26 replies to this topic

[zencat]

So I was reading James Bond The Man And His World by Henry Chancellor last night and I stumbled on a few potential connections to Young Bond 5. First -- and I guess I really should have known this -- as a young man, Fleming traveled and studied French and German in Kitzbuhel, Austria, which we know from Hurricane Gold is a location in Book 5.

Might Higson use some names and characters from Fleming's life? Interesting that it was in Kitzbuhel that Fleming was encouraged to become a writer.

But what I found especially intriguing is a line in From Russia With Love (page 116): "The plane skirted the great eye-tooth of Mont Blanc, a few hundred yards to port, and Bond looked down at the dirty grey elephant's skin of the glaciers and saw himself again, a young man in his teens, with the leading end of the rope round his waist, bracing himself against the top of a rock-chimney on the Aiguilles Rouges and his two companions from the University of Geneva inched up the smooth rock towards him."

A description of a scene we will see in Young Bond 5? We know FRWL is Higgy's favorite Bond book.

[DamnCoffee]

Interesting Find there Zen , nice to see some Bond continuity, in the literary Bond world.

[zencat]

I think there are many many connections to Fleming in the Young Bond books, but I just don't know my Fleming well enough to catch those but the most obvious.

[zencat]

Although, technically, the reference to University of Geneva probably means Bond is recalling a post-Eton part of his life...but this can be fudged. As long as Bond is climbing with U of G students, it's fine.

Wouldn't it be cool if Charlie opened YB5 with this scene and a variation on this Fleming sentence (as he did at the start of SilverFin)?

[zencat]

I think there are many many connections to Fleming in the Young Bond books, but I just don't know my Fleming well enough to catch those but the most obvious.

Hey, I just discovered a new one. Turns out the name "Manny the Girl" (my fav character from Hurricane Gold) came from a Fleming notebook. Cool.

[Qwerty]

I think there are many many connections to Fleming in the Young Bond books, but I just don't know my Fleming well enough to catch those but the most obvious.

Hey, I just discovered a new one. Turns out the name "Manny the Girl" (my fav character from Hurricane Gold) came from a Fleming notebook. Cool.

Really? How'd you come across that one, zen?

[zencat]

I think there are many many connections to Fleming in the Young Bond books, but I just don't know my Fleming well enough to catch those but the most obvious.

Hey, I just discovered a new one. Turns out the name "Manny the Girl" (my fav character from Hurricane Gold) came from a Fleming notebook. Cool.

Really? How'd you come across that one, zen?

It's in James Bond The Man and His World by Henry Chancellor, a fantastic book that, for some crazy reason, I haven't read until now. In fact, there's loads of nifty little things like this in the book. I'll do a list of all my "discoveries" when I'm finished.

[sharpshooter]

Great finds, truly. I hope that the sentence from 'From Russia with Love' finds itself in Young Bond 5. It would be a further great connection of the two series, especially with Manny the Girl coming straight from Fleming.

[Mr. Blofeld]

Great finds, truly. I hope that the sentence from 'From Russia with Love' finds itself in Young Bond 5. It would be a further great connection of the two series, especially with Manny the Girl coming straight from Fleming.

Indeed; it'd be fun for Higson to once again recreate a Fleming moment.

[zencat]

The more I think about it the more I expect Charlie won't do this because I do think Fleming intends Bond's memory here to be from his University of Geneva days, and while it certainly can be fudged (as I've explained), I could imagine Charlie might consider fudging Fleming in this way for something that really isn't critical crossing a line.

The Kitzbuhel connection may be enough of a wink to Fleming here.

[MkB]

Interesting Zencat... I haven't read the YB novels, but I was asking myself if there is any use made by Charlie Higson of the quite long daydreaming about his childhood holidays by the sea Bond has at the beginning of the OHMSS novel?

[zencat]

Interesting Zencat... I haven't read the YB novels, but I was asking myself if there is any use made by Charlie Higson of the quite long daydreaming about his childhood holidays by the sea Bond has at the beginning of the OHMSS novel?

Not that I've found. But I do believe that is a pre-Young Bond memory as it involves his parents (and a sand bucket).

I was very excited to find the Fleming connection to Manny the Girl. What else is buried in these books I wonder?

[MkB]

Interesting Zencat... I haven't read the YB novels, but I was asking myself if there is any use made by Charlie Higson of the quite long daydreaming about his childhood holidays by the sea Bond has at the beginning of the OHMSS novel?

Not that I've found. But I do believe that is a pre-Young Bond memory as it involves his parents (and a sand bucket).

I was very excited to find the Fleming connection to Manny the Girl. What else is buried in these books I wonder?

Yes, indeed. It must be a Very Young Bond

[Mr. Blofeld]

I was very excited to find the Fleming connection to Manny the Girl. What else is buried in these books I wonder?

More Bond than Bond himself!

[zencat]

Confirmation of sorts. While the FRWL scene will not be in YB5 (because, as we said here, it is much later in Bond's life), his university friends will "briefly" appear.

But the more interesting Fleming/YB5 connection is that Hannes Oberhauser will play a role in the book.

[Tiin007]

But the more interesting Fleming/YB5 connection is that Hannes Oberhauser will play a role in the book.

Now THAT is interesting. It's great that Higson is sticking so closely to Fleming's established continuity.

[zencat]

Confirmation of sorts. While the FRWL scene will not be in YB5 (because, as we said here, it is much later in Bond's life), his university friends will "briefly" appear.

And they do. Bond climbs with two friends from the University of Geneva in the third part of the book.

[Sylvia Trench]

Have you read anything about the stories Fleming wrote in Kitzbuhel as a young man? Can't remember if they're discussed in the Chancellor book or elsewhere. I think the stories were set in Kitzbuhel. Any connections?

[David Schofield]

Confirmation of sorts. While the FRWL scene will not be in YB5 (because, as we said here, it is much later in Bond's life), his university friends will "briefly" appear.

And they do. Bond climbs with two friends from the University of Geneva in the third part of the book.

And, of course, the FRWL passage continues with Fleming speculating how the world-weary Bond in his 30s would be accepted by the - effectiveley - naive teenager...

... and I would suggest that the person Bond has become at this Bond in BRC is far from naive.

A case of Charlie trying to make things fit a little TOO neatly with Fleming?

[Mr Twilight]

I think it would have been nice if he let Fleming do a cameo in the novels.

[sharpshooter]

Confirmation of sorts. While the FRWL scene will not be in YB5 (because, as we said here, it is much later in Bond's life), his university friends will "briefly" appear.

And they do. Bond climbs with two friends from the University of Geneva in the third part of the book.

Splendid. That's a nice little touch by Charlie that ties it all together.

[Sylvia Trench]

the Aiguilles Rouge are in a different part of the Alps. so the incident Bond remembers must be a later expedition with the students than the one in FRWL. Unless he's remembering it wrong? i do that sometimes I must confess. Maybe Bond remembered his youth as being rosier and more carefree than it really was (I also do that sometimes!). But whatever young bond goes though it surely can't compare with the carnage and brutality of the second world war and Bond earning his double 0 status by killing people. Young Bond hasn't killed anyone.

[zencat]

The incident he remembers in FRWL is not in BRC. As you say, it's a different time frame and mountain range. But I think the idea is the two friends he meets and climbs with in BRC are the same friends from the later FRWL climb.

But whatever young bond goes though it surely can't compare with the carnage and brutality of the second world war and Bond earning his double 0 status by killing people.

I don't know. What he goes through in Hurricane Gold is as brutal as anything he ever goes through in Fleming.

[Sylvia Trench]

do you not think that what he does to other people is going to damage him far more than what they do to him?

[zencat]

do you not think that what he does to other people is going to damage him far more than what they do to him?

Yes. I see your point. There is actually a very good scene in BRC where

Spoiler

Bond goes to the brink while savagely beating a bully. He feels the killer rise in himself. It's good stuff.

[sharpshooter]

There is actually a very good scene in BRC where

Spoiler

Bond goes to the brink while savagely beating a bully. He feels the killer rise in himself. It's good stuff.

Though Young Bond can't kill, he can do this sort of stuff, nice. Good opportunity for some character development as well.

[JCRendle]

Well, he

Spoiler

nearly does kill

in the end of the book, he would have too if not for a plot point mentioned earlier in the book