437 replies to this topic

[Trident]

An absolutely, truly fabulous work, SNF! Excellent! Spot on, extremely entertaining and astute. You could have added several fine chapters to Amis' (already very good) Bond Dossier.

Most of all I like how you pointed out what I was, up to now, not able to exactly put a finger on myself: Why DMC falls so short with Bond, where there should have been ample chance and opportunity to bring him back.

My own issues with DMC, apart from the picky brand-issue that I've brought up (and shall never bring up again), were mainly concerned with DMC's several holes around which a not very convincing plot had a hard time to keep the whole affair within the boundary of DMC's cover. But then, Bond plots often fail to suffice all standards of likelihood, logic and plausibility and still manage to be most enjoyable.

It's that special kind of Fleming-characterisation that has helped his novels to get his readers over the holes in his plots, over outrageously illogic schemes and truly fantastic scenes. A little bit of this would have helped DMC too and it's rather odd, almost unbelievable, that Faulks hasn't realized this himself.

[Gri007]

After reading all the Fleming Bond books, I had began readingDevil May Care. As soon I got into the second chapter I thought this was Fleming, and Mr Faulks had done a wonderful job in writing in Flemings style.

I thought the story got weak in the middle. I couldn't help but think that Faulks was marrying his work into the Brosnan films and even the Craig films

Caspian Sea - TWINE
Chagrin, not feeling any pain - TWINE
mentioning of Gorner 'planning' on taking control of radio, television and print - TND

Fight aboard plane -DAD

Lair in the middle of dessert -QOS
Parachusting out of plane together - QOS

Going to a air strip in dessert -TLD (and QOS???)

Was Faulks trying to give the impression that the above was inspired by Fleming work?.

I thought the story soon picked up agian whilst they where on the train. Not only did I sense a nod to FRWL, but also reminded me of the earlier Bond novels.

It was nice to see Rene Mathis back, but his scenes where very much in the style to them of Bensons works. It was also nice to have Felix Leiter in some action. It did slightly annoyed me how Faulks had delibriatly stopped the diolgue, to give them impression of interuption, and I'm still not to sure on what to think of the conclusion of Scarlett becoming 004.



Also the Ekranoplan has got the be most exciting Villian machinery yet. A shame that not much action had taken place on it.

[Simon]

Somewhere in the preceding 14 pages I had said my wife was reading DMC based on Faulks awareness through DMC related media, my interest and a subsequent reading of Human Traces, which she loved.

I was interested in how a person otherwise uninterested in Bond and certainly not tied into all the minutiae, would receive this work. She was aware of some critics' negativity towards the book but the detail was not entered into.

Suffice it to say, she loved it.

She came in with no real expectations other than to enjoy some escapism. There was no knowledge of Fleming's works against which to compare. She admitted to not being concerned with plot holes because, 'this was Bond and all this happens in the Bond world.' She came away with the impression that, even though Human Traces is a totally different work which was the result of some very serious research, this was probably how Fleming wrote. Indeed I was concerned that as she enjoyed Human Traces so considerably, expectations would be high as a result of that experience as opposed to the media frenzy. Not so. She enjoyed the detail, the food, the drink, the pace.

So, she will now be reading Goldfinger which, I think, will offer a Fleming comparison both in terms of style and also story content: capture/escape, food/drink, sport villain confrontation, coincidental meeting, sisters in danger etc.

[spynovelfan]

Interesting, Simon. I had a very different experience with my mother-in-law, who had read Birdsong and absolutely loved it, and otherwise corresponds pretty much to the scenario with your wife, ie she hadn't read Fleming, is not a Bond fan, etc. She asked to borrow my copy, and I actually thought she might have the reaction your wife did - which many people did, including several notable critics. But she didn't like it at all, and found it very hard to read. She liked the fact that it was set in the Sixties and enoyed some of the period detail, but felt that there was no pace, the characters were uninvolving and that the plot made little sense, even by the standards of an over-the-top adventure thriller. Horses for courses, I guess.

It would be interesting to see what your wife makes of Goldfinger - the tennis scene compared to the golf scene, for instance. I don't think GF is one of Fleming's best, though. I wonder what a non-Bond fan who'd liked Devil May Care would make of From Russia With Love.

[Simon]

It would be interesting to see what your wife makes of Goldfinger - the tennis scene compared to the golf scene, for instance. I don't think GF is one of Fleming's best, though. I wonder what a non-Bond fan who'd liked Devil May Care would make of From Russia With Love.

Indeed. I would hope to be able to post her reaction to Gf here once read.

The FRWL idea is a good one but this may require an entirely different mind set. The escapism expectation of DMC was about the only one she had, and in this repsect it was fulfilled. I too wonder about a reaction to this one - perhaps all in good time.

At present she is reading a narrativeless book on Woods and Trees which is provng hard going, so perhaps another spell of escapism is on its way.

[jboy]

The ending completely ruined it. The book started with great promise with great locations, interesting character development and strong narrative.

It got worse as the book went along. The 00 status of Scarlett was embarassing. Pretty much took the book from okay to barely decent.

Too bad. It had promise.

[FlemingIanFleming]

I just finally got around to reading this book. I'll keep my thoughts short, as they're echoed by so many previous comments. Like most, I went into it with high hopes and was ultimately quite disappointed. There is some great stuff there, but overall the plot isn't particularly well thought out, the book loses steam past the halfway mark and despite the insistence that this was a return to the Fleming style, it seemed to me to be aping the Connery-era films rather than Fleming's novels.

I certainly enjoyed it as a mindless, somewhat guilty pleasure, the same way I enjoyed many of the Gardner and Benson continuation novels despite their many problems. But I'd hoped this would be a return to greatness for the literary 007 franchise, and instead it came off as a cash-in rush job.

I have a feeling that Faulks thought it would be easy to write a good James Bond novel for modern audiences. Clearly it's not.

[Loomis]

I'm giving DEVIL MAY CARE an anniversary re-read. Having read more Faulks since its publication, I'm noticing little things here and there reworked from his other books - for instance, the details of the drug smuggling operation echo something in ENGLEBY, while I've also spotted nods to ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET.... and I'm only a coupla chapters in.

If there's one era of Bondage with which DMC really chimes, it's the late-Moore period. The characters of Bond, M and Moneypenny and the banter between them come from the films, specifically the era THE SPY WHO LOVED ME - A VIEW TO A KILL, and not from Fleming (despite all the hype). Now, this isn't entirely a bad thing - I mean, I love the Moore era. But Faulks' 007 doesn't echo Fleming's creation, and neither is his prose Flemingian.

Anyone else giving old Seb another spin round the block a year on?

[tdalton]

Anyone else giving old Seb another spin round the block a year on?

No, I have no plans to. Had I even been able to finish the novel the first time around, I might have had more inclination to pick it up and give it another try, but it's been over a year since the book's initial release and I still haven't finished it, nor do I plan to.

[JimmyBond]

Anyone else giving old Seb another spin round the block a year on?

No, I have no plans to. Had I even been able to finish the novel the first time around, I might have had more inclination to pick it up and give it another try, but it's been over a year since the book's initial release and I still haven't finished it, nor do I plan to.

Ouch. Saying that though, I agree with you. In fact I'm in the same boat, I didnt even finish the darn thing in the first place.

[zencat]

I re-read it last month. I enjoyed it last year and I enjoyed it again. It's a fast easy read. A perfectly acceptable continuation novel. I know people expected/wanted more from Faulks, and he certainly could have delivered a stronger book, but it is not a bad Bond book. I really don't understand all the hate (or how any Bond fan can not at least finish it).

Read Death Is Forever or The Man From Barbarossa and you'll know real pain, you spoiled pups.

[tdalton]

I really don't understand all the hate (or how any Bond fan can not at least finish it).

I just think that it's a poorly written novel, and it becomes so boring towards the end that I honestly just couldn't keep moving forward with it. There's some good stuff in there, but it's so heavily outweighed by the overall poorness of the novel that it ends up not being enough to keep me going with it.

Read Death Is Forever or The Man From Barbarossa and you'll know real pain, you spoiled pups.

I haven't read those either, and if they're as bad (or worse) than DMC, then I seriously doubt that I ever will.

[zencat]

I just think that it's a poorly written novel, and it becomes so boring towards the end that I honestly just couldn't keep moving forward with it. There's some good stuff in there, but it's so heavily outweighed by the overall poorness of the novel that it ends up not being enough to keep me going with it.

Okay. Fair enough.

Read Death Is Forever or The Man From Barbarossa and you'll know real pain, you spoiled pups.

I haven't read those either, and if they're as bad (or worse) than DMC, then I seriously doubt that I ever will.

TMFB is not really bad. It's just an experiment that doesn't work for me. I find it excruciatingly hard to read. But I've read it twice. I keep trying.

DIF is just plain terrible on all counts (except the UK cover art which is kind of cool). But I've also read it twice to check myself. I didn't like Never Send Flowers when it first came out. I found it very hard to finish. But years later I re-read it and loved it. Your opinion of a book (like a movie) can really change over the years.

[[dark]]

Read Death Is Forever or The Man From Barbarossa and you'll know real pain, you spoiled pups.

I've been working my way through the Gardners for the past year or so and The Man From Barbarossa and Death Is Forever are the next on my list. I'm aware of the former's reputation, so I'm curious to see what I think of it.

I kind of lump Devil May Care in with the Gardners, actually; bland, pedestrian entries in the series that really do nothing to progress Fleming's legacy - serviceable, but little else.

[DAN LIGHTER]

Is it just Zencat and me who liked DMC?

[Loomis]

No, I'm growing to like it (and as a massive fan of Faulks I certainly want to like it). I find, though, that a CRUCIAL thing to do in order to enjoy DEVIL MAY CARE is to forget about Fleming.

Forget all the marketing guff about "Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming" - all of that is just hype and false advertising. DMC isn't Flemingian in the slightest, or, if it is, then it's no more Flemingian than any of the other continuation novels.

If you swallow the "writing as Fleming" hype, you will feel baffled and cheated, because that's all it ever was: hype. If Faulks seriously believes that he what he wrote is Flemingian, he's deluded. His style here is nothing remotely like Fleming's whatsoever, and his Bond is most definitely not the same person.

My advice is to just approach DMC as another continuation novel. I'm not saying approach it uncritically, but merely that you should ignore the publicity BS. Faulks and IFP want you to view it as the real sequel to the Fleming novels, but don't strain yourself to see it their way, because their way is all lies. Don't try to square the hype with the truth, because the hype is the hype and the truth is the truth. Only Fleming is Fleming, and Faulks isn't even close. Like I say, DMC is far more rooted in the celluloid Bond, particularly the late-Moore era.

HOWEVER, that doesn't stop you from kicking back and enjoying DMC for what it is, namely a reasonably fun and occasionally fairly witty affair that's certainly among the best of the continuation novels.

[Jim]

Interesting posters for it plastered all over Euston station - can't miss it.

Background of poster shows airliner ploughing into a hillside in one of those crimson fireballs people write about. I suppose that's tasteful.

[zencat]

Hmmm...haven't seen the paperback poster yet. Gotta get that.

Weird to use an image of a crashing airplane. I don't think that's ever an appealing or "exciting" image, and you run the risk of it becoming downright upsetting if real life intrudes, as it appears it has. Stick with girls and guns.

[Jim]

"...certainly among the best of the continuation novels."

In context as ringing an endorsement as "this leper is marginally less leprous than the other lepers in this big sack of moist lepers".

Not a patch on Nobody Lives Forever, Doubleshot, Blood Fever or Colonel Sun. Probably stronger than many of the rest, so it might be able to eat its way to the top of the sack in due course.

[Loomis]

"...certainly among the best of the continuation novels."

In context as ringing an endorsement as "this leper is marginally less leprous than the other lepers in this big sack of moist lepers".

True, Jim, true, but what can I say? I'm firmly in an "It's better than a slap in the face with a wet haddock" frame of mind. Perhaps because I've now been tragic enough to acquire my third copy of the bugger (first the hardback, then the trade paperback/international paperback/whateverit'scalledyouknowwhatImeananyway, and now the new paperback) and am thus hell bent on finding some worth in it.

[Jim]

I'm firmly in an "It's better than a slap in the face with a wet haddock" frame of mind.

An underrated thrill. Promise.

[DAN LIGHTER]

I have only read Devil May Care once. And at that time I was totally high on hype. Watching the countdown clock on CBN. Trying to get me hands on a signed copy.Then reading it thinking this is well cool.

Did the baddie have a big hand with a glove on that was very hairy? And he ran over a small dog at the beginning of the book? The nasty man!

[zencat]

Perhaps because I've now been tragic enough to acquire my third copy of the bugger (first the hardback, then the trade paperback/international paperback/whateverit'scalledyouknowwhatImeananyway, and now the new paperback) and am thus hell bent on finding some worth in it.

I'm at 15 copies with two more in the mail.

[Loomis]

That's just.... evil.

[zencat]

I also see the need to get a paperback 1st non-exclusive (I wound up with a 2nd). And I can only imagine what booksellers will temp us with after Faulks signing in London tomorrow. Yes, a signed paperback 1st. That's what I need. It will be mine.

BTW, I might sell my second Watertone's paperback exclusive on eBay. I just bought it because I could get it for half-price.

[tdalton]

No, I'm growing to like it (and as a massive fan of Faulks I certainly want to like it). I find, though, that a CRUCIAL thing to do in order to enjoy DEVIL MAY CARE is to forget about Fleming.

Forget all the marketing guff about "Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming" - all of that is just hype and false advertising. DMC isn't Flemingian in the slightest, or, if it is, then it's no more Flemingian than any of the other continuation novels.

If you swallow the "writing as Fleming" hype, you will feel baffled and cheated, because that's all it ever was: hype. If Faulks seriously believes that he what he wrote is Flemingian, he's deluded. His style here is nothing remotely like Fleming's whatsoever, and his Bond is most definitely not the same person.

My advice is to just approach DMC as another continuation novel. I'm not saying approach it uncritically, but merely that you should ignore the publicity BS. Faulks and IFP want you to view it as the real sequel to the Fleming novels, but don't strain yourself to see it their way, because their way is all lies. Don't try to square the hype with the truth, because the hype is the hype and the truth is the truth. Only Fleming is Fleming, and Faulks isn't even close. Like I say, DMC is far more rooted in the celluloid Bond, particularly the late-Moore era.

HOWEVER, that doesn't stop you from kicking back and enjoying DMC for what it is, namely a reasonably fun and occasionally fairly witty affair that's certainly among the best of the continuation novels.

I threw all of that "writing as Ian Fleming" nonsense out of the window roughly a quarter of the way through the book, and still found it to be an insufferable read from that point forward. You're right in saying that this is a Roger Moore Bond tale, which does not in any way, shape, or form work on the written page. The reason it worked for Moore was because he was so charismatic in the role that it was impossible not to like him (and he seems to be a genuinely good person, which makes it impossible not to like him be it on or off screen), but the Bond in DMC is neither charismatic nor particularly interesting, and is really just there to allow the novel to be sold as a "James Bond" novel.

As for it being amongst the best of the continuation novels, I can't agree. For me, it ranks nowhere near the likes of FOR SPECIAL SERVICES, ICEBREAKER, NEVER DREAM OF DYING, DOUBLESHOT, HIGH TIME TO KILL, THE FACTS OF DEATH, COLD FALL, LICENCE RENEWED, or WIN LOSE OR DIE. It may not even approach the rest of the novels, but these are the continuation novels that, for me, stand head-and-shoulders ahead of DEVIL MAY CARE.

[zencat]

Surprised to see Cold Fall on that list, tdalton.

[tdalton]

Surprised to see Cold Fall on that list, tdalton.

It's been a very long time since I read it, but I actually remember it to be somewhat enjoyable. As soon as I can find my copy of it I might give it a re-read to see if that opinion still holds. It wasn't a great book, by any stretch, but it's one that I know I enjoyed more than I enjoyed DMC.

[chrisno1]

I read DMC when it first came out and I wasn’t particularly excited by it. I had a lot going on at the time and it took me a couple of weeks to read. However, I have recently purchased the Penguin paperback and thought I’d give it another go.

Firstly, the book itself: Penguin has re-formatted all the Bond novels to the contemporary fiction size. This means it sits bigger than all my other novels and doesn’t look neat on the shelf. I know that’s trivial, but there you have it. The cover is dull; the picture of the heroine has an unworldly look to it, like a cartoon. And then there’s the print size, so large it looks like a children’s novel. Someone totalled the budget, but it does seem a waste of almost 400 pages of paper when, with a smaller typeface, the novel would hardly stretch to 250, approximately the length of most of Fleming’s efforts. It might be cheaper too.

Okay so that’s got my initial gripes out of the way. What of the story itself? Well, Sebastian Faulks is a good writer. Take that on authority: Birdsong is a phenomenally good novel. But I don’t really know what he’s trying to do here. DMC lacks a decent plot and, even worse, suffers from pages of pointless dialogue. Quite why Faulks keeps his character’s talking when the reader just wants to cut to the next scene I will never know. He creates or uses a host of characters many of whom, like Felix Leither and Rene Mathis and J.D. Silver, are superfluous to the plot. They may add some local colour, but they don’t really help Bond solve the case.

What always made Fleming’s writing good was his regular refusal to abandon his lead character; even when others are helping 007, Fleming rigidly stuck to describing the mission from Bond’s point of view. This allows the reader to experience the tension and the fear from Bond’s position. As DMC reaches its climax, Faulks effectively tells us there won’t be a nuclear war because Bond’s allies have obtained all the information and manageD to tell London. This rather removes the tension from Bond’s battle on the A-10 aeroplane. Additionally we also learn there is a mole inside the enemy camp; what a pity they didn’t use him earlier! It’s a bit of a cop out. Faulks doesn’t appear to have thought through how to tie up all his loose ends.

He’s equally bad when it comes to his main characters. Like Fleming, he doesn’t describe much about Bond, choosing instead to offer a series of semi-reflective paragraphs interspersed into the story. We get the impression of a rather tired, aging agent, who has just about had enough of the special services and looks at himself “with a distaste he made no attempt to soften.” Faulks is rather good here and also later on when playing out Bond’s protracted courtship of Scarlett Papava. He gives us a real feel for Bond, even if he isn’t fleshing out his heroine or indeed his villians.

The character of Scarlett was unbelievable the first time I read the book and it doesn’t improve. It’s a clumsy interpretation, nothing like Fleming’s women, being seductive and resourceful and helpless all at once. The first time of reading I, like Bond, wondered about her expertise with guns; it is soon very obvious she is a spy and Faulks telegraphs her appearance as 004. The MacGuffin of Scarlett’s “twin” is equally preposterous and here Faulks shares one of John Gardner’s traits: M doesn’t tell Bond everything he needs to know, effectively putting both his agents at greater risk.

Even shallower are Faulks’ villians, Dr Julius Gorner (I don’t like the name, it isn’t anywhere near sinister enough) and Chagrin. Gorner is clearly based on Dr No, with his red China connections and his white glove covering a deformed hand – an ape’s paw. But Gorner doesn’t have any menace about him. Sure, he skulks around Marseilles, he’s asexual, he’s a Nazi and a Soviet turncoat and he offers drug addicted women to be raped by drug addicted slaves, but being nasty doesn’t make him memorable. Even an elaborate scheme to cheat at tennis merely makes him appear like a spoilt brat. Chagrin is a psychopathic murderer who is hardly fleshed out at all. Gorner offers a few lines to explain his bodyguard’s tendencies in a manner familiar to Bond readers from GF, where Goldfinger has to talk for Oddjob as the man in mute.

Bond’s chief ally is Darius Alizadeh, our man in Persia, and Faulk’s draws a better character here, giving him a proper back story and some good dialogue. Faulks has clearly based Darius on some of Fleming’s more colourful creations, like Kerim Bey, Tanaka and Colombo. He uses him to explain much of the politics of the time and this is an excellent device. Somewhat startlingly he also includes a strange chapter where he and Bond visit an exotic nightclub full of naked women. It’s startling because there isn’t any sex.

Indeed there isn’t a lot of sex in the book at all and most of what there is seems quite morbid, designed to titillate and revolt in equal measure. Similarly the action, when it does come, has none of the lengthy drawn out detail and almost masochistic descriptions a la Fleming. Instead we have short, sharp, punchy sentences that pass by without any real exhilaration.

So what do we have here? Faulks claimed he woke at eight every morning and wrote two thousand words a day for six weeks, exactly how Fleming wrote. He doesn’t however share Fleming’s ability to inject pace and fear into the story. These things are sadly lacking. He also struggles to come up with anything original. Indeed the whole book has a sort of composite feel to it, with inspiration coming from both the books and the films. The plot is a rehash of TSWLM (the film); the Arkenadan is a sort of stealth boat for the ‘60s; the tennis match replicates a round of golf; Gorner is complied from Dr No, Goldfinger and Yannis; Chagrin is a cross between Grant and Reynard, including a heightened pain threshold; we have a man sucked out of a plane; we have fights on a plane; Bond goes diving underneath a secret warehouse; the list goes on, but I will stop now...

It isn’t a very good novel. It’s also very disappointing that a writer as good as Faulks has not grasped what essentially makes Fleming so readable: the attention to detail, to things and people and happenings, to senses and smells and thoughts, above all he paid attention to Bond’s realisations and there just isn’t enough of that in DMC. When it’s there, Faulks does okay, but too often he forsakes it for shoddy action or dull dialogue.

Sorry, Sebastian; it’s time to try again I’m afraid.

[Loomis]

One thing I love about DEVIL MAY CARE and an aspect I've found to be missing in the vast majority of the continuation novels is that 007 goes in for gourmet cuisine with a vengeance. On virtually every page, he's stuffing his face and sinking fine wine. It's so Bondian!

Yes, I'm still determined to like this book. Even if it kills me.

chrisno1, cheers for pointing out BIRDSONG. I'll probably make it my next Faulks.