Posted 26 April 2006 - 04:09 PM
While I tend to agree with SNF's perception of Bond, David had a good point in his last post, as well: one gets the feeling that Benson is painfully, almost religiously jealous of Bond. One never, ever gets that feeling while reading Fleming. The the latter Bond is treated with a certain respect by narrator and characters alike, but NEVER with reverence. Whereas Benson wouldn't dare make Bond look so silly as to have him think, moments before dying, about which of his conquests he'd be shagging in heaven. (Remember GF? Yeah?)
While there seems to be a pervasive school of thought on CBn that Bond is humourless and not terribly attractive, really, I can't find much in Fleming to support this. Women are always going on about how very attractive he is, and Tania even compares him to an American movie star! (Since watching The Snows of Kilimanjaro I'm inclined to think she may have meant Gregory Peck...)
I doubt Fleming's Bond would snigger about an attractive woman's horse being named Commander, but then again he wouldn't slap someone in the face with a trout, either. His humour is a bit quieter and more sly than all that. It is part of his mystique, something of which Benson is - IMHO - a bit frightened.
