That's an interpretation, of course. But the author intended it to be a companion piece to the Bond novels and this is how most readers see it. It does actually continue the series (and name checks Colonel Sun) and ends by Bond going off on a mission to Australia to track down Irma Bunt. I consider it to be a continuation Bond novel, personally. Rather like the Moneypenny Diaries are not meant to be seen as a continuation to real-life biography, but a clever conceit to be read alongside the Fleming novels. But, as I said, horses for courses. I like the book very much.
See, I read it as a fictitious continuation of the the James Bond novels written by Ian Fleming. It takes the conceit that Bond was real which is set up in the obituary in You Only Live Twice. It expands and explains fictional events seeded throughout the Bond novels, not the actual Fleming biography. It was intended as a continuation to the novels. Ah well, horses for courses.
It is. A (fictitious) continuation of Pearson's Fleming bio.
Oh, it concerns itself of course with Bond. But the premise is that Bond is a real person Fleming used for his "high-flown and romanticized caricatures". As such it's not so much a continuation but an epilogue to Pearson's Fleming biography that could have had the chapter title "Truth about Bond - the 007 that never was". Much of it isn't even continuation but filling of gaps and Bond's version of the truth.
I like it, too. But I think as it is not the same person, the same "James Bond" that Fleming wrote, so it's not a straight continuation. Fleming writes that Bond is tall, with black hair and a scar and so on. Fleming writes that Bond lit a cigarette and turned to his book and ponders life and death of a Mexican and orders his third bourbon. His narration is auctorial and as such things "are" as he describes them. He makes up the reality of his tale and within these boundaries things are as he describes them. He alludes to a former colleague who wrote a number of books about Bond. But in these books things are as Fleming tells us. The whole premise is that "things are as they are".
Now Pearson picks up that hint from YOLT and writes about the real James Bond, the man who inspired and "lived" these adventures. Conveniently, he's also called James Bond, also dark haired and tall and experienced the adventures Fleming tells us about "for real". But he's not Fleming's Bond, it's not the same person. Fleming could have been inspired by the Secret Service's best agent Hubertus Avery Cummerbatch-St.John, a 5.5 ft blonde bespectacled 00 agent who only drinks white tea, drives an Austin Mini and doesn't look at women since his second divorce and his fifth child. Pearson could have met Cummerbatch-St.John in his flat in Bromley where he lives with half a dozen cats and a collection of butterflies and spends most of his spare time in front of the telly. Of course that book would not have met with overwhelmed reactions and praise, neither from reviewers nor from the general reading public. But it would have been every bit as authentic given Pearson's premise. Which is that "there's a truth behind the things we've read in Fleming"
Another example: there was a post around here - I forget where exactly - with an interesting idea. Imagine a book about James Bond that describes his life, a long and full one, where he doesn't become an agent in the Secret Service. Instead he's a journalist or a clerk or a croupier. Would that qualify as a continuation then? if it's the same person Fleming describes, just without the Secret Service background? I don't really think so. Likewise I have my doubts about Deaver's latest book as a regular continuation. The very concept of rebooting here includes necessarily a different person, a different set of experiences and views.
Edited by Dustin, 27 June 2011 - 07:47 AM.
