They tried for literary with DMC and it the fans didn't react to it well, sold well, but people were not happy. That book was a lot of things, but it was not fun.
But I don't think they did "try for literary" with DEVIL MAY CARE - that's one of the main problems with it.
Granted, with Faulks they had the perfect writer for a superior piece of literary fiction, but the resulting novel was no better - and no better written - than a Benson book. There's nothing remotely "literary" about DEVIL MAY CARE. It's a by-the-numbers affair that's very much aimed at people who know Bond purely through the films.
It has a conventional structure, a fast pace (to no effect, though, for the story is wholly uninteresting and there is no clever plotting), plenty of action scenes, and the prose is never anything more than workmanlike and lifeless.
The novel has no atmosphere, texture or resonance, and there is no characterisation worth a damn. It's about as literary as the DIE ANOTHER DAY novelization, indeed I'd say that the DIE ANOTHER DAY novelization is actually a considerably more vivid and exciting book, telling a much more gripping yarn (and it's more Flemingian, too).
And, yes, I think Faulks does go for "fun" (hamfistedly), insofar as his Bond is most definitely not to be taken seriously - indeed, he seems modelled on Moore circa OCTOPUSSY. Trouble is, though, Faulks fails to be funny. It's all very forced and knowing and tiresome. He comes across as though he's the first author ever to have written a Bond pastiche or tried to send up the character.
