5 replies to this topic

[ggl]

Where was he born?

 

The novel says he was a "relative of the Catalan family of circus managers". Of course, there are no Catalan families with that name.

 

After that, Fleming says that his father was Enrico Scaramanga (Italian name), and that, after the "elephant affair", he flew to US through Naples (Italy again).

 

So, was Fleming mixing Catalonia with Italy?? Was he thinking in Catania in Sicily??

 

Any thought about this?

[Major Tallon]

Interesting questions, ggl, that I really can't answer.  I  hadn't known that Scaramanga was "of course" not Catalan, though I had known that Spanish names wouldn't begin with "Sc".  As for your other questions, it would be interesting to see Fleming's notebooks or the original manuscript of the novel.  The notebooks are privately owned, however, and the manuscript is not among those in the Lilly Library in Indiana.  My guess, and it's no more than that, is that Fleming liked the name and tried to create a backstory that would match.  Sorry I can't be more helpful.

[Dustin]

Could be a similar case to Goldfinger, whose Baltic origin was also based more on Fleming's creativity than on real life. I seem to remember having read Fleming took the name Scaramanga from a schoolmate; he probably just let his imagination run with it, coming up with circuses and a trick shot. Catalan sounds exotic enough and few people would immediately stumble about that detail.

Edited by Dustin, 06 December 2013 - 03:48 PM.

[ggl]

Thanks for your answers, friends!

 

What I found more interesting is that Fleming begins his description writing about the "Catalan family" and then all the other stuff point to Italy... except "Francisco" which I think it is "Francesco" in Italian!!

 

Perhaps I´m reading too much into it and it was only just one thing that he expected to change later in TMWTGG... but couldn´t.

[Dustin]

It's certainly possible it was a typo or even a downright mistake on Fleming's side, TMWTGG is full of such stuff. For example there is a high probability Scaramanga worked for the Spang brothers during Bond's DAF mission. Sending Bond after Scaramanga under such circumstances is more than just risky. There is after all the possibility Scaramanga knows Bond's face and their first meeting might well have ended with one of Scaramanga's bullets in his head right there at Sav' la Mar...

[Trevelyan 006]

Despite other such details, I always assumed he was from Italy. As if he perhaps moved there later on with his family after being born in Catalonia?

 

To be fair, who knows though!