50 replies to this topic

[Trident]

I'm a bit perplexed about all the fuss regarding the Bond figure in 'LXG: Black Dossier'. The angry reactions to this entry into the series IMO are perhaps mostly due to the fact that some readers may not have understood what LXG, what basically all of Moore's work is about.

Or, rather, people understand damn well what it's about and are angry precisely over that. "Deconstruction" is sometimes just a cover-word for a snide put-down job based on sloppy assumptions, and that's exactly what Moore has done with the literary Bond.

Or, rather, people understand damn well what it's about and cannot stand their hero to be stained by any (deliberate? intentionally provoking?) misinterpretations?

Moore claims to have captured the literary Bond and in my view he has done so.

Then I very much question the validity of a view that can conflate two versions of a character so drastically different in personality, morals, and temperament.

Oh, but of course! We're all entitled to question the validity of Moore's view, of his take on Bond. Very much so, and I'm the first to acknowledge that.

Although he of course can't withstand the temptation to caricature the film myth of 007 with the gimmicks

In other words, he either fudged the integrity of his own project, just so he could further rubbish a character he had little affection for, or he couldn't get the two versions of the character straight anyway.

But the film impersonation of Bond has had its repercussions on the literary character. The Bond of pre-EON times was different from the one post Connery's first film. And the majority of the public doesn't even know about the original concept any more. The 'myth' of Bond (for lack of a better word, sorry) has become inextricably connected with the films. So any activity concerning itself with this myth is also touching the film depiction to a certain extent.

There's little to suggest that Moore's understanding of Bond is based on anything more than a few fuzzy memories of the most intentionally outrageous passages of Casino Royale and memories of the films.

To the contrary. Moore has managed to pick your every single nerve about a favourite topic of yours. Do you think that's coincidence? It's deliberate, intentional. To get fans so started about their precious heroes he has had to spend considerate time to come up with something that's the exact opposite of what they want to see in their objects of affection.

Moore hasn't set out to write LXG:BD (or any other of his series, as far as I can see) with the intent to please us Bond fans (or any other fandom, not even his own one):

'Now, let's sit down here and do the definite Bond story so that 007 fans should praise my name eternally! And the Revelator shall be satisfied!'

What people don't seem to get is: this is Bond in an alternate history!

Which apparently means that Bond is the only character to get an entirely new personality to go with it, as if he was just a puppet of history, unlike the other heroes of Moore's books, whose personalities remain recognizable from their literary sources.

Oh, really? How did you recognize Bond then? You did recognize Bond, didn't you?

And what kind of resemblance you can find between Mina Murray of LXG and Mina Harker of 'Dracula' isn't really clear to me right now. In Stoker's epistolary novel there is really very little to indicate a dedicated and determined young woman who could act as the head of a team of rather excentrical and quite deadly characters.

I've read my Haggard quite a while ago (20 years or so) but fail to see where you make up the resemblance there. OK, Allan carries his rifles, but even that doesn't make him so terribly recognizable as Haggard's character.

I grant you that the invisible man is pretty recognizable, for he's invisible. And Nemo can easily be identified by his submarine, which is a pretty sure distinguishing mark.

All LXG characters deviate to some extent from their source material. But Moore delivers a set of circumstances that makes this deviation plausible. That's why we can identify the characters in spite of their twists.

[baerrtt]

It was said by Moore once that WATCHMEN helped rid him of his genuine love for superheroes(well fictional heroes period) by painting that novel's main characters as fascist, bullying symbols of the Reaganite era.

Basically the impression I get is that Moore, from that point onwards, viewed all iconic heroes in suspect terms and quite frankly Bond (whether it be Fleming's pen or the movies) is the easiest one to depict as a complete villain. Just read certain passages from CASINO ROYALE and, if you want, you can make up your mind about the character then and there.

All I saw (when reading it) was Moore continuing a strand that's lasted nearly over 20 years now so it didn't bother or surprise me in the slightest.

[Trident]

PART II:

This Bond has (after WWII; a different WWII with the Germans occupying GB, if memory serves) worked over ten years for the fascist 'Big Brother' government of Orwell's 1984! For some reason nobody seems too angry about this particular plotline, which to me is the farthest digression from Fleming I can imagine (I'd have put him into some kind of 'resistance'-movement).

Of course you would, because you have some understanding of Bond's very Germanophobic character, unlike Moore, whose feet of clay you seem reluctant to acknowledge, despite just having tripped over them.

Actually, it's not told what Bond would have done during the occupation, if memory serves. But I find it a bit strange that, once the occupation was over, Bond shouldn't have defended his country against the British 'Big Brother' fascists. But this is the whole point. Under a different set of circumstances a character developes and behaves differently to some extent. Your premise is roughly:

Bond = hero = cannot behave as in BD, no matter what the circumstances = shame on Moore! Burn the bastard!

But this also serves to show and deconstruct another facette of the Bond character. A popular criticism of Bond during the 60's/70's used to be that the SS would have been proud of a member like Bond and he'd have fitted perfectly into the Nazi apparat.

Which as your own resistance comment shows, is bunk in the first place. What Moore has done is a shallow deconstruction based more on a discredited and spurious 60s take on Bond than on any understanding of the actual character as found in the books. But he then very smugly claims to have captured Fleming's Bond, and this is eyewash.

So Moore did a deconstruction, although a shallow one that doesn't tally with your understanding of Bond? Shame that Moore didn't listen to us fans, isn't it? Yet he managed to deliver the almost exact opposite of our picture of Bond. How the hell did he do that, with so little understanding of what Bond is about? Where's the cross to crucify the bloody heretic?

The howling about all of this is really a bit exaggerated, considering the fate Moore has chosen for all his characters. You think he's tough on Bond?

It should be pretty bloody obvious. Unlike Quartermain, this Bond is utter scum, too pathetic to even be an imposing villain. This is not merely a matter of having a character changing their personality or shedding inhibitions--it is matter of intentionally denigrating a character by giving him attributes that have no basis in the character Moore's supposedly trying to capture.

Or is it a matter of intentionally denigrating our precious holy cow of how Bond is supposed to be seen? The LXG Bond didn't complain, hes content being a travesty. The 'real' Bond wouldn't even care, I daresay. It's just us fans having iconoclastic discussions. Sometimes I wonder what Moore had in mind when he insulted us so utterly unforgivable?

Fleming's Bond was a thoughtful patriot whose dealing with women were rooted in a paradoxical core of gentleness and reflection. Moore's Bond is the sort of pond-scum who's put date-rape drugs in a woman's drink. In other words, it's the version of Bond peddled through the years by critics determined to see him as an arch-misogynistic who, as LeCarre once spouted, would just as well have worked for the Russians if they'd had better caviar.

Well, they had the better caviar. Bond just stayed over here because his Playboy subscription wouldn't deliver to Moscow.

You see, Moore really stops at nothing if he sees a chance to pit his characters against their own limits, critics or clichés.

Better to say that Moore stops at nothing to pit other people's characters against his own limitations and cliches about their supposedly inner essences.

That's your reading of the affair. Entirely as valid as any other one, I should imagine.

You say there is no reality, especially not an ugly one, as there are no superheroes? Exactly, there is no reality in fiction, for that's what it is: fiction...What there is in LXG, in all of Moore's work as far as I can judge is: truth. For without truth no fiction has any meaning. And Moore has plenty of it.

So there's truth in Moore's work but no reality. By this bizarro logic truth is thus unreal. What next, truth is beauty? I think Keats might have beaten you to that one. Let me know when you're done pulling and I can have my leg back, because I can't help much of this as specious nonsense--even in bad fiction there can be truths about human nature or how the world works.

Shame that you didn't get the point here. I take it you're not a philosopher? Despite having heard of Keats? OK, won't unsettle you any more than necessary: there is a difference between truth and reality. If you're interested there's any number of sites on this topic to be found. You wouldn't even have to fear for your leg, all they ask for is the use of your intellect. That unfortunately you'd have to do by yourself.

The supposed "truth" about Moore's conception of Bond, which he has uttered several times before, is that Bond is really an unpleasant misognynist and a nasty piece of work. This isn't a truth, but rather an extremely gross simplification of the character, and it is from this simplification that Moore has proceeded.
Even a genius can sometimes be stupid. Alan Moore is almost6 certainly the greatest writer in comics, and his books are distinguished by their conceptual daring, depth of understanding of human character, and postmodern erudition. None of this means that he can't occasionally go awry, for even Homer nodded at times. His LoG books usually work, and when they don't, it's because he's based his version of a character on a limited and faulty understanding of that personage. That is exactly what has happened with Bond, a character he plainly has little sympathy for and cares very little about. And when authors do not want to get to really know the characters they're using, those characters often come across as lifeless, unpleasant caricatures. Such is the case with Alan Moore's James Bond. More's the pity.

The supposed reality about your Philippic is that you feel Bond's insulted by Moore's illicit use of his character.

The supposed truth about your Philippic is that you feel yourself insulted by the supposed staining of Bond.

[Loomis]

I think Bond's more than strong enough to withstand anything Alan Moore or anyone else may wish to do to him.

That artists are coming up with new interpretations of the character is surely the greatest possible testament to Fleming and his creation. It means that Bond is still relevant and interesting, and, hey, if you don't like it it's hardly as though you won't always have the Fleming books to cherish.

It is a pity that some of the official Bond books (DEVIL MAY CARE, I'm thinking of you) don't display the adventurism of Alan Moore. I'm not saying I like Moore's take on Bond, as such, but I'm pleased that he has a take. If only the likes of Faulks had been told they could have one too.

[Trident]

I think Bond's more than strong enough to withstand anything Alan Moore or anyone else may wish to do to him.

Agree with that. I think the fact that Moore picked up Bond and chose to do it in an extremely provoking manner is a sure indication that Bond, Fleming's Bond, still has relevance, still is the stuff to spark readers' minds and initiate discussions. And while I'm afraid not everybody will agree here, I'm rather sure that's what Moore intended by using Bond in the first place.

[Revelator]

Or, rather, people understand damn well what it's about and cannot stand their hero to be stained by any (deliberate? intentionally provoking?) misinterpretations?

If this is going to be a main plank of your argument it'll make for weak timber. Will Self was in many ways far more savage toward Bond in his short story published in Esquire a while back. But he did so by actually engaging with Fleming. All Moore has done is use several ill-thought out generalizations to trash a character he plainly doesn't care for.

But the film impersonation of Bond has had its repercussions on the literary character.

You're dodging the issue in a very unsubtle way. Moore has claimed to have captured the literary Bond, not the Bond of the movies. And yet he's used facets of movie Bond to condemn the literary character. That's a cheap move and contrary to what he has said. So let's not let him with a kiss on the cheek just because he's an author you worship.

To the contrary. Moore has managed to pick your every single nerve about a favourite topic of yours. Do you think that's coincidence? It's deliberate, intentional.

Provocation is easy to produce, whether it's through unjustified slander or actual criticism, and Moore went with the former. Defending someone just because they've managed to irritate people says nothing about whether the provocation is justified or not. It just says that you're willing to defend someone regardless of what they've done.

Oh, really? How did you recognize Bond then? You did recognize Bond, didn't you?

Barely, and mostly through the most superficial characteristics--a young man with a comma of black hair who works for the secret service and is called a variant of James and takes an interest in women and relies on gadgets like movie Bond. But I didn't recognize Fleming's Bond at all.

In Stoker's epistolary novel there is really very little to indicate a dedicated and determined young woman who could act as the head of a team of rather excentrical and quite deadly characters.

But in this case Moore decided to add depth and reserve to a character he was plainly interested in, instead of cutting down and reducing a character down by making him a one-dimensional thug. Moore's Bond does the opposite of what he's done with most of the other characters he's played with: he manages to produce an interpretation that's not illuminating or affective but utterly reductive, based on a reductive idea of what the character is. He's betrayed his own ethos by doing so, and that is what really rankles.

But I find it a bit strange that, once the occupation was over, Bond shouldn't have defended his country against the British 'Big Brother' fascists. But this is the whole point. Under a different set of circumstances a character developes and behaves differently to some extent.

Which is apparently is license to have the character develop in whatever ways the author wishes as long as the character can be suitably denigrated according to his whims. This would only be true if character was something entirely at the mercy of circumstance, and this is a false idea of character. Your own conjecture is based on a reading of Bond that is far more plausible and valid than Moore's, and it's a pity you don't recognize that it indicates a better grasp of the character. You find things a "bit strange," because you've most likely smelled a rat--and seem reluctant to admit it.

So Moore did a deconstruction, although a shallow one that doesn't tally with your understanding of Bond? Shame that Moore didn't listen to us fans, isn't it? Yet he managed to deliver the almost exact opposite of our picture of Bond. How the hell did he do that, with so little understanding of what Bond is about?

Very easy actually. Take two ideas that have little evidence for people who've done a close reading of Fleming: that Bond utterly hates women and that he's an unpleasant neo-fascist who does what he's told. Now build a character with a few of Bond's most superficial attributes (including some from the movies) and voila! Moore's Bond! A recipe that involves very little understanding of the character (and my point of view is hardly the only one that insists on the complexity of Bond's feelings for women and his tangled form of patriotism) and produces less an opposite of Bond than a Bond travesty based very little on the source that Moore claims to have used. A shallow deconstruction is one that doesn't actually deconstruct much of what it purportedly claims to be deconstructing. Case in hand!

Sometimes I wonder what Moore had in mind when he insulted us so utterly unforgivable?

Hint: it's reproduced in the quote that kicked off this entire thread in the first place.

That's your reading of the affair. Entirely as valid as any other one, I should imagine.

One reading can be more cogent than another. And so far your isn't.

Shame that you didn't get the point here. I take it you're not a philosopher? Despite having heard of Keats? OK, won't unsettle you any more than necessary: there is a difference between truth and reality

I see our resident philosopher has become a bit snippy! No Professor, I am not, unlike yourself, an august daredevil into the realms of philosophy 101, and lack your gift for platitudes. And while I have read Keats, I would also say that the truth is sometimes not beautiful, and often quite ugly. I would also say that a truth must correspond to conditions in our reality to have any bearing on it, for otherwise it applies to conditions in a fantasy-land, a place where you appear to have taken up residence. (Let us know when your return from there by the way.)

The supposed reality about your Philippic is that you feel Bond's insulted by Moore's illicit use of his character.

The supposed truth about your Philippic is that you feel yourself insulted by the supposed staining of Bond.

Why not both? I do feel insulted by Moore's lazy approach. And I aminsulted by a very real staining of Bond, because that staining has been done on the dumbest possible premises by an author whose grasp of the character is a good deal feebler than yours or mine. Authors have criticized Bond before, and their criticism has worked because it derived from a deep reading of the source material, as in the case of Amis, Pearson, and even Self. Pretending that Moore's reading, which is essentially based on nothing deeper than "Bond=misognystic fascist!", strikes me as the sad ultimate in fanboy self-delusion.
So please allow me to turn the truth/reality issue back on your yourself and suggest that it is both true and real that your indignant response is based on feeling insulted that anyone has sullied your hero Mr. Moore, and that you gnash your teeth and wail about the temerity of anyone suggesting that even a genius can put in a bad work-day. We all know that Fleming and Bond had flaws. Perhaps you should be realistic and truthful and admit some of Alan Moore's.

[Joe Bond]

I think Bond's more than strong enough to withstand anything Alan Moore or anyone else may wish to do to him.

Agree with that. I think the fact that Moore picked up Bond and chose to do it in an extremely provoking manner is a sure indication that Bond, Fleming's Bond, still has relevance, still is the stuff to spark readers' minds and initiate discussions. And while I'm afraid not everybody will agree here, I'm rather sure that's what Moore intended by using Bond in the first place.

I pretty much agree with every point you have made Trident since in an alternate universe we all would be different because so much of what we are is the result of the experiences we live through in which we learn from these experiences and define who we are so if these experiences are changed then we would be different as a result and I don't see how Bond should be completely identical to Fleming's Bond in an alternative universe since what makes Fleming's Bond act the way he does is through the experiences that have changed him through his life so if these experiences change then its unrealistic to think Bond would be the same as Fleming's Bond.

[Revelator]

its unrealistic to think Bond would be the same as Fleming's Bond.

If so, why does Moore say that he's portraying Fleming's Bond?

I think Bond's more than strong enough to withstand anything Alan Moore or anyone else may wish to do to him.

If this were really true I think Fleming's literary reputation would be higher by now. Most of the critical literature on Bond is based on generalizations every bit as shallow and misguided as Moore's own critical reading of the character. Bond may be popular but Fleming has little critical standing, and Moore only reinforces most of the common misconceptions of his work. In other words, it's more of the same.

I think the fact that Moore picked up Bond and chose to do it in an extremely provoking manner

Moore's version is no more "provocative" than, say, Pravda's ("Bond represents rape, predjudice and fascism!"), and the two are actually somewhat close (hell, Pravda might have been pleased). Moore isn't doing anything new with Bond, but rather using his book to re-cement some of the oldest, broadest, and dumbest charges against the character. And the only people it will "spark discussions" among are literary-Bond fans debating Moore's cack-handing of the character. Anyone who else who picks up the book will mostly see a pathetic of a character and will quite likely be put off from picking up Fleming for life. (I've already seen online guides to Moore's work that reassure everyone that Moore's take on the character is based on the real character.) I think saying "Oh isn't it great that Moore's doing a 'provocative' take on Bond, because it proves Bond is still relevant" is a bit of a feeble statement. Very few people on earth are going around saying Bond isn't relevant. Moore hasn't engaged in anything more daring than character assassination, and given the influence of his work, one has the right to be worried about the effect of his propagating a portrait of Bond that fits right in with the picture built up those who utterly despise the character. As Orson Welles once said, it's hard to pick up s*** with gloves: the gloves get s***ier, but the s*** doesn't get any glovier. What Moore has unloaded is more of the same old s***, and so far it ain't any glovier.

Edited by Revelator, 01 March 2009 - 10:11 PM.

[spynovelfan]

I've been reading this thread with a mixture of fascination and horror. Fascination because there have been many extremely articulate insights into Fleming's Bond, one of my favourite subjects; horror because two of my favourite posters to this forum are on opposite sides of the debate and things are getting, well, not nasty, exactly, but... slightly touchy.

While I don't intend to play Solomon, a few thoughts do strike me and I hope they'll be at least insightful, even if not helpful. First of all, I haven't read Moore's BLACK DOSSIER yet. That means my opinion on it counts for very little. Obvious, no? Well, not when applied to Fleming's Bond, apparently! I've no idea if Alan Moore has read all of Fleming's work, but let's imagine for a moment that he hasn't. Does that matter, if he's trying to paint a portrait of Fleming's Bond? Well, yes and no, I think. If he were professing a straightforward critical opinion, yes: I wouldn't much trust the opinion of someone about a character if they hadn't read the canon: that's the bare minimum. But deconstruction, parody, pastiche, reimagining, caricature... all these take notable elements of something and make them more extreme, and sometimes that doesn't mean looking at every single photograph of a subject and taking it all into account, but taking the one paparazzi photo they're most famous for. Sometimes it's unfair. In a way, that can be part of the point. And sometimes, an imaginative artist ignorant of the full picture can create a shard of truth.

I agree that Ian Fleming's reputation is sadly not what it could be. In fact, as I've said many times before, I think most criticism of his work has misunderstood his strengths, and the whole flow of it has missed some pretty crucial points. The arrogance of people on the internet!, but I think even the most jaundiced eye would have to admit that there's more astute observation and understanding of Ian Fleming's work in this thread than there is in the newspaper article linked to, and indeed in most newspaper articles.

Of all the critics, Kingsley Amis understood Ian Fleming best, to my mind, but he was still just as lazy as we're hypothetically presuming Alan Moore to be, evidently so from his own DOSSIER. I think he took some very strong positions backing Fleming based on rather scant knowledge. Did he read every other thriller writer who came before Fleming to put him into proper context in the genre? Of course he didn't - it wasn't that sort of book, and that's an impossible task anyway. 'Oh, not that sort of book, eh? Easy way out, that!' Fleming didn't write in a vacuum, and if you're going to claim, as Amis did, that he was one of the greats in the genre, surely you need to be well versed enough in it to convincingly make that case. Was he, or was he comparing him to Verne because that was someone great who he'd read and had noticed similarities to? How much should he have read of the genre for his views to have been valid? Or could he just know that Fleming was one of the greatest thriller writers of all time, highly innovative and a far superior writer to... those others he hadn't really read much but who weren't rated? That's the same error he was bemoaning had been made of Fleming, pretty much: written off without a close reading. I don't think there are yeses or nos here, by the way. There is truth in Amis' criticism of Fleming, but it's certainly not the whole truth... and we all know that doesn't exist anyway, especially not in something as subjective as art.

I think Ian Fleming's worth as a writer has been completely skewed by the success of the films. I think his innovations were not the ones usually ascribed to him. And I think Bond is a fascinating character... and no character at all. Revelator, you wrote on this site in 2006:

'The books are freakish because in many ways they're failures as thrillers: they feature a hero who can't decide whether he's a blunt government instrument or a modern-day St.George (and who can't decide whether he's a cold exploiter of women or a big softie who takes in birds with broken wings).'

I'm taking you out of context, surprising you with a quote from two and a half years ago that you may no longer agree with. I no longer agree with a good portion of what I've written on this site. But I do (I think) agree with your 2006 self. Sometimes, I wonder if Bond is one character, really. If you think of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, there's a very definite character who springs to mind, with very definite characteristics. But Bond is a bit of a hodge-podge. I think in some ways he's rather a weak and inconsistent character, but Fleming was great for other reasons, and sometimes those inconsistencies worked to his advantage. I think once you've read all of his published novels and short stories (which several people on this thread appear not to have done!), you become rather affectionate towards him, and perhaps precisely because you've heard all that crap about him being a misogynistic psychopath for so long, his softer side becomes a little more obvious. Caricaturists don't see the best side of people, though. Caricature, deconstruction, Moore's sort of game, is by nature unfair, and doesn't allow comebacks. Just as Amis didn't, batting down the critics from his side of the wall. But Kingsley, I feel like sputtering, everything you've claimed to be unique in that passage is also found in Leslie Charteris, no? But Kingsley's not there to reply, and I'm left talking to myself. Nobody shares our views completely. We are all, ultimately, alone.

I think we could also address the issue that many of the myths Moore has latched onto have been and continue to be perpetuated by Bond fans. By Bond fans who haven't read all of Fleming, but insist on one reading of CASINO ROYALE that actually, in the books, you know, he's a ruthless cold-blooded assassin. Yes, so ruthless that he refuses to assassinate a target because he rather likes the look of her... almost has fallen in love with her on sight! So cold-blooded that we are explicity told that he has never killed in cold blood (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE) - directly contradicting CASINO ROYALE! (An interesting Moore-esque way of looking at that, rather than an obvious inconsistency from Fleming, would be the idea that FRWL is true and CR false, ergo he was lying to both Vesper and Mathis, which begs the question why, and so on).

The cold exploiter of women and the rather sentimental man who can't resist a bird with a wing down co-exist in Fleming's books. We're complex creatures, we humans, but in Bond's case he sometimes seems to me to be unformed, or the author indecisive about his form, or he takes different forms but the background and style are similar enough that we accept it is he. In fact, as long as he's called 'James Bond', we accept an awful lot. Moore, perhaps on scant reading, has, I take it (I'm guilty of the sin I'm castigating!), gone for the cold exploiter. Revelator would rather a more rounded picture that includes the sentimental side, among other aspects. Not an especially interesting caricature or deconstruction or anything else, I expect, but yes, perhaps possible. Perhaps more interesting would be to depict the cold hard Bond as a great big softie who keeps falling for these women and getting his rescued by them at the last moment, as happens at the end of Fleming's THUNDERBALL. Perhaps a more accurate deconstruction would be a James Bond who is cold and ruthless one minute, and then two scenes later, to suit the plot, becomes an almost totally different character, noble and good and sensitive, only to remember a few moments later that he's meant to be ruthless and suddenly switch back again. But nobody would get the joke. If you draw a caricature of someone and nobody realises who it's meant to be, it's simply not a very good caricature.

And I think the cold exploiter of women, the misogyny if not the fascism, was certainly felt in Fleming's work at the time. There are the infamous reviews, yes, but there's also this from Michael S Howard's book JONATHAN CAPE: PUBLISHER, discussing the publication of CASINO ROYALE:

'Ian... went busily to work, devising headlines for the chapters and ideas for the jacket. To discuss these we met towards the end of that October, for the first time since the Popski dinner, and I enjoyed his enthuasistic interest in technicalities of production. I did not tell him that the book itself had repelled me, and caused me sleepless nights. It had troubled me to be associated with its publication, for I thought its cynical brutality, unrelieved by humour, revealed a sadistic fantasy which was deeply shocking; and that the book would do discredit to the list.'

I don't think this is entirely a misreading. I think there is something in that first novel that is a little unpleasant, even if a cursory reading of any Dennis Wheatley novel will immediately banish the notion.

I've not read BLACK DOSSIER, but I've known about it since March 2004, when I interviewed Alan Moore over the phone for an hour or so and he spent much of it discussing this project - then swore me to secrecy, meaning I couldn't reveal it in my article! A counter-look at Bond, Kim Philby, Graham Greene and Harry Lime... Five years ago this week, when I had not read all of Ian Fleming's work, the idea seemed right up my street, and I eagerly lapped up every word Moore told me about it. Yes, yes, yes, how wonderful. Now, well, yes... the idea doesn't seem so innovative, perhaps.

We're all, myself included, getting rather po-faced about a bunch of books. But, if we want to continue in that strain for just a moment, such depictions of James Bond will continue for a while to come unless James Bond fans do something about it. It's time to stop ascribing to Ian Fleming's work anything we fancy that sounds cool, from having read bits and pieces. If we reduce his work to inaccurate soundbites - to caricatures - can we be surprised that others do, too? It's time, I think, to reassess what Ian Fleming's books really were, and who James Bond was in them. For some of us, that means reading all the novels and short stories (minimum requirement, sorry!), and then considering them a bit harder than has been done before. From that, perhaps something a little more accurate and less reductive will spring forth, and it will be another character's turn to be deconstructed, while new editions of Fleming novels sprout up in every train station bookshop.

And I shall now cut this baby in half.

[Mr. Blofeld]

Fantastic!

[MHazard]

An interesting thread. In general I side with Revelator as opposed to Trident on this (despite Trident's well articulated position) but my take is a bit different from eithers.

First, I am a big fan of both Watchmen and the original League of Extraordinary Gentlement comics. I bought Black Dossier as soon as it came out in hardcover. I was extremely disappointed. Obviously, I didn't like the portrayal of Bond, but more fundamentally, I thought it was a weak effort. The plot as a whole was not very engaging and the ending was in my view, terrible. This had nothing to do with my views on his version of Bond, which didn't offend me as much as dissapoint me.

Now if Moore himself is claiming that his take is the literary Bond that does offend me, not because I think that it will have any effect on most readers, critics or potential readers view of Bond, because, let's face it, in absolute terms very few people have or will read Black Dossier. Compare this to the number of people who will have their views of Bond shaped by Craig in Casino Royale or Quantum of Solace. No, realistically, Roger Moore has done far more harm to people's perceptions of the literary Bond than Alan Moore ever will.

My annoyance is if in fact Moore is claiming this his version is the literary Bond is that it obviously isn't. Not just because his Bond lacks Fleming's Bond's character traits but also the different circumstances. For example, M is not Sir Miles but Harry Lime. Note also that Moore attacks two other famouse adventure heroes: Bulldog Drummond and Emma Peel. Be interesting to know what those fans (can't be as fanatical as us) think. Moore himself plays with us and suggests that Fleming wrote a sanitized overly heroic cleaned up version for Moore's "real" Bond. I refer you to : "there was no Doctor" (if you haven't read this you probably won't get the reference and I won't explain it). So, Moore knows that he was writing a different Bond then Fleming gives us .

We also should have seen this coming since the original League stories had the secret service character of Campion Bond and the head of the secret service was called M. If it makes us feel any better, Moore's take on the literary Holmes probably upsets Holmes' fans too. (Let's just say the Riecheback (sp.?) Falls didn't work out so well for him.

But, in the end, my biggest problem with Black Dossier isn't that he turned a favorite character into a villain but that in many ways it's such a dull read, particularly compared to the original L of EG comic books and to Watchmen.

Oh, and there's no way the literary Bond of The Living Daylights or On Her Majesty's Secret Service could ever be Moore's Bond. Whoever said on this thread that they wouldn't read TLD if it wasn't like the book should not then venture an opinion as to whether Moore's Bond was like Fleming's. But, I would also note that I'm pretty sure Dalton read TLD to prepare for his role in the movie (which surprisingly does have some dialogue lifted from the short story). But, that's a topic for a different thread.

[Loomis]

Whoever said on this thread that they wouldn't read TLD if it wasn't like the book should not then venture an opinion as to whether Moore's Bond was like Fleming's.

That was me. If it isn't the same as the film it can't be worth reading. Eon would have taken everything worthwhile from Fleming's novel THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, so if it isn't in the film then it's probably not very good.

[MHazard]

The Living Daylights is a short story. Eon took all that was in it and adapted it well in spots and badly in others and still had 75 minutes of screen time to fill. I don't see, however, how you could assume that Eon takes anything good out of Bond's Fleming stories and that anything they don't use is not good. I'm trying to be nice but it tells me that either you haven't read You Only Live Twice, Moonraker, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun and/or seen the movies allegedly made from them or that you and I have very different tastes and that your taste includes not caring for Fleming's Bond at all. Oh well, I've never developed a taste for Scotch, so I suppose everyone's entitled.

[Trident]

@spynovelfan

Damn fine thoughts! As usual, I might add.


@Revelator

I'm not going to keep up this quote-mincing because it's become a bit tiresome now.

Just let me get one thing clear before we get down to business. I'm not defending Moore for the sheer hell of fun and because I think he's a living demi-god or something. While I love most of his works I don't especially like TGX:BD and do have several criticisms with it (for example it went a bit far into the cast-a-zillion-references-into-one-picture department IMHO and the actual plot is a bit naff because the famous Black Dossier isn't exactly needed in the BLAZING WORLD of the last 17 or so pages and the whole BLAZING WORLD concept is not so very, hm, well, just not so very.).

But that's not what this is about, is it?

This is about Bond. Serious Bond.

Your point (please correct me if I'm wrong there) is that Moore is using the character sloppy, denigrading and insulting him, and thus us fans. Or at least you, and your view is that I should feel as much insulted as you do by LGX:BD.

My point is that you're accusing Moore wrongfully where lazyness/carelessness during research is concerned. And perhaps even where you suspect Moore of downright hating the Bond character.



Your complaint regarding the mixing of lit-Bond and film-Bond would mainly be based on Moore's claim to have used Fleming's Bond, the real thing. So why did he use a gimmick/gadget Bond? He must clearly have mixed his sources!

Really?

Let's take a closer look:

Exploding pen. Now that's really quite easily identified as a lame joke and dismissed. Fleming's character would never use such a ludicrous device.

Except:

Bond slid his right hand into his hip-pocket. He drew out his broad gunmetal case. Opened it. Took out a cigarette. Took his lighter out of his trouser pocket. Lit the cigarette and put the lighter back. He left the cigarette case on his lap eside the book. He put his left hand casually over the book and the cigarette case as if to prevent them slipping of his lap. He puffed away at his cigarette. If only it had been a trick one - magnesium flare, or anything he could throw in the man's face! If only the his Service went in for those explosive toys!...

From Russia With Love, Ian Fleming 1957, ch.26 p.232


Bond actually doesn't seem to be above using such ludicrous devices if they were made available to him.

The second bad mistake Moore made with mixing literature and film one would identify as the car in the workshop. A flying Bentley?

But is that really so far from a supercharged one, a custom built two seater body atop a wrecked saloon affair? In a world where spaceships and antigravity gliders are perfectly common, as can be seen in the spaceport panels? By the way Bond isn't even driving said car, it's merely shown as being under construction. Once more, what's easily dismissed as a filmic reference isn't really one at closer inspection. Because the films didn't invent the fantastic gadgets. Fleming did. He came up with 'switches to alter the type and colour of Bond's front and rear lights..., reinforced steel bumpers, fore and aft, in case he needed to ram..., a radio pick-up tuned to receive an apparatus called Homer'.

Fleming first used the gadgetry. So when Moore introduces some of it into his latest LGX it's not necessarily a filmic device that's depicted just because the films picked up and emphasised the point.


But the more general point you have is Bond's truly despicable behaviour that's supposedly entirely out of character with Fleming. But not with all of Fleming. So, is the man who's 'making love, with rather cold passion, to one of three similarly disposed married women' really so caring and warm towards his female company? When he's at the same time having a bet with his colleague who's the first to get into the secretary's knickers? Mind you, nothing of this is an excuse for attempted rape, as depicted in Black Dossier. But it's necessary to keep in mind that there has been a lengthy period of semi-fascism pleaguing Britain in this story. And it would seem that they decided to keep folks from rioting by a very casual view towards sex in general and pørnography in particular. Also the figure of Emma Night seems extremely eager to get closer to the Bond figure of LGX:BD. So it's a fair bet that the Bond in this story, despite his flaws, isn't viewed as particularly repulsive by his female contemporaries.

Now what about Bond's politics? Bond isn't the type to stand on the side of the bad guys, is he? Well, that, as many other things in life, is a question of definition.

There's a nice paragraph in Casino Royale about the nature of evil:

'...Today we are fighting communism: Okay. If I'd been alive fifty years ago, the brand of conservatism we have today would have been damn near called communism, and we should have been told to go and fight that. History is moving pretty quickly these days and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts.'

Casino Royale, Ian Fleming 1953, ch. 20, p.134

And if history is completely out of kilter (from our point of view), as is the case in LXG, then one can easily find oneself on the side of the baddies without even noticing, one might add here.

No, Bond isn't incapable to do wrong, to be evil. Bond is a civil servant, not an ethical compass that's alway pointing the right way. As an instrument he does what he's told to do by the government. His patriotic streak is there, is strong in Fleming's books. But he's also a bit easy on his conscience, transfering his responsibility to M:

'...I suppose I assume that when I'm given a an unpleasant job in the Service the cause is a just one.'

For Your Eyes Only, Ian Fleming 1959/1960, p.42

From there it's not really such a long way into the realm of the blunt instrument for the government. And if the government is an evil one? Not easy. But as I said before, Bond isn't a infallible moral authority. Not any more than any other guy.

You say that what Moore most likely intended, provocation, is easy to achieve, his version not more provocative than Pravda's. But we're not talking about Pravda here, do we? Pravda, or any other half-baked ideological criticism of Bond for that matter, wouldn't have got you half as started as Moore did. Why? Because, however small, Moore has touched some truths (sorry, once more) with his parody/travesty/distortion of Bond. Had he simply made Bond a crossdresser with a soft spot for leather and BDSM, we wouldn't have noticed the thing at all. That would indeed have been a lazy, unworthy and half-assed affair.

Instead he used the simple technique to ask 'what if...?'

Is there a possibility, however small and remote, that there can be a set of circumstances where the undisputed hero of Fleming is the bad guy? And this is what he came up with. It may be unsatisfying but it certainly wasn't done completely in a careless manner IMHO.

Revelator, it is of course clear from the very start that nothing I can write here will ever make you love LXG:BD. It's not my aim to convert you, and it hasn't been so in the first place. This discussion, while mighty entertaining, most likely won't lead us anywhere close to common ground where the BLACK DOSSIER is concerned. So I think it's time to agree here to disagree. If you decide to chalk that as a victory, then so be it. I certainly won't think less of you for it and really have no hard feelings about this discussion, all the more so as I value your opinion very high indeed.

[Revelator]

But deconstruction, parody, pastiche, reimagining, caricature... all these take notable elements of something and make them more extreme, and sometimes that doesn't mean looking at every single photograph of a subject and taking it all into account, but taking the one paparazzi photo they're most famous for.

Certainly, since the term deconstruction can be applied quite widely. Yet I would venture that the most meaningful deconstruction starts with the maximum amount of material to deconstruct. In this case, I had expected Moore to work from more. A truly meaningful deconstruction should deepen our understanding of a character, but I find that Moore has flattened the character instead. What disappoints me is that most of the characters Moore works with end up richer thanks to his treatment, and I read his failure with Bond as based on an essential contempt for what he believes the character stands for.

I'm taking you out of context, surprising you with a quote from two and a half years ago that you may no longer agree with.

I believe I probably would still agree with it, though some of my other opinions have changed with time.

Sometimes, I wonder if Bond is one character, really. If you think of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, there's a very definite character who springs to mind, with very definite characteristics.

True, and yet even Holmes is not a fixed character. In his first appearance we're told that he's ignorant of the solar system and Carlyle because they have nothing to do with his work. And yet in his second appearance he quotes Carlyle! Sometimes we're told that Holmes rarely laughs, and yet in some stories he laughs quite often, and so on. The larger point is that Sherlock shifts quite a bit too, but he has larger characteristics that seem to anchor his persona. I wonder if Bond does too...That is not to deny that Bond isn't "a bit of a hodge-podge." Fleming was nothing if not inconsistent. On the other hand, I think some of those larger characteristics might show through. Bond, despite his sometimes outrageous pronouncements, doesn't really come through as a cold exploiter of women. We may be told that he makes love to housewives, but what we're shown is a man whose treatment of women is far less caddish than that of his movie counterpart, who nearly raped Pussy Galore and locked Mary Goodnight in a closet.

If you draw a caricature of someone and nobody realises who it's meant to be, it's simply not a very good caricature.

Quite true. And it seems to me that Moore--despite what he claims--relied a good deal on Bond's movie image, since most of his readers would not recognize a faithful or unfaithful rendition of the literary character. Moore's Bond seems to me to be more acceptable as a deconstruction of movie Bond than the literary one. He has kept the caddishness and gadgets and simply removed the suavity. Indeed, I might have been less irritated had Moore not decided to congratulate himself for supposedly capturing the book hero, rather than deconstructing the shallower movie one.

"I did not tell him that the book itself had repelled me, and caused me sleepless nights. It had troubled me to be associated with its publication, for I thought its cynical brutality, unrelieved by humour, revealed a sadistic fantasy which was deeply shocking; and that the book would do discredit to the list."

He seems most troubled by the book's sadomasochism--even good old Simon Raven, an amoral bounder and modern-day pagan, was troubled by that torture scene. (Note for a future project: did Raven contribute more than just dialogue to the film version of OHMSS?)

Edited by Revelator, 03 March 2009 - 09:15 PM.

[Revelator]

Exploding pen. Now that's really quite easily identified as a lame joke and dismissed. Fleming's character would never use such a ludicrous device....Except...Bond actually doesn't seem to be above using such ludicrous devices if they were made available to him.

(My apologies in advance for quote mincing.) I think the larger point is that Fleming made sure he didn't rely on silly toys--it's the enemy who has them. Instead Bond has to rely on his wits and has to maneuver that cigarette case into position--Fleming is telling us that Bond might wish for the easy out, but he can do just as well without it. In other words, Bond cannot be truthfully castigated for relying too much on gadgets. And yet that is exactly what Bond is accused of in Moore's work. On the other hand, we can certainly say that Bond became rather gadget-reliant in the films, where the lower-key Aston Martin (a relative anomaly in Fleming, being a trick car) becomes the far more tricked-out movie version, with its ejector seat, and leads to later wonder like the flying Little Nellie, or the flying car of TMWTGG. (The supercharger of Bond's Bentley was--IIRC--science fact, thanks to Mr. Villiers.)

So, is the man who's 'making love, with rather cold passion, to one of three similarly disposed married women' really so caring and warm towards his female company?

Absolutely. Examine any of the relationships we actually see Bond in, and we will see a man whose treatment of women is far above that of his movie counterpart. Had I a daughter, I would not be terribly upset if Bond ran into her. On the other hand, I'd probably get worried if I saw her hanging around either Connery or Moore's Bond. (Well maybe not the Moore of FYEO.)

As for Bond's politics, you quote a nice passage of Bond wondering about the morality of his job. I think this is quite telling, since it tells us that Bond is precisely the sort of man who'd wonder about his job and politics in the first place. It is very hard to see Moore's Bond engaging in this sort of reflection. Indeed, if Moore is claiming to have captured the literary character, one must wonder why his Bond is so mentally quiescent. Were history to be out-of-kilter, it's just as likely that Bond would be even less assured about his place in the world.

Is there a possibility, however small and remote, that there can be a set of circumstances where the undisputed hero of Fleming is the bad guy?

Certainly. I can envision a Bond whose devotion to M and Empire leads him to engage in wrongful acts of asssination and sabotage. You are quite correct in saying that Bond passes the buck to M. I can see Bond, for example, following Imperial orders in Vietnam or Iran, just as he bombed the anti-Bautista revolutionaries in QoS. Yet even there he wasn't quite sure about the rightness of his task. Bond could thus be a very effective and rich villain. Part of what makes me upset with Moore is that his Bond is so flat and miniscule, and too pathetic to even be much of a villain.

You say that what Moore most likely intended, provocation, is easy to achieve, his version not more provocative than Pravda's. But we're not talking about Pravda here, do we? Pravda, or any other half-baked ideological criticism of Bond for that matter, wouldn't have got you half as started as Moore did. Why?
Because, however small, Moore has touched some truths (sorry, once more) with his parody/travesty/distortion of Bond.

I would say that Moore got me started because he descended to the level of Pravda. And while we can easily dismiss what Pravda says as discredited ideological sour grapes, it is far more damaging when a figure of Moore's stature adopts the Pravda position in a piece of wide-selling fiction. I too am a fan, and I expected better.

Revelator, it is of course clear from the very start that nothing I can write here will ever make you love LXG:BD. It's not my aim to convert you, and it hasn't been so in the first place. This discussion, while mighty entertaining, most likely won't lead us anywhere close to common ground where the BLACK DOSSIER is concerned. So I think it's time to agree here to disagree. If you decide to chalk that as a victory, then so be it. I certainly won't think less of you for it and really have no hard feelings about this discussion, all the more so as I value your opinion very high indeed.

Let us simply call it a valuable and meaningful debate, even if it was occasionally heated. And yes, it has been a very entertaining discussion. While I cannot bring myself to enjoy LXG:BD, I still value Moore's other work and have even defended it on other occasions (I loved The Killing Joke and have argued with folks who accused it of misogyny). It has been an pleasure and a challenge to discuss Moore's Bond with you--I look forward to future discussions on all matters of Fleming.

Edited by Revelator, 03 March 2009 - 09:57 PM.

[spynovelfan]

Let us simply call it a valuable and meaningful debate, even if it was occasionally heated. And yes, it has been a very entertaining discussion. While I cannot bring myself to enjoy LXG:BD, I still value Moore's other work and have even defended it on other occasions (I loved The Killing Joke and have argued with folks who accused it of misogyny). It has been an pleasure and a challenge to discuss Moore's Bond with you--I look forward to future discussions on all matters of Fleming.

The universe has just turned in on itself: a gracious, elegant and articulate debate has taken place on the internet!

[Revelator]

That was me. If it isn't the same as the film it can't be worth reading. Eon would have taken everything worthwhile from Fleming's novel THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, so if it isn't in the film then it's probably not very good.

I've long thought that we'd have had a more interesting movie if Kara's character had actually been that of Trigger, rather than a naive waif. It would have quite interesting to see the conflicting adventures of Bond and the KGB's best sniper.

Edited by Revelator, 03 March 2009 - 10:07 PM.

[strishjones]

"Alan Moore discusses Watchmen (from documentary)"

[Trident]

No, no. The quote-mincing usually comes into play when I try to answer your points. No offense meant here.

One afterthought:

I think there is a reason as to why we find the BLACK DOSSIER's Bond falls somewhat short (and, contrary to what may be implied by my previous posts, I am also disappointed, although for different reasons).

There is the 'twist' on Bond to make him villainous. Yet he isn't the villain in BLACK DOSSIER. Apparently, Harry Lime (the M figure) is. He's the mastermind behind Bond. Bond's role is merely the henchman's. A henchman who's betraying his own people, killing off Emma's(is really Peel meant there? Peel is so little defined...) father (on orders) and her godfather. This is really all Bond does in this story and it simply is too little to make the character and the plot work (no matter what pretension we apply to LGX:BD). In fact it's not alone Bond who's become the Pravda-version (although picked with a certain feral glee from Fleming) but the whole of Great Britain. Yet it's a strangely flat impression that is given in this story.

Perhaps it might have worked with better results had the plot allowed for a little more, hm, well, not exactly room (for he his featured prominently, 33 pages of the whole volume) but plot with Bond. Instead he's a supporting act that has a major part in actually very little storyline.

This is disappointing for we obviously feel Moore should understand Bond and do more with the material, even though Moore would most likely not have come up with a more amiable version of 'Jimmy Bond'.

Perhaps it would have been an idea to show Bond without doing anything at all (he doesn't do too much in BD anyway). Just looking into his glass and pondering the world in general and the killing of Johnny Knight and Drummond in particular. That would have been as close to Fleming as anything else yet an entirely uncommon depiction.

I wonder why Moore hasn't made Bond the real villain here, i.e. taking the part of M = Harry Lime. He could have made the same point to much more effect by doing so.

As it is we will most likely see nothing more of Bond in LGX as it would seem further entries concern themselves with different decades (picking up, amongst others, Raffles if I'm informed correctly in volume 4).

[Revelator]

I'm not a fan of reviving dormant posts, but I didn't want to start a new topic when a good old one will suffice for discussing Alan Moore's depiction of Fleming's Bond. I recently came across the following remarks, from the blog of a librarian and amateur comics critic named Gene Phillips.

...everyone has seen examples of critics who can be fairly accused of “snipe-hunting”—with the modification that in such cases, it’s the critic who creates his own Monster of Deep Meaning and proceeds to hunt it anywhere and everywhere. The first semi-thoughtful critiques of the comics-medium boiled down to snipe-hunts, where the critics found in comics symbols of immoral modernity and psychosexual perversion.

[someone] cited the opinion of writer Alan Moore on the best-known character of another author: Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Quoting from an introduction to Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, Moore said:

“…we begin to see that the overriding factor in James Bond’s psychological makeup is his utter hatred and contempt for women.”

Years later, Moore would produce a satirical version of Bond for BLACK DOSSIER, a chapter of his LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN series, in which Moore’s Bond-doppelganger was in every way a rotter, an abuser of women, etc.

Moore’s second commentary on what he thought of James Bond, since it takes the form of fiction, cannot be deemed criticism as such. His first comment can, although it’s extremely weak criticism.

Nowhere in the introduction does Moore cite examples of the “utter hatred and contempt for women” he finds in the Bond books, nor is he clear as to whether Fleming presented his misogyny overtly or covertly. I *suspect,* however, that at the time of the comment Moore knew that Fleming, though predominantly an author of “male” fiction, did have female readers. Thus Moore would be most likely to claim that Fleming’s female readers did not pick up on the misogyny of either author or character because it was hidden, though not from the discernment of a dedicated snipe-hunter like Alan Moore.

In case it isn’t evident from my calling Moore a “snipe-hunter,” I do deem Moore’s critique of Fleming to be a case of an untrue response to the symbolism present in the Fleming Bond-books. That response does however spring from true causes, both within the fiction being critiqued and within the critiquer.

Ian Fleming was, in essence, what critics today would call a “masculinist.” Many authors have written fiction aimed at a predominantly male audience without being masculinists. Bond’s multiple conquests of beautiful women were a staple device in popular men’s fiction. Fleming is often attacked for this trope, but that in itself does not make him excessively masculinist. Moore’s animus for Fleming may have originated from Bond making sexist remarks that were typical for men of that period. Some of these remarks mock women, or show confusion about women. But do they connote “utter hatred and contempt for women,” or are they attempts to capture the real way men of the period spoke?

Based on my own readings of the Bond books, I do consider Fleming an arch-conservative who had little empathy for anyone outside of his own bailiwick. That lack of empathy for women, however, does not translate into “hatred and contempt.” A woman-hater might pretend to defend women from attacks in order to bed them, but Bond does not bed Tiffy in “Man with the Golden Gun” after villain Scaramanga kills her pet birds; instead, he gives her money to buy new birds and never sees her again. One can’t imagine Moore’s phony Bond sparing the life of the female assassin in “The Living Daylights” out of a knightly reluctance to kill a woman. Despite Fleming’s masculinist tendencies, the Bond books are replete with powerful or imposing women, ranging from villainesses like Rosa Klebb and Irma Bunt to heroines like Domino Vitale and Tracy Draco—possibly one reason Fleming has sustained a female readership.

The other “true cause” results from the critiquer’s own biases and priorities, which are inevitably present in all readers. The most desirable relationship between reader and work is one I call “projected reciprocity,” in which the reader faithfully absorbs everything the author says, whether direct or indirect, and projects it upon the “viewscreen” of his own priorities, to gauge in what ways he agrees and/or disagrees with the author’s world.

However, when the reader rushes to judgment as I believe Alan Moore did, what one gets is “pure projection.” Here the reader is “set off” by whatever offends him and recognizes no ambivalences. A reader like Moore may have “true” cause for his animus against, say, real-world misogyny, but he’s aimed his ire at the wrong target.

Whenever I attempt to “read” the latent symbolism of a work—by which I mean, whatever the author has not made literal and manifest—I frame it as a philosophical proposition, for which I can offer proofs drawn from my own experience of “projected reciprocity.” Because so much symbolism is covert—sometimes hidden even from the author—the propositions of a symbol-hunter are not so much “X symbolism is there” but rather “X symbolism could be there, if it can be justified by some chain of associations.” But even these justifications must be mediated by a reader’s subjective reaction to the work. So it’s understandable that for many, even the most articulate search for covert symbolism may seem no better than an Alan Moore snipe-hunt.

Edited by Revelator, 26 November 2012 - 10:31 PM.