33 replies to this topic

[White Tuxedo]

I am currently plowing through the Fleming books yet again. Just finished FRWL in fact. I've always held YOLT as my favorite. At least since I read it. The first time I read the books, I read them in order. Okay, I'll get to some point as my eyes are straining at my computer.

I always like films and books that have some kind of connection to the director or author. Hitchock's Vertigo, Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Etc. It always seemed to me that YOLT felt more personal to Fleming. He had just survived a heart attack I believe, and his health was going south.

Well, I delivered thoughts and no point.

Edited by White Tuxedo, 13 December 2006 - 08:10 AM.

[blackjack60]

It always seemed to me that YOLT felt more personal to Fleming.

Like some of the later Bond books (such as The Spy Who Loved Me, YOLT does have biographical paralells with Fleming--Dikko Henderson and Tiger Tanaka were barely fictionalized versions of Fleming's friends Richard Hughes and Tiger Saito, and some of Bond's touristic adventures in Japan have the whiff of first-hand experience. Lastly, Bond's newfound sense of humor--sardonic, bemused, and saracastic--is far more like Fleming's than movie Bond's, though Connery did influence the later books. IN YOLt, Bond's personality overlaps with Fleming's, a sign of how much the character has softened since his cold humorlessness back in Casino Royale.

[wattenscheid09]

And of course, to re-iterate my old nitpick: Had Bond (or Flemings) had a better grasp of German, he would have spotted that "Dr. Shatterhand" can never be a German-speaking name - Germans never use "sh" in such a position, shatter is no German word, it would be "schatter-" or "schmetter-"). The fact that one of Germany's favorite Western-novel authors used that name for Germany's best-loved Western icon ("Old Shatterhand") may have seduced Fleming into thinking it was a German name, while it is in reality Karly May's idea of an American name.

Not to the point, but very precise (and that's what Germany is about, right?)

[00Twelve]

Guter Beobachtung, wattenscheid09!

In terms of character and lush setting descriptions, yes, YOLT is Fleming's utmost best. Still there are elements of suspense and action in a couple of the others that draw me more to them than to YOLT.