. But that's of course the whole point of trying to nail these dates, the fun of chasing every hint and detail and trying to fit them into a proper time-scale

Fair enough, but still... I'm glad somebody's taken the time to painstakingly pinpoint when they occur, even if it results in numerous different years as WVTIII has shown with MR!
 
 

I lost the website because I hadn't bothered to update it for six months, plain and simple.  Still have everything, though....

Damn. The internet really can be a place of a thousand sorrows, for all the good it also provides.

Oh, and thanks to one word in YOLT, I think I can finally piece together Bond's life from 1940 to when he received his Double-O in late 1950!

Don't keep us in suspense! Please do TELL!