The plot is a huge letdown and I imagine I won't be the only one who finds it unimaginative and a bit lazy. A drug dealer who wants to start a war because he really really doesn't like England? Thats it? A 3rd rate rehash of Hugo Drax? Fleming's plots always had a touch of the surreal about them and this is what DMC sorely lacks.
It occurs to me that, whilst Fleming
wrote his books in six weeks, for the year before he would be scribbling notes and (probably) planning the book inside his head.
Did Faulks do the same? Probably not. The prose isn't slapdash and lazy (far from it) but I'm afraid the story is. It lacks momentum. Once I got to the Ekranoplan and Bond getting knocked out I found myself beginning to lose interest. I just didn't feel Bond was in any serious bother.
Other quibbles: Faulks is constantly trying to give the story some contemporary relevance: Mentions of a lack of veils in Iran; Helmand Province; what could be achieved by one man dominating much of the media... its nice and I suppose it gives the novel a depth of sorts, but theres too much of it. It gets irritating and in the way of what Faulks should have been trying to do - writing a bloody thriller.
The parts set in Russia are a huge missed opportunity. It doesn't read like Bond. More like Bond suddenly strolling into someonelse's book. Again, even when Chagrin pops up, you don't feel Bond and Scarlet are in a particularly sticky spot.
This all probably reads like I'm taking a
on Sebastian Faulks from a great height. In fact there are a lot of things aboutt this I loved. The opening chapters (prior to the bleedin' Ekranoyawn) are excellent: The noirish parisian opening, the introduction to an older Bond feeling he's lost his spark. Everything in Paris is superb and drips with sophistication and the faded glamour I love about Fleming. The Tehran club scenes accompnied Darius are sexy, suprising and great fun. Obviously modelled on the Kerim scenes in FRWL and, for me, equally if not more memorable. They are also rather contrived and unimportant to the plot, which is no bad thing. Maybe faulks should have donw more of this... move us away from his pedestrian plot and just have a bit of fun.
I also like his interpretation of Rene Mathis as a wily ols Parisian adulterer. Unsuprisingly, as I say, everything Faulks sets in Paris is far more vibrant than the rest of the book.
The 004 "twist" is transparent from the off, but I think Scarlet is a sexy heroine I'd like to see more of. The "almost but not quite" sex scene in the "Trouser" chapter is very sexy, as is the splendid last few paragraphs. The trouble is that this sexual tension isn't consistent throughout, particularly when she and Bond make their escape through Russia. Two people who fancy each other in peril? Surely theyd be all over each other? Too often she and Bond come across as a pair of slightly flirty urban sophisticates, not two people falling wildly in lust.
And so, even when I try and be nice, and despite being one of the few people who went in to bat for Faulks when people slated the extracts, I find myself being critical. But theres plenty to like about DMC and I can't give it less than 3, perhaps even 3 and a half out of five.
Its not Fleming, but then it was never going to be. I wouldnt recommend it to someone new to Bond literature but any Fleming fan should find plenty to enjoy here as well as plenty to be frustrated by. All in all a bit of a missed opportunity.
