20 replies to this topic

[George88]

Hi - although I guess the answer is to read the book again, I was thinking today about the brainwashing business in TMWTGG and Bond's cure. I know the book comes in for a lot of criticism for being lesser than the two that preceded it. As we all know the book starts with a brainwashed Bond and then etc etc Bond is "cured" - but is he basically rebrainwashed by his own side? I don't remember much stuff about Tracy in the book and wondered if this is Bond being "reprogrammed" by his own people. In other words, are they as cruel to him as those damned pesky Russkies were?

(Thread inspired by some of the stuff JIM wrote in Just Another Kill, I think)

What do you think? Sorry if asked before, can't see it anywhere.

[dogmanstar]

Good Question! There's some talk about Sir James Maloney, if I remember, and de-brainwashing 007 from M. But basically, if I have the gist right, the mission itself is supposed to be a kind of therapy for 007--if he can't beat Scaramanga, then he will lose M's confidence and probably go to some retired secret agent's home to eat rice pudding.

Somewhere about the time that M reads Scaramanga's dossier he thinks to himself along the lines of "Bond's problem can only be solved aright by an assassination" or something along that line. I'll look it up later.

[Trident]

No mention of Tracy or Blofeld in the entire novel of TMWTGG. Particularly interesting here: we meet Bond again sitting at the Kingston airport after several weeks of chasing Scaramanga across South America and the Caribes. According to the dates Bond must have started his search on December the 23, his first Christmas at liberty since his wife's death. Extremely strange that Bond shouldn't think of this.

Other things indicate that Bond is far from his usual prime. He awakes after a brief nap and doesn't know where he is for a time. He doesn't get his assignment done at the first occassion, has his doubts and questions his abilities. All that to me suggests he's still not entirely recovered from the KGB treatment and may perhaps never do so fully.

[spynovelfan]

No mention of Tracy or Blofeld in the entire novel of TMWTGG. Particularly interesting here: we meet Bond again sitting at the Kingston airport after several weeks of chasing Scaramanga across South America and the Caribes. According to the dates Bond must have started his search on December the 23, his first Christmas at liberty since his wife's death. Extremely strange that Bond shouldn't think of this.

Other things indicate that Bond is far from his usual prime. He awakes after a brief nap and doesn't know where he is for a time. He doesn't gat his assignment done at the first occassion, has his doubts and questions his abilities. All that to me suggests he's still not entirely recovered from the KGB treatment and may perhaps never do so fully.

And/or Fleming was dying and never got the chance to redraft the novel.

I think it's a bit of a collection of ideas. The attempted shooting of M is great - the solution to it seems rather bolted on, as if he had already decided that, come what may, Bond would go out to Jamaica again. You'd have thought M would be rather more interested in the fact that his best agent had just been inside the heart of Soviet intelligence as a trusted agent and can therefore give a whole heap of insight into the main enemy's techniques and secrets, instead of being concerned with a two-bit gangster and some sugar, or whatever the plot revolves around.

[Revelator]

I don't remember much stuff about Tracy in the book and wondered if this is Bond being "reprogrammed" by his own people.

That would certainly be the Marxist interpretation! The less interesting but equally valid answer is that Fleming was too ill to give the book the attention it needed. After the assassination scene Fleming's energy waned even further. Too weak to employ the "Fleming sweep" that allowed him to rush through a book without seeming as if he was in that much of a hurry, he let his haste show through in the TMWTGG. If Bond's recovery seems like a reprogramming, it's partly because Fleming treated it like it was unimportant, waving it aside with "oh, then Bond had lots of electroshock therapy and got better." It's true that Fleming to some extent wished to cleanse and reboot the character, but in doing so he wiped him clean of a personality too. We simply hope that Fleming's ineptitude and lack of psychological insight can be blamed solely on his illness.

[Trident]

And/or Fleming was dying and never got the chance to redraft the novel.

I think it's a bit of a collection of ideas. The attempted shooting of M is great - the solution to it seems rather bolted on, as if he had already decided that, come what may, Bond would go out to Jamaica again. You'd have thought M would be rather more interested in the fact that his best agent had just been inside the heart of Soviet intelligence as a trusted agent and can therefore give a whole heap of insight into the main enemy's techniques and secrets, instead of being concerned with a two-bit gangster and some sugar, or whatever the plot revolves around.

I don't remember much stuff about Tracy in the book and wondered if this is Bond being "reprogrammed" by his own people.

That would certainly be the Marxist interpretation! The less interesting but equally valid answer is that Fleming was too ill to give the book the attention it needed. After the assassination scene Fleming's energy waned even further. Too weak to employ the "Fleming sweep" that allowed him to rush through a book without seeming as if he was in that much of a hurry, he let his haste show through in the TMWTGG. If Bond's recovery seems like a reprogramming, it's partly because Fleming treated it like it was unimportant, waving it aside with "oh, then Bond had lots of electroshock therapy and got better." It's true that Fleming to some extent wished to cleanse and reboot the character, but in doing so he wiped him clean of a personality too. We simply hope that Fleming's ineptitude and lack of psychological insight can be blamed solely on his illness.

The question would be, how much of what we know as the published TMWTGG was really only a first draft, perhaps even just a skeleton? Fleming typically rushed through his work, at first more interested in getting the thing done than in any specific questions. That apparently was all tackled later, when the lion's share of the work was already done.

Although being remarkably short even by Fleming's standards, TMWTGG offers a whole wealth of interesting topics that would have begged attention, would have offered some tremendous opportunities and new directions. We never actually see what happens to Bond after he decides to leave Kissy. His journey to Vladivostok, captivity at the hands of the KGB and brainwashing are only told in passing, with next to no detail. It's not explained where or when (or, for the matter of that, if at all!) Bond actually regained his full memory. Likewise, the programming of the attempt at M isn't described at all. And all this with a topic that would have been perfectly tailored for one of Fleming's typical descriptions.

Really, hard to accept this wasn't at some point an item Fleming would have fleshed out, perhaps even considerably so.

Even more incredible IMO, that Bond's experiences beyond the Iron Curtain apparently are of no interest for his service at all. Here is a case study of how the enemy is able to manipulate experienced and dedicated SIS personnel, yet nobody is trying to find out the details and specifics of the procedure. I suppose after the shock treatment at The Park Bond would have been busy with the debriefing procedure for, phew, one year? Longer? And, if we insist on letting Bond rehabilitate himself, how come he isn't sent back into the USSR? After 'Colonel Boris' (now, that's a phoney codename), the man who set him up to kill M?

Another thought that particularly fascinates me: When/If Bond regains his memory, would he actually be greatful? For bloody what? In TMWTGG we only learn Bond get's his treatment and after six weeks
'...the old fierce hatred of the KGB and all its works had been reborn in him...'
Nothing is said about his traumatic memories, Tracy or Blofeld. But if he actually gets them back (and it would not be possible to take the good ones and leave the bad ones behind, would it?) I don't think Bond would really be very happy about being presented the horrors of his recent past. I could see him longing for the days of mercyful unawareness and I'm not exactly sure Sir James could call himself a friend of Bond after this treatment.

However, none of this is actually mentioned or even implied, which is somehow hard to accept, given Fleming's usual finely tuned antennae for interesting and dramatic potential. Even if 'reboot' was the idea behind much of TMWTGG, it still feels like only half the book it should have been, doubtlessly due to Fleming's rapidly declining health.

[spynovelfan]

Well, we'll never know. But I think Fleming was not only sick by that time, but also fairly sick of Bond. He wrote to William Plomer, while he was editing the novel:

'This is, alas, the last Bond and, again alas, I mean it, for I really have run out of both puff and zest.'

He had felt that way for several years - he had complained that he was running out of ideas and energy for the character when he dined with Geoffrey Jenkins at The Caprice in 1961. But this sounded pretty final, and can one blame him? As well as having used up so many ideas in the previous 11 books, his health had gone, his marriage had failed, and to top it all off he had just been accused of plagiarism in court, and conceded. No wonder he didn't have much zest for it. He also knew the book wasn't good and wanted to rework it the next spring, but Plomer assured him it was well up to standard. That view changed after Fleming's death and Amis was asked to look at it to examine why it was so 'feeble'.

But even if he had had the opportunity to work on it some more, and some of his old zest had returned, I suspect some of these flaws would have remained. The not following through on Bond being in the Soviet Union seems obvious now, but I don't think it was remarked on in any reviews at the time, and it is very much like Fleming. Casino Royale ended with this the woman Bond wants to marry betraying him and killing herself, and this great vow to seek out and destroy the threat behind the spies. You'd expect the next novel to have been informed by those events in a significant way, but Live and Let Die wasn't, really. There is no investigation into Vesper's betrayal, for example. Bond's scar is swiftly and unconvincingly covered up, as are his feelings for Vesper, which are barely mentioned again. Mr Big is nominally a Smersh agent, but all of this stuff is dealt with in a few pages and then it's a very different novel with no connection to the first. Similarly, the cliffhanger at the end of From Russia With Love is tidied up with some quick mumbojumbo about an antidote in the next book and we move swiftly on.

It's a pattern in the books that the events of the previous one are dealt with very swiftly, often in a page or two, before he embarks on a thoroughly different adventure. You Only Live Twice is also a pretty odd way to wrap up the plotline of OHMSS. Bond is sent on a completely unrelated mission, only for it to appear - unknown to M! - that the chap he's been sent after in Japan happens to be Blofeld's new cover. All of these are pretty obvious problems in plot logic, and I dare say wouldn't get past an editor today. But they were the way Fleming worked, and in some way this is part of the appeal of the novels. So, we'll never know, but I don't think that we would have seen Bond go back to the Soviet Union or any of that sort of thing had Fleming lived.

[David Schofield]

Well, I for one love the stripped down, basic, apparent one-shot-at-the-typewriter nature of the book.

Bond IS less thoughtful, less introspective. He doesn't reference Tracy, only his Russian experiences.

But like the novel he is leaner, harder. Better, I'd venture. The "Kamerad" exchange at Sav La Mar is one of Fleming's best. This is Bond at his toughest, his - literally - "hardest", most tough.

I do not care about the background, whether Fleming was too ill to finish it, got the chance for any re-writes, whether changes might have been made had there been chance. I'm viewing it as what's on the published page. And it is a "new", simpler(?) James Bond I very much like.

[Trident]

It's a pattern in the books that the events of the previous one are dealt with very swiftly, often in a page or two, before he embarks on a thoroughly different adventure. You Only Live Twice is also a pretty odd way to wrap up the plotline of OHMSS. Bond is sent on a completely unrelated mission, only for it to appear - unknown to M! - that the chap he's been sent after in Japan happens to be Blofeld's new cover. All of these are pretty obvious problems in plot logic, and I dare say wouldn't get past an editor today. But they were the way Fleming worked, and in some way this is part of the appeal of the novels. So, we'll never know, but I don't think that we would have seen Bond go back to the Soviet Union or any of that sort of thing had Fleming lived.

One thing that fascinates me is that Fleming apparently over the years of his writing career became interested in working together with another author. I remember reading about a suggestion to Rex Stout to work together (which apparently Stout declined), maybe not entirely meant as a joke.

Then I seem to remember a conversation between Fleming and Deighton where Fleming (perhaps once more not entirely joking) suggests the two of them should let their characters chase each other in the manner of the 'Road To...' films of Hope and Crosby.

And of course the connection to Jenkins would also suggest a possible teamwork between the two, leaving open, how much of the effort would have been actually Fleming's.

I can see why Fleming felt he wasn't able to carry on with his character, but I somehow still think he might have tried to let Bond live on in some manner.

[David Schofield]

And of course the connection to Jenkins would also suggest a possible teamwork between the two, leaving open, how much of the effort would have been actually Fleming's.

I can see why Fleming felt he wasn't able to carry on with his character, but I somehow still think he might have tried to let Bond live on in some manner.

Thing is, it's easy to see Fleming living his life of leasured indulgence at Goldeneye in the 1960s, enjoying the kudos and ££££ from the Connery films, while Jenkins and various other awe-struck disciples knocked off new Bond novels over which Fleming had total editorial veto.

I think it would have appealed to Fleming's vanity 100%!

[Trident]

Hard to decide, how earnest Fleming was about a team effort. At any rate it would seem he encouraged Jenkins in providing ideas for either location and/or even plot elements. Impossible to tell what ever might have come of it. It could either have been a book by Fleming with YOLT-like use of the location, or a 50:50 affair with both of them contributing vital parts, or a Jenkins book using Fleming's character with permission by Fleming himself.

All of that of course situated in the wild uncharted terrains of the land commonly known as 'Speculation', but I could see things developing somewhere along this general route.

[MHazard]

Returning to the original discussion, Bond is given a considerable amount of shock treatment. In real life it's questionable if it would have left him functional at all (the early 60's view of electroshock therapy was much more favorable than the post One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest view of today). It certainly would have left him with an impaired memory and that, combined with what would appear to be some concussive brain damage suffered during his fall from Blofeld's castle (and glancing gun wound) would have made him both more suceptible to the brainwashing by the Soviets and having some continual memory issues as, of course, he had extensive amnesia at the end of YOLT. Now, whether Fleming actually considered all this or if its just what those of us with too much time on our hands and a probably unhealthy obsession with Fleming's works consider after the fact is unknowable. But, after what he's been through and the shock treatment by Sir James, I would expect him to have memory problems and some other cognitive symptoms that would explain why he isn't quite right. Let me add that I actually have a fairly high opinion of TMWGG and enjoy it quite a bit. I think the first part up through the attempted assasination of M is brilliant and taken together with OHSS and YOLT as a story arc represents Fleming's best work. After that the book runs out of steam a little, but I'll take it over TSWLM any day and I think it compares favorably with some of Fleming's early books like Moonraker or DAF. I agree with much of what has been said about wouldn't you like to know about what happened to Bond in the Soviet Union but that's just one of a whole bunch of teasers thrown out by Fleming throughout the books (I'd like to know about Bond losing his virginity and wallet in Paris as well). I can come up with a number of rationalizations as to why M doesn't send Bond back to the Soviet Union, but I think the real reason is Fleming wanted to write a Jamaica book.

[Jim]

Interesting original question, though - is James Bond as abused by those who use him as a blunt instrument (which is all Colonel Boris is using him for) as those who torture and brainwash him and feed him to ravenous eels every few pages or so?

Some unsettling thoughts in there. Hmm.

[Trident]

Interesting original question, though - is James Bond as abused by those who use him as a blunt instrument (which is all Colonel Boris is using him for) as those who torture and brainwash him and feed him to ravenous eels every few pages or so?

Some unsettling thoughts in there. Hmm.

Perhaps all that could be salvaged from the wreck that was Bond's brains at that time was a blank canvas? On which the hatred on the KGB wasn't so much restored but freshly painted? Because in the end that's all that was necessary for this particular assignment, a primed gun and a shot free from emotional baggage?

For a kind of reboot (or at least a cleared field) this would have come handy.

[Jim]

Some pleasantly chewy thinking going on now.

As several have observed it may all be only the product of not having had the opportunity to polish and finish it, but I do like the amusing notion that having returned an unfeeling killing automaton as a result of being reprogrammed, M sees the opportunity to do exactly that and wipe Bond's mind - Bond having demonstrated that he is susceptible to it - and make him M's unfeeling killing automaton once more. It's almost satire. If by accident.

On this logic, the bleat that goes on about Tracy in Gardner and Benson shouldn't happen.

Is a most entertaining line of thinking.

[Trident]

Some pleasantly chewy thinking going on now.

As several have observed it may all be only the product of not having had the opportunity to polish and finish it, but I do like the amusing notion that having returned an unfeeling killing automaton as a result of being reprogrammed, M sees the opportunity to do exactly that and wipe Bond's mind - Bond having demonstrated that he is susceptible to it - and make him M's unfeeling killing automaton once more. It's almost satire. If by accident.

On this logic, the bleat that goes on about Tracy in Gardner and Benson shouldn't happen.

Is a most entertaining line of thinking.

LOOOL!

Perhaps this might inspire some future story of yours?

[Guy Haines]

Returning to the original discussion, Bond is given a considerable amount of shock treatment. In real life it's questionable if it would have left him functional at all (the early 60's view of electroshock therapy was much more favorable than the post One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest view of today). It certainly would have left him with an impaired memory and that, combined with what would appear to be some concussive brain damage suffered during his fall from Blofeld's castle (and glancing gun wound) would have made him both more suceptible to the brainwashing by the Soviets and having some continual memory issues as, of course, he had extensive amnesia at the end of YOLT. Now, whether Fleming actually considered all this or if its just what those of us with too much time on our hands and a probably unhealthy obsession with Fleming's works consider after the fact is unknowable. But, after what he's been through and the shock treatment by Sir James, I would expect him to have memory problems and some other cognitive symptoms that would explain why he isn't quite right. Let me add that I actually have a fairly high opinion of TMWGG and enjoy it quite a bit. I think the first part up through the attempted assasination of M is brilliant and taken together with OHSS and YOLT as a story arc represents Fleming's best work. After that the book runs out of steam a little, but I'll take it over TSWLM any day and I think it compares favorably with some of Fleming's early books like Moonraker or DAF. I agree with much of what has been said about wouldn't you like to know about what happened to Bond in the Soviet Union but that's just one of a whole bunch of teasers thrown out by Fleming throughout the books (I'd like to know about Bond losing his virginity and wallet in Paris as well). I can come up with a number of rationalizations as to why M doesn't send Bond back to the Soviet Union, but I think the real reason is Fleming wanted to write a Jamaica book.

I agree with this, in particular the view that TMWTGG returned to the Caribbean because Fleming wanted one more Bond adventure in his own comfort zone. Against this the opening scenes seem as if they were written for a different Bond book altogether. Perhaps that was the original intention, with this instalment of Bond's adventures concentrating on his rehabilitation as an agent in the first third of the story before he is sent on a new mission. For whatever reason it didn't work out that way, and soon after the assassination attempt we are back in a more familiar type of Bond assignment, with the events of the first chapter almost forgotten.

As for filling in the gaps of Bond's career, have you read "James Bond:The Authorised Biography" by John Pearson? The author - Ian Fleming's first official biographer - has a pretty good go at it.

[MHazard]

I have read the authorized biography but it was a long, long time ago. On another note, responding to other comments, I don't think that Bond's memory is wiped completely or that he has no memory of Tracy. I doubt that was possible or that that was Fleming's intent. He does, after all, remember Honeychile Rider. I think more likely Fleming just wanted to clean up the problem of the last book and move on.

[Trident]

I have read the authorized biography but it was a long, long time ago. On another note, responding to other comments, I don't think that Bond's memory is wiped completely or that he has no memory of Tracy. I doubt that was possible or that that was Fleming's intent. He does, after all, remember Honeychile Rider. I think more likely Fleming just wanted to clean up the problem of the last book and move on.

Yes, probably the closest explanation. As spynovelfan already pointed out, it fits the usual m.o. of Fleming to go hush hush onward without too much care for the last events. If anything, the strong continuity arch TB - (TSWLM) - OHMSS - YOLT was atypical of the series, an extraordinary necessity because of the shared SPECTRE/Blofeld villain and reinforced by the (once more) atypical importancy of Tracy for OHMSS, which of course set the stage for the next book.

Nonetheless, even YOLT begins with Bond enjoying himself and merrily boozing in Tanaka's company. Only the second chapter gives away, how bad his recent experiences have hurt this character and how troubled the SIS is about losing a formerly vital agent. The back-to-square-one drill is present even in this most central book of the series.

Likewise, Revelator and Guy Haines already pointed to the most likely reason for TMWTGG being what it is; Fleming simply couldn't bring up the energy to write something beyond what he already knew so well. Jamaica was his backyard and his health rapidly decreasing, so the last book (almost forcibly squeezed from him) couldn't be more than we have got now.

It's just some fun to speculate about 'alternate' versions, versions of the book, of the elements within or of entirely different directions that may have lurked in the clouds of material that has become TMWTGG.

As spy said, we will never know. And there is even a high likelyhood that a Fleming who would have regained his health could have left Bond for good, fed up with the pressure and liability the character has become for him. After all, the whole project was closely linked for him to his marriage, an ill-fated liaison that most likely wouldn't have survived for much longer. One can see him turning his back to this, at the very least for some time, perhaps even for good.

Dürrenmatt said a story is told, once it has taken the worst possible conclusion. That certainly holds true for Bond, doesn't it?

[CasinoKiller]

Well regardless of what Flemming's intentions may have been, the continuation authors are pretty clear about Bond having recovered his memory completely. In Devil May Care for instance, Bond is seen clearly recalling Tracy's death and his revenge against Blofeld in Japan and then ruminates over his brainwashing at the hands of the Soviets.

I think most likely Bond was still suffering from post-traumatic stress at this point and thus maybe didn't have access to all his memories yet. But the idea that the SIS delibretly blocked some of his memories is farfetched.

[Trident]

But the idea that the SIS delibretly blocked some of his memories is farfetched.

Granted, it is a bit outlandish. But imagine for a moment you didn't know the series beyond, say, DAF. Would you ever think there would be a book with the entire first third set in the USSR and Bond not showing up? A book told in first person by a female character where Bond didn't turn up until the second half? A book with Bond not just considering a firm love affair, but actually marrying? Another book with Bond losing his memory that sees him living happily with a girl as a Japanese fisher, the girl being pregnant?

And finally of course the biggest sacrilege, Bond back in M's office, the location in the SIS that comes closest to 'home' for Bond. Returning not from Japan, but from the USSR, the enemy's home, murder in his heart and a poison gun in his jacket. Who would have thought such was possible after reading the first books of the series?

Fleming at times was desperately looking for new ways and the result was often most impressing.