114 replies to this topic

[MkB]

The Times publishes a second extract online:
http://entertainment...icle3993640.ece

Not read it yet, my impressions later...

[spynovelfan]

That's a bit more like it! Hotting up now. Flows smoothly, far fewer tricksy little references, some suspense and atmosphere. Does actually read quite a bit like lost Fleming.

Small point - what's so remarkable about the sight of a beautiful woman in his hotel room? She's fully clothed, too! Ian Fleming's James Bond wouldn't have been quite as phased by this, surely?

[MkB]

That's a bit more like it! Hotting up now. Flows smoothly, far fewer tricksy little references, some suspense and atmosphere. Does actually read quite a bit like lost Fleming.

Exactly my thoughts. There are some odd details, especially plotwise (would Bond really give spontaneously and pointlessly the surname of M's assistant to a potentially dangerous stranger? would he really have suche weak powers of observation that he'd need her assistance to identify a man with a "monkey paw" in a tennis club?), but all in all, it reads better than yesterday's extract. There are even some enjoyable bits!

I'm a bit concerned about the names, though... Papava = Papaver, more or less? So, "Scarlett Papava" and "Poppy Papava"... Ahem...

[spynovelfan]

Yes, it seems there's a lot of rather plodding thinking going on. It's not Poppy Flower, but still... Poppy and the name for Poppy in Latin. Made into an Italian name. Poppy Papava. Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but it does seem like he's gone for the very obvious a number of times. Mathis, Leiter, hotel room with hairs about the place, and so on. Most fan fiction writers are more daring than this. Ticking every box is a bit dull.

But this bit has some pace and flow, at least. And not too many naff jokes. And gives me hope. I think we might still be in for a very enjoyable Bond novel - but with trillions of nitpicks.

[MkB]

Yes, it seems there's a lot of rather plodding thinking going on. It's not Poppy Flower, but still... Poppy and the name for Poppy in Latin. Made into an Italian name. Poppy Papava.

Actually, ne name for Poppy in Latin is Papaver (and in Italian, it's the same). But it sounds a lot like Papava.
And Papava is not specially an Italian name, it's Russian or maybe Georgian, IMO (Just like Larissa is a popular Russian first name). Hence the bit about her Russian father.

[spynovelfan]

Right you are. But he's still got a plot about heroin and then given the girl the name Poppy, compounded by a variation of the flower's name in Latin. I know it's a Bond novel, and I suppose it is terribly picky of me - but it just seems a bit by the numbers, that. It's a bit like the Ritz so far - a 'stage Bond' novel.

Bond fanatics are a tough lot to convince, aren't they? Thank G-- I'm not one!

[Hitch]

Ah, the suspense. The little white ball is bouncing around the roulette wheel: is it to be red, black or the green zero? For once, I couldn't resist giving my ten mille to the Casino de Amazon...

[MkB]

Right you are. But he's still got a plot about heroin and then given the girl the name Poppy, compounded by a variation of the flower's name in Latin. I know it's a Bond novel, and I suppose it is terribly picky of me - but it just seems a bit by the numbers, that. It's a bit like the Ritz so far - a 'stage Bond' novel.

Bond fanatics are a tough lot to convince, aren't they? Thank G-- I'm not one!

True you are too (not to mention Poppy Papava's sister, Scarlett Papava... Papavers are scarlet coloured, aren't they? )! And this is specially surprising given this declaration of Faulks in yesterday's Times interview:

The bits that I didn’t like were when it just gets too silly – the silly names.

Not that I personnaly hate the silly names, though, but after that I thought Faulks did.

[spynovelfan]

I'm also publishing an exclusive extract today, of Bondkiller 2:

''Listen, Mr Bond,' said Dr Julius Marascanga as he stroked the overfed black cat on his lap with a menacing tenderness. Faulks' Bond took in the fact that the cat was definitely black, not white, so it was rather like the early Connery films that were so good but it was a clever variation on it, a tribute in the spirit of Fleming, not simply a reshuffling of the ingredients in the blandest and most immediately obvious manner.

'I'm listening, Marascanga,' said Faulks' Bond. Now he had finally penetrated J.U.L.I.U.S., the network of evil masterminds called Dr Julius something-or-other, he wasn't going to miss out on hearing precisely what substance it was they were involved in smuggling through a pipeline to a country near but not actually Sierra Leone, which was already used in Diamonds Are Forever...'

I wrote it in six minutes, while snorkelling.

[Scrambled Eggs]

Ah, the suspense. The little white ball is bouncing around the roulette wheel: is it to be red, black or the green zero? For once, I couldn't resist giving my ten mille to the Casino de Amazon...

Bollocks to Casino de Amazon. I'm looking forward to marching into Waterstones first chance I get and reading this cover to cover. Well, I'll go home first obviously.

Loads going on here that whets the appetite. Hopefully that extract will calm the minds of those thinking that Seb's going to be taking the mick from up on his literary high horse.

Edited by Scrambled Eggs, 25 May 2008 - 11:59 PM.

[Napoleon Solo]

See, I always took "Writing AS Ian Fleming" to mean that the reader would be able to pick up DEVIL MAY CARE and not be able to tell that it hadn't been written by Fleming.

If Fleming had written DMC, he wouldn't have put in a gratuitous Beatles and Stones reference to say "Ho ho ho, James Bond's in the 1960s!". Because it would have been the present day as far as he was concerned. Why mention what pop stars are getting up to? These jokey pop culture references seem more appropriate to Austin Powers.

Here's an example from film similar to what's described above.

The movies "Murder My Sweet" with Dick Powell and "Farewell, My Lovely" with Robert Mitchum are adaptations of the same Raymond Chandler novel. The Powell version was made a year or so after the novel, the Mitchum version in 1975.

I like both but in the Mitchum version, he's constantly musing about Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in 1941. The movie over does it. We get it. It's a period piece, that's why all the guys wear fedoras and drive old cars. I was reminded of that reading the start of the Devil May Care excerpt where they cram in references to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones right at the start.

[[dark]]

Much better than the first extract.

There's still a bit too much Fleming box-ticking going on; it does have the whiff of pastiche in places. But given it's the Centenary novel, I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised.

A marked improvement on the disappointing MI6 scenes.

We fans are probably overly critical, but is it too much to expect a novel to live up to such an amount of largely self-generated hype?

[Hitch]

Ah, the suspense. The little white ball is bouncing around the roulette wheel: is it to be red, black or the green zero? For once, I couldn't resist giving my ten mille to the Casino de Amazon...

Bollocks to Casino de Amazon. I'm looking forward to marching into Waterstones first chance I get and reading this cover to cover.

But don't you see, Eggy Poo, that Casino de Amazon trips off the tongue whereas Casino de Waterstones...? No. Channel Coward, dear boy, channel Coward and you'll get into the swing of things. And as for your language, "bollocks" is not the type of thing we aesthetes like to see. Apart from dearest No

[Righty007]

I really like the second extract especially the reference to Leiter!

Leiter Mentioned in 'Devil May Care' Online Extract

[chivasregal]

On the face of it, there is nothing intrinsically sillier about a heroin smuggler named Poppy than there is about a diamond smuggler named Tiffany Case.

HOWEVER...

I am aware of no writer who can match Fleming's capacity to make the reader swallow outright absurdities. Fleming's style is so straightfaced and authoritative, it packs such heft, that the reader willingly accepts the most outrageous nonsense unquestioningly.

This talent amounts to the literary equivalent of stage magic, sleight-of-phrase if you will, and its arguably one of the most Flemings greatest talents.

If YOU don't have this particular skill (booker prizes, critical acclaim, and literary talent are no guarantee of it) YOU don't get to write about diamond smugglers called Tiffany Case,lesbians named Pussy or indeed, women in the opium trade called Poppy.

Just my opinion

[chivasregal]

I REALLY disliked these extracts. So far they have confirmed my concerns about some of the strange comments Faulks made in interviews.

In retrospect it seems odd to have hired a writer who by his own admission had lost interest in genre fiction by the age of 12. Both in the interviews and in the extracts themselves I have gotten the sense that on some level Faulks feels the whole thing is really a little beneath him, like a Michelin starred restaurant cooking cheese burgers. In my opinion, writing good genre fiction is HARD.

"I like parodying other writers and I thought I could

[K1Bond007]

Now on the main page

Second Devil May Care Extract Online

Get another sneak peek of Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks

[Trident]

So now I've had my second helping and yes, it seems to go down a little bit easier than the first. Some nice phrases I actually liked quite a lot.

Deep in thought, he let himself into the soft Right Bank gloom of number 325, flicked up the light switch and tossed the weighty key on to the bed, where it bounced once, playfully.

Bond disliked diplomats - men with soft hands sent abroad to lie to foreign governments

That's more in the line of what I had expected from Faulks.



But I still have my reservations where the plotting is concerned. Ok, Bond finally gets to do a little thinking and wondering about the mysterious assault on him.
After
-he parked his car at the airport
-checked in
-flew to Paris
-collected his luggage
-took a taxi to his hotel and checked in there.

Must have been really a busy flight if it kept him from wondering so long. But it also kept him from putting a fresh clip into his gun so it's perhaps not so surprising that the brainwork was delayed a bit. I actually see no reason why this part wasn't included in the London scenes or during the flight. It would have helped the logic of the tale quite a lot, at least in my view.

What follows is the typical preparation of the hotel room before Bond sets about his business. Talcum powder and hair across a door, all very Flemingian although I can't help seeing the respective scenes from DN and FRWL. But why all the pains with the hair across the bathroom door when Bond takes no single precaution at the door to the hallway? The answer is simple: otherwise he wouldn't be half as surprised by the girl and we want the element of surprise here very much, don't we? Again, FRWL springs to mind, but it's thankfully not played too much in the 'best of classic Bond scenes'-sampler vein.

What's again disturbing here is that Bond leaves his room for the single reason to call Mathis. Why doesn't he do so from his room, which too is equipped with a phone? Security reasons? No, again it's just the need to get the girl to give Bond a minor start. Oh, what a start he might have had had there been someone with a gun.

No, Bond novels in general are not particularly logic. In fact, they are often full of absurdities, plot-holes and ludicrous events. The trick is, not to let them bother the reader. Here, I sadly have to note they bother me very much. And I want to like Devil May Care. Desperately so.

I'm also publishing an exclusive extract today, of Bondkiller 2:

''Listen, Mr Bond,' said Dr Julius Marascanga as he stroked the overfed black cat on his lap with a menacing tenderness. Faulks' Bond took in the fact that the cat was definitely black, not white, so it was rather like the early Connery films that were so good but it was a clever variation on it, a tribute in the spirit of Fleming, not simply a reshuffling of the ingredients in the blandest and most immediately obvious manner.

'I'm listening, Marascanga,' said Faulks' Bond. Now he had finally penetrated J.U.L.I.U.S., the network of evil masterminds called Dr Julius something-or-other, he wasn't going to miss out on hearing precisely what substance it was they were involved in smuggling through a pipeline to a country near but not actually Sierra Leone, which was already used in Diamonds Are Forever...'

I wrote it in six minutes, while snorkelling.

LOL!

Edited by Trident, 26 May 2008 - 07:15 AM.

[zencat]

Very smooth indeed.

Bond ordered two large bourbons and a bottle of Vittel. If she didn't change her mind, he'd drink the second himself.

Scarlett crossed her legs in the way Bond had noticed in the bar in Rome. The girl's presence troubled him in more ways than one. She seemed to have shed some years.

"Hotel staff in Paris are used to unescorted women going up in the lift. Provided you look smart."

[MarkA]

In many ways Faulks maybe needs to write two. Get the 'tick Fleming boxes' out of the way in the first and then get on and write a damn good Bond novel. So far it reminds me of the spoof Alligator. Kingsley Amis didn't feel the need to include references to Fleming all the way through and yet Colonel Sun still seems the most authentic of the continuation novels. As an aside Zencat you always seem an optimist, where I am the opposite. Lets hope this time you are right. After all the hype there are going to be an awful number of disappointed Bond fans.

[Byron]

In many ways Faulks maybe needs to write two. Get the 'tick Fleming boxes' out of the way in the first and then get on and write a damn good Bond novel. So far it reminds me of the spoof Alligator. Kingsley Amis didn't feel the need to include references to Fleming all the way through and yet Colonel Sun still seems the most authentic of the continuation novels. As an aside Zencat you always seem an optimist, where I am the opposite. Lets hope this time you are right. After all the hype there are going to be an awful number of disappointed Bond fans.

Seconded. Whilst not having read the second extract (or the book for that matter), Amis imo captured the "Fleming spirit" in a far more superior way than Faulks.

It's very sad, as DMC was supposed to have been the highlight of the centenary for me......

[Major Tallon]

This second extract is certainly an improvement on the first. Perhaps, having gotten the obligatory London scenes out of the way, Faulks was more comfortable with scenes he could invent out of whole cloth. There are still mistakes: so Bond had never met a female British agent before? He's apparently forgotten Mary Ann Russell and that woman who worked for Section S, but I regard that as a "slip" more than a serious error. And why is he still speculating over the source of the London cycle attack? That's an issue I raised in my previous critique. There was something potentially very serious happening there. Did nobody think to investigate it?

To disagree with IFP's spokesperson, I'd never mistake this for something that had been found forgotten in Fleming's desk (and, oh, how I wanted that to be true!), but this second extract was a significant improvement. Hopefully, that improvement will be progressively more apparent as the story develops. Fingers crossed!

[Safari Suit]

Now, I know that The Beatles were referenced in GOLDFINGER (Eon's, not Fleming's), but am I the only one who thinks this exchange is a bit, how to put it? A bit cute?

I think it's an example of the worst kind of period detailing. I realise that in the sixties people certainly did discuss the two most popular bands of the era, but when you're reading it in a novel published in 2008 it just makes the reader realise that the author is struggling (but not really trying) to establish the setting. It's only a couple of steps above a sitcom setting an episode in the 80s and showing it by giving one of the characters a Flock of Seagulls haircut.

I think the extracts show the problems with hiring someone to "be" another author, which seems to be a rather perverse idea as to me on the whole. Why should someone with their own distinctive talents mimic the equally distinctive talents of a predecessor? It's a bit like if Dalton had put on a scottish accent or wore cream lapels.

Still the book looks like it will be a bit of a laugh, which is certainly not something I expected to say.

Edited by Safari Suit, 26 May 2008 - 11:44 AM.

[Loomis]

That's a bit more like it! Hotting up now. Flows smoothly, far fewer tricksy little references, some suspense and atmosphere. Does actually read quite a bit like lost Fleming.

Well, it's a more impressive excerpt, certainly, but I'd hardly go as far as to say that it reads quite a bit like lost Fleming! That's like saying that HANNIBAL RISING reads like a Lecter novel by Thomas Harris!

As I and many others have mentioned, there's fanfiction out there that creates much more of a Flemingian atmosphere.

I am completely uninterested in a self-consciously ironic Bond novel.

I recently read John Pearson's JAMES BOND: THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY, and hated the self-consciously ironic bits.

I'd assumed that DEVIL MAY CARE would read like the bits in AUTHORISED where Pearson (brilliantly) mimics Fleming as he relates adventures of the younger Bond, but instead it seems as though it may have more in common with the "knowing" bits featuring Pearson's older Bond.

[MkB]

On second thought, after these two extracts, I'm now shifting expectations.

I now consider DMC will be more of a Fleming pastiche, in the same vein as the Bond short-story in Faulks's Pistache a couple of years ago. More serious, of course, but with a self-consciousness and a distance between the author and his story and tone. Faulks seems to be winking continuously at Ian Fleming and at the audience through these lines. I thought Faulks had been chosen because, as Loomis proved it quoting some extracts, his own style had some qualities similar to the ones of Fleming. But thinking about it, his background as a Fleming parodist in Pistache should have rung a bell. Did he consider this work was one of the reasons he had been asked to write the centenary novel, "writing as Ian Fleming"? I'm under the impression that this is the meaning of this strange "writing as Ian Fleming" phrase: Faulks produced a full-size pastiche of a Fleming Bond novel.

That said, is it a disaster? As I mentioned earlier, I'm just shifting expectations. If you accept the parody tone, DMC can be a good fun.

[spynovelfan]

Is it pastiche, though? Or simply a weak imitation? Here are two scenes with James Bond in a hotel room in France:

'He ignored the half-open door of the bathroom and, locking himself in, he turned up the bed-light and the mirror-light and threw his gun on the settee beside the window. Then he bent down and inspected one of his own black hairs which still lay undisturbed where he had left it before dinner, wedged into the drawer of the writing-desk. Next he examined a faint trace of talcum powder on the inner rim of the porcelain handle of the clothes cupboard. It appeared immaculate.'

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, 1953

'So far as he could tell, the room was clean. He closed the shutters, pulled a hair from his head and stuck it across the crack between the bathroom door and jamb. Then he opened the concealed compartment in the bottom of his case, took out some ammunition, refilled the Walther and replaced it in his shoulder holster, making sure no bulge showed beneath the coat of his suit. He shut the case and sprinkled a fine grey talcum over the combination lock.'

Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, 2008

I thought he meant he would go for 75% of Fleming's style - not the content!

[Scrambled Eggs]

That said, is it a disaster? As I mentioned earlier, I'm just shifting expectations. If you accept the parody tone, DMC can be a good fun.

I don't think it's quite right to describe the tone as "parody". It's knowing, it's a bit "nudge nudge wink wink see what I've done there?" but I don't think he's making fun of Fleming.

I think you're right though. Perhaps folk out there wanted something a bit different from a centenary novel but the only fair way to judge DMC is to judge it on its own terms.

[Loomis]

Perhaps folk out there wanted something a bit different from a centenary novel but the only fair way to judge DMC is to judge it on its own terms.

Well, true. People who like INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL tend to say:

"The problem is that your expectations were too high. It's not the fault of Spielberg and Lucas - it's your problem that you wanted another RAIDERS. They don't make the films for fanboys like you - they make them for the general public/themselves. Make your own film if you don't like what they've come up with. Judge the new Indiana Jones outing on its own merits. Enjoy it for what it is, not what you entirely without justification felt entitled to expect."

I find this a cop-out, though, for the simple reason that, if you can't legitimately expect something special from a brilliant author like Faulks (whether or not he's Writing AS Ian Fleming), or from filmmaking-legend-in-his-own-lifetime Spielberg, then it's equivalent to saying that you can't look forward to anything at all, and that track records mean nothing. Which I guess they don't, in all sober analysis. But what price an artist's reputation if his supporters will always give him a free pass?

[Trident]

Is it pastiche, though? Or simply a weak imitation? Here are two scenes with James Bond in a hotel room in France:

'He ignored the half-open door of the bathroom and, locking himself in, he turned up the bed-light and the mirror-light and threw his gun on the settee beside the window. Then he bent down and inspected one of his own black hairs which still lay undisturbed where he had left it before dinner, wedged into the drawer of the writing-desk. Next he examined a faint trace of talcum powder on the inner rim of the porcelain handle of the clothes cupboard. It appeared immaculate.'

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, 1953

'So far as he could tell, the room was clean. He closed the shutters, pulled a hair from his head and stuck it across the crack between the bathroom door and jamb. Then he opened the concealed compartment in the bottom of his case, took out some ammunition, refilled the Walther and replaced it in his shoulder holster, making sure no bulge showed beneath the coat of his suit. He shut the case and sprinkled a fine grey talcum over the combination lock.'

Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks, 2008

I thought he meant he would go for 75% of Fleming's style - not the content!

Some time ago I wrote in another thread:

I'm beginning to wish very much for a Stephen Fry go at Bond, even though I think the outcome could easily be something completely unexpected. If Fry would be allowed to go beyond pastiche, he might come up with all kinds of wicked ideas that would really make the centenary novel an outstanding event and not a mere continuation. IMHO that could be far more satisfying than just another done-to-death plot about yet another terrorist attack with stolen/bought/burrowed nuclear/biologic/chemic WMD to blackmail/kill/humiliate the President of the US of A/the leaders of the free world/the Board Of Directors of the BBC.

Which is not to say that a pastiche by Fry wouldn't be welcome too.

I'm really beginning to regret very much that Fry wasn't the one. I somehow have a feeling he'd have spent less time analysing the list-of-ingredients and the route of I-write-as-Fleming-used-to-Swimming/Martinis/2000-words-per-day-so-the-outcome-has-to-be-Fleming and instead really wouldn't have felt the task as below his standards.

[Scrambled Eggs]

I find this a cop-out, though, for the simple reason that, if you can't legitimately expect something special from a brilliant author like Faulks (whether or not he's Writing AS Ian Fleming), or from filmmaking-legend-in-his-own-lifetime Spielberg, then it's equivalent to saying that you can't look forward to anything at all, and that track records mean nothing. Which I guess they don't, in all sober analysis. But what price an artist's reputation if his supporters will always give him a free pass?

I don't think it's a copout. I'm not saying we should have to put up with any old because thats what Faulks and IFP have come up with so we should just be jolly grateful.

I'm just saying that he should be judged on how well he's carried off the type of book he's tried to write. Because he might not have a written a dark, noirish character study it does not mean he's abandoned quality. There is some great writing in the extracts we've seen.

If, when I read DMC it bores me and I find it all a bit slapdash and lazy I'll say so.