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Jeremy Clarksons view on Faulks


28 replies to this topic

#1 Gri007

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 09:37 AM

Saw this article over at MI6

http://www.mi6.co.uk...php?itemid=5181

I quite like Clarkson. He has a very suttle and has a dry sense of humour.

Reading the article for me, has made me think about DMC more.

Bond is damaged, and is reaching retirement age.

I would find it particular interesting to see what makes him carry on, for him to return in Colonel Sun, Licence Renewed and the rest of the litriture adventures

#2 Loomis

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 09:39 AM

Brit writer, "television personality" and self-proclaimed biggest Bond fan on earth, Jeremy Clarkson displays an extraordinary level of insight into the works of Ian Fleming - which he freely admits he's never read - as he tears into the choice of Faulks as the new continuation novelist:

http://www.timesonli...icle2075190.ece

It's like Alan Partridge but without Partridge's reasonably accurate grasp of the world of 007.

Okay, it's obviously tongue-in-cheek, but I daresay Clarkson believes at least 50% of what he says on Bond, probably more. The thing is, though, it's more than possible that The Average Person™ shares similar albeit less blaring assumptions about what a Bond novel ought to be like.... which may lead to a certain amount of public disappointment when Faulks' much-hyped book (which will, it seems fairly safe to say, not be DIE ANOTHER DAY in printed form) is released. Or am I being snobbish? Anyway, your thoughts, please.

#3 ACE

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 11:10 AM

"I suppose I should admit at this point that I

#4 MarcAngeDraco

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 12:13 PM

Hasn't read any Fleming, yet feels qualified to comment on the choice for the Centenary novel...

:cooltongue: :angry: :D :lol:

#5 Santa

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 12:13 PM

Oh dear. I'm afraid I have to admit to a slightly soft, spongy spot for Clarkson but he has made a first-class [censored] of himself here. Shut up, Clarky, for God's sake.

#6 David Schofield

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 03:21 PM

And, of course, the antisesis of Faulks-Bond that Clarkson is advoctating is, essentially, Raymond Benson.

Clarkson is a well-known Bond fan. I don't necessarily accept that he has never read Fleming. I wonder if the jokes on us?

#7 marktmurphy

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 04:13 PM

Ha! That's a great little piece! He's a very journalist; basically he's praising Faulks as a writer and poking fun at himself, which he usually does. It's his very good ability as a journo to get a great angle on the story, which is that the blokiest of blokes should write a new Bond novel. Obviously he's not being serious and to take him literally is to be rather silly.
He does seem to make a point about the films being more popular than the books, and to be fair he's not exactly wrong.

#8 Santa

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 04:26 PM

Thing is, I don't think he's poking fun at himself enough for it just to be funny. Obviously he doesn't really think he should be the next Bond author himself, but I imagine he does actually disapprove of Sebastian Faulks, which would be fine had he read Fleming. Actually my problem with it is the unwashed masses - I read Clarkson and I like to and find him funny, unfortunately I know an awful lot who take him seriously as their intellectual leader, and I'd hate for one of them to take him literally and start a www.clarksonforbondauthor.com or something.

#9 stromberg

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 04:29 PM

Topics merged.

#10 Loomis

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 04:55 PM

Clarkson is a well-known Bond fan. I don't necessarily accept that he has never read Fleming. I wonder if the jokes on us?


I have no problem believing that Clarkson has never read Fleming. You don't have to have read Fleming in order to be a Bond fan. I considered myself (and was considered by my friends) a huge Bond fan for many, many years before I read a lick of Fleming. (In fact, it's only in the last five years that I've become a reader of the Bond novels, with a chance encounter with COLONEL SUN in a hospital waiting room sparking my interest, and not one of the Flemings.)

#11 marktmurphy

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 06:12 PM

But have you read much Faulks, as Clarkson has?

#12 Loomis

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 06:46 PM

None, although I rushed out and bought one of his books when I discovered that he was the new Bond novelist. I chose A FOOL'S ALPHABET. Don't know much about it, and won't read any reviews till I've finished it, but I thought it looked amazing just leafing through it before buying it. I can't wait to tuck into it, but I've got HANNIBAL RISING to finish first.

I do note Clarkson's praise of Faulks: "I met Sebastian once and he seemed like a nice chap. I have also read many of his books and they are marvellous. The scene at the end of On Green Dolphin Street where the woman howls was so powerful I thought I might have a feminine side after all.

"Not a big side, you understand. Not big enough to make me even think of placing scented mini-cushions in my underwear drawer, but certainly big enough to have me reaching for the box of tissues.

"And let's be honest. Any author who can get 16 stone of beefheart blokeishness all teary-eyed and snivelling over some silly woman's doomed and entirely fictional love affair is plainly very good at his job."

Could it be that Clarkson is actually endorsing the choice of Faulks as Bond novelist while humorously pretending to slate it? No idea. Strikes me that he's an admirer of Faulks but thinks he's totally wrong for this particular gig, but I may be falling into a tongue-in-cheek trap.

#13 OmarB

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 07:19 PM

I don't know this reviewer, I assume he's popular in the publishing circles in the UK but I dont have the luxury of having read his previous work and getting to know him through his work.

I do know that from what I've read in that article is funny and his jab at literary Bond being angry, brooding, dark, all that is pretty much what most people would totally agree with. Him saying that the book should fall more in line with the movie shows that there's been a divergence between literary and screen Bond and the divide is so wide that they appear to be wholly different characters.

I lent a friend of mine the Fleming, Markham and Gardner (the ones I had from him) books and afterward he continually went on and on about how different they were, how the film Bond is at times a parody rather than adaptation.

We can only hope that with Daniel Craig and Faulks eventually they'll both come closer to beig the same guy again.

I don't know this reviewer, I assume he's popular in the publishing circles in the UK but I dont have the luxury of having read his previous work and getting to know him through his work.

I do know that from what I've read in that article is funny and his jab at literary Bond being angry, brooding, dark, all that is pretty much what most people would totally agree with. Him saying that the book should fall more in line with the movie shows that there's been a divergence between literary and screen Bond and the divide is so wide that they appear to be wholly different characters.

I lent a friend of mine the Fleming, Markham and Gardner (the ones I had from him) books and afterward he continually went on and on about how different they were, how the film Bond is at times a parody rather than adaptation.

We can only hope that with Daniel Craig and Faulks eventually they'll both come closer to beig the same guy again.

#14 marktmurphy

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 09:36 PM

None, although I rushed out and bought one of his books when I discovered that he was the new Bond novelist. I chose A FOOL'S ALPHABET. Don't know much about it, and won't read any reviews till I've finished it, but I thought it looked amazing just leafing through it before buying it. I can't wait to tuck into it, but I've got HANNIBAL RISING to finish first.


There we go- Clarkson's the type of guy who's well-read enough to read Faulks; I'd imagine at some point he's read a Fleming.

Could it be that Clarkson is actually endorsing the choice of Faulks as Bond novelist while humorously pretending to slate it?


I'd say so, yeah. He's certainly not very serious in the other bits of the column!

#15 Santa

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 09:52 PM

I don't know this reviewer, I assume he's popular in the publishing circles in the UK but I dont have the luxury of having read his previous work and getting to know him through his work.

:cooltongue: He's not a reviewer, he's... Well, what is he exactly? In simple terms, he used to present a programme about cars, these days he does a bit of writing for the papers. He's a character, is how my nan would have described him. He certainly has a strong personality and I'd say he's a bit like Marmite, you either love him or hate him. He is intelligent in his way but equally he's a total idiot.

#16 marktmurphy

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Posted 15 July 2007 - 10:55 PM

:cooltongue: He's not a reviewer, he's... Well, what is he exactly? In simple terms, he used to present a programme about cars, these days he does a bit of writing for the papers.


'Not a reviewer'? 'Used to present a programme about cars'? 'Used to'? Do you know something we don't? Has the Emmy Award winning show he hosts been cancelled? The show in which he, er, reviews cars? :angry:

#17 Sbott

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Posted 16 July 2007 - 03:29 AM

For all of Clarkson's bluster, he is an excellent journalist/presenter who knows how to get an opinion across.

Indeed he raises the issue here of cinematic Bond vs literature Bond. It is clear from this site that some enjoy the books, many enjoy the films but not all enjoy both. Does this really matter, probably not.
But it is clear that the world does not realise that we have had new Bond books for the past 30 years, there is almost no mention of Benson or Gardner in any of the recent news about faulks, does this say something about the quality of the writing from these later authors?

#18 Bondian

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Posted 16 July 2007 - 04:01 AM

I think Faulks is just a driving ambition for Clarkson. :cooltongue:

#19 sharpshooter

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Posted 16 July 2007 - 05:36 AM

Hmm, Devil May Care about these comments, but I certainly dont.

#20 Santa

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Posted 16 July 2007 - 08:04 AM

:cooltongue: He's not a reviewer, he's... Well, what is he exactly? In simple terms, he used to present a programme about cars, these days he does a bit of writing for the papers.


'Not a reviewer'? 'Used to present a programme about cars'? 'Used to'? Do you know something we don't? Has the Emmy Award winning show he hosts been cancelled? The show in which he, er, reviews cars? :angry:

Sorry, I've stopped watching is all :lol:, and was assuming OmarB thought he was a professional critic of, say, books. Which he's not.

#21 Royal Dalton

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Posted 16 July 2007 - 10:06 PM

Poor old Clarkson. His jeans are so tight, they're suffocating his brain.

#22 RazorBlade

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Posted 17 July 2007 - 11:19 AM

I love this quote from Clarkson, "He simply morphs from a Scottish milkman with a tattoo on his arm into a safari suit and keeps right on going."

He is correct about how the cinema bond is bond while the lit bond is not so much. Though I love the lit bond.

I have read Clarkson in Top Gear mag. I think he's funny but I don't take him seriously. Maybe just a little.

#23 Peckinpah1976

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Posted 20 September 2007 - 10:28 PM

Don't forget that after the BFI included From Russia With Love in it's list of the top 100 British movies of all time; Clarkson commented that it was just about the worst of the entire series. Best to just ignore him when it comes to Bond IMO.....

#24 Barbershop Quartet

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Posted 23 September 2007 - 01:39 AM

Clarkson is a clever guy, but he's sticking his nose out with this sort of column. Admitting to being a Bond fan and then alienating the best news since Craig's casting all in one sentence isn't cool.

#25 darkpath

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Posted 23 September 2007 - 03:39 AM

While I like Mister Clarkson's writing and wit, I do not have to agree with him on all things. I happen to agree with him on the merits of the Mazda RX-8; but, with respect to him and to the subject matter of Bond, I must respectfully agree to disagree.

#26 marktmurphy

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Posted 23 September 2007 - 10:20 PM

Don't forget that after the BFI included From Russia With Love in it's list of the top 100 British movies of all time; Clarkson commented that it was just about the worst of the entire series. Best to just ignore him when it comes to Bond IMO.....


I'd be interested to read the text of that column before declaring him wrong; I get the feeling that plenty of people here have irony flying over their heads...

#27 Santa

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Posted 24 September 2007 - 07:30 AM

Everyone knows Clarkson's style is to take the piss, make it all sound like a bit of a joke but the thing that puts me off is that I can imagine him sitting there, muttering to himself as writes 'but I would be a great Bond', and really believing it.

#28 Peckinpah1976

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Posted 25 September 2007 - 09:45 PM

Don't forget that after the BFI included From Russia With Love in it's list of the top 100 British movies of all time; Clarkson commented that it was just about the worst of the entire series. Best to just ignore him when it comes to Bond IMO.....


I'd be interested to read the text of that column before declaring him wrong; I get the feeling that plenty of people here have irony flying over their heads...


Could be wrong of course but there is no apparent intended irony; he simply states it's the worst film in the series with the possible exception of Moonraker (Which possibly is the worst film in the series). He then proceeds to dimiss other classics on the list including If..., Get Carter and The Third Man. If he's taking the piss it isn't communicated in anyway - for instance; when he states in another column that My Wife by The Who is the greatest rock song of all time I take him at his word. The FRWL comments are no different; he just comes across as having a great taste in music but poor taste in films.

#29 marktmurphy

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Posted 25 September 2007 - 10:03 PM

Clarkson is a genius writer himself no doubt about it. In fact, I used to buy The Sun in the old days just to look at his and Richard Littlejohn's columns


Ack. You had me up until 'Littlejohn': Clarkson is self-aware and knows he's ridiculous- Littlejohn is simply an unpleasant bigot.

Could be wrong of course but there is no apparent intended irony; he simply states it's the worst film in the series with the possible exception of Moonraker (Which possibly is the worst film in the series). He then proceeds to dimiss other classics on the list including If..., Get Carter and The Third Man.


Hmm.. sounds even more like a joke now.

he just comes across as having a great taste in music but poor taste in films.


And now I'm wondering if you're joking... aargh!