18 replies to this topic

[Guy Haines]

Having just finished the audio book of The Spy Who Loved Me and started the one for OHMSS, an anomaly is puzzling me, as follows.

 

In chapter 13 of "Spy" - "Bedtime Story" - Bond, at the "Dreamy Pines" motel with Vivienne Michel, tells her the reason why he's in the neighbourhood and what he's been up to recently. It sound's improbable to me that a special agent would open up in this way to a young woman he hardly knows, but anyway he does. It involves a top level Russian defector, a Toronto crime syndicate hired to assassinate him, and one Horst Ulhmann, an ex-Gestapo type who is a member of SPECTRE, which has been paid £100,000 to by the Russians to see that this defector dies. The reader, or listener now, is told that this incident happened less than twelve months after Operation Thunderball, and that SPECTRE was back in business.

 

Compare and contrast with chapter 2 of OHMSS - "Gran Turismo" - in which we are privy to 007's proposed letter of resignation from the Double O section. Here, he cites as his reason for wanting to leave the lack of any evidence, in the twelve months since Operation Thunderball, that Blofeld was still alive or that a revived SPECTRE was in existence.

 

As I say, puzzling. Especially since, during the course of Bond's Canadian assignment, he puts himself in the line of fire, literally, to prevent the assassination. Something one might remember, surely?

 

Was it an oversight on the part of the author? The chapter in "Spy" seems to be there to remind the reader of James Bond's full time job, and give a good reason why, out of the blue, he turns up at the "Dreamy Pines". When Ian Fleming came to write OHMSS had this incident simply been forgotten? It's curious when in the same chapter of OHMSS mentioned he refers to Le Chiffre, Vesper Lynd and the events of Casino Royale, although of course the first few chapters of OHMSS are set in Royale-les-Eaux. And in previous Bond novels, past adventures have been mentioned, albeit briefly.

 

Was Bond's "bedtime story" made up, by Bond, to keep Vivienne interested? Was he in Canada and northern United States for reasons that had nothing to do with Russian defectors, Toronto gangsters and ex-Gestapo men? Did Viv Michel make the whole thing up? We're told she's a journalist. But where would she get the detail about Bond? Her journalism didn't involve reporting intelligence matters (Unless, of course, she'd read one of those fanciful novels about Bond referred to by M in his obituary in You Only Live Twice!)

 

Or, given the negative reaction to "Spy" at the time, did Mr. Fleming simply want to treat OHMSS as a direct follow on from Thunderball, and not mention anything in it relating to his previous book, even if it might be relevant to the current storyline - which I'd have thought the events in chapter 13 of "Spy" would be.

 

Sorry if this reads a bit like "Pedantry Corner" in Private Eye magazine, but it's something I hadn't thought about until recently.

[Hansen]

Pretty well caught Guy. Here are the explanation I see : Mission in Spy comes to a dead-end and after all SPECTRE is not involved Or, Fleming made a mistake. I believe that he did some. For instance, Leiter in missions after LALD did not suffer that much from his missing leg. Also, the revolver Bond uses in Dr No is supposed to be a long-range gun when actually it is a common gun.

[glidrose]

Great catch. But I suspect Fleming wanted to forget TSWLM!

[Guy Haines]

Thanks for the replies. A few thoughts.

 

Hansen - it may be that SPECTRE wasn't involved at all, though Bond seems to think it was - he mentions the organisation listening in to Russian communications about the defector and offering to set up the assassination job, and seems certain that the ex-Gestapo man worked for SPECTRE. Or you may be right, Ian Fleming made a mistake which neither he, editors or publishers picked up on.

 

glidrose - Your idea may also be right. The reaction from reviewers and readers to The Spy Who Loved Me wasn't exactly glowing. Plus including it would be a distraction from what Fleming may have planned as a straight Bond versus Blofeld trilogy.

 

One other thought occurs. Maybe Fleming wanted a good reason for Bond to resign in OHMSS, as it was key to the story - Bond, already fed up with the service wasting his time chasing after Blofeld discovers Tracy, and through her Draco and from him a lead to Blofeld. The odd thing is that while Draco puts Bond on the scent, its the fusty College of Arms types who clinch it, as Sable Basilisk's innocent detective work about Blofeld's lineage attracting the attention of the British Diplomatic Service, which soon puts two and two together.

 

You know, if he hadn't been so distracted by his plans to join European nobility, Blofeld might have got away with his biological warfare project. Bond was getting nowhere fast trying to find him. But as M comments in the film of the book - "Very curious thing, snobbery."

[Major Tallon]

As Sherlock Holmes once remarked to Dr. Watson, "As to your dates, that is the biggest mystification of them all."  (The Adventure of the Creeping Man.)  The same, I fear, may be said of Ian Fleming's rendition of James Bond's adventures.  As for the chronology in question, we know that the Thunderball operation occured in June, 1959 (Thunderball, chapter 7).  M's obit of Bond in YOLT placed his wedding in 1962 (You Only Live Twice, chapter 21).  Since the wedding took place on New Year's Day (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, chapter 27), Bond must have written his resignation letter in September, 1961 (OHMSS, chapters 1 & 2).  Since Viv's adventure occurred in October (The Spy Who Loved Me, chapter 1), and took place less than a year after the Thunderball affair (TSWLM, chapter 11), the most likely candidate for that adventure was 1960.  However you slice it, the dates are irreconcilable.  [Parenthetically, Guy Haines, in my edition, "Bedtime Story" is chapter 11, rather than chapter 13).} 

 

One possibility is that Mr. Fleming is wrong or deliberately obfuscating in his chronology (and, having, in the Obit, injected himself into Bond's adventures, Fleming has made himself fair game for such remarks).  Another is that Bond was painting with a very broad brush in his narrative to Viv, perhaps because that detail regarding dates wasn't particularly important to his story, and due to the effects of fatigue and to distraction in the anticipation of danger.  Had he told Viv that the Thunderball affair was "just over a year ago" and been more precise in his letter to M (he obviously had his mind at least partially on his driving and wasn't devoting his attention sufficiently to the details of the letter), this problem would have been avoided. 

 

So, let's put this anomaly down to fatigue and distraction.

 

And very nice catch, by the way!

[Guy Haines]

Hi Major,

 

My mistake, "Bedtime Story" is chapter 11 rather than 13 of The Spy Who Loved Me. I took the book off the shelf a few minutes ago to re-check - along with "The Blofeld Trilogy", Penguin Modern Classic's reprinting of the three Bond-v-Blofeld books in one handy volume. There's a forward by Nicholas Lezard, literary critic for The Guardian, an interesting review of the trilogy, and he is in no doubt that Ian Fleming completely disregarded "Spy" following its disastrous reception from readers and critics alike. In fact Lezard refers to Thunderball, OHMSS and You Only Live Twice as "the last three [Bond novels] that Fleming saw published in his lifetime (if we discount, as Fleming himself did, the disastrous The Spy Who Loved Me)"

 

If Lezard is right, that may explain it - Ian Fleming took up in OHMSS where Thunderball left off, as if The Spy Who Loved Me never happened (And had the "get out", as I remember from reading the hardback edition of "Spy", that in any event he didn't "write" it, rather it was a manuscript received from Vivienne Michel.) I imagine if "Spy" had been more successful, we might have had reference to Bond's mission in Canada in OHMSS, before saying that all traces of SPECTRE had vanished again, along with Blofeld.

 

As for the dates, they are irreconcilable.

[glidrose]

Here's another anomaly: Bond was 37 in MR. He's 38 in YOLT.

[AMC Hornet]

Here's another anomaly: Bond was 37 in MR. He's 38 in YOLT.

Tiger said Bond was born in the year of the Rat. The nearest occurrence that makes sense is 1924. YOLT was first published in 1964, so I suppose the events described must have happened two years earlier (while Ursula Andress was sunning herself at Piz Gloria, perhaps).

But what do I know?

[Major Tallon]

In The James Bond Dossier, Kingsley Amis has some fun with the question of Bond's age.  He points out that Fleming, in order to keep his hero under forty, had to tinker with details of his early years.  Here's one bit:

 

"In now seems, for instance, that at the time of that smart coup against the Rumanian gambling team in Monte Carlo (referred to in Casino Royale, ch. 3), Bond can't have been more than fifteen.  He won a million francs at shemmy on that occasion, but had to turn it into the Section.  Quite right: far too much spending money for a Scottish schoolboy on holiday."

[Guy Haines]

Yes, he must have had some explaining to do come Michaelmas term at Fettes College. The essay "What I did on my school holidays", coming from Bond, would have been interesting to put it mildly, if the Section had allowed him to write it!

 

As a "rule of thumb" I tend to think of the adventure as happening about two years before the book was published. As for Bond' s age it is set with one primary aim - he mustn't reach forty, as the Major points out. But even this rule of thumb and putting off of the dreaded four-zero doesn't always work.

 

I've highlighted this anomaly between "Spy" and OHMSS though because, unlike the other books which are pretty well self contained adventures, albeit sometimes mentioning other incidents in Bond's service career, OHMSS is the middle part of a trilogy. Even on first reading of it back in 1963, a reader could guess by the end that the Bond -v- Blofeld story would continue in the next, expected volume. The incident in Chapter 11 (not 13!) of "Spy" doesn't fit the flow of events. Maybe if "Spy" had been successful some reference to the Toronto assignment could have been made. But I'm with the reviewer I quoted above. I think that Ian Fleming wanted to put the experiment of The Spy Who Loved Me behind him, to the extent of not mentioning any of the content in the all too few future Bond adventures. And so, like an "un-person" in one of those doctored Soviet photographs, "Spy" was expunged from the Bond history.

 

(And of course, not allowing the film producers any use of "The Spy Who Loved Me" beyond the title, though it's interesting that Jaws, like Sol Horror in the book, has steel capped teeth.)

[glidrose]

Here's another anomaly: Bond was 37 in MR. He's 38 in YOLT.

Tiger said Bond was born in the year of the Rat. The nearest occurrence that makes sense is 1924. YOLT was first published in 1964, so I suppose the events described must have happened two years earlier (while Ursula Andress was sunning herself at Piz Gloria, perhaps).

But what do I know?

Let's see. Bond marries Theresa on January 1st. According to Bond's obituary in "You Only Live Twice" this happened in 1962. "James Bond was briefly married in 1962."

The events of You Only Live Twice (except the last couple of pages) play out through the rest of 1962. Therefore Bond is 38 in YOLT.

And technically Ursula Andress isn't sunning herself at Piz Gloria. Irma Bunt points her out in the restaurant.

"And that beautiful girl with the long fair hair at the big table, that is Ursula Andress, the film star. What a wonderful tan she has!"

I know how she got the tan. Do you?

[Major Tallon]

Brilliant!

[Guy Haines]

In M's "Obit" of Bond in You Only Live Twice, he's scathing about a series of fanciful books written about 007 by a friend and colleague and broadly hints at future legal proceedings. If he'd noticed that this friend and colleague had subtly reminded readers about a star from one of the subsequent films - M would have been apoplectic!

[AMC Hornet]

 

I know how she got the tan. Do you?

 

I dare not answer, for fear of once again being eclipsed by your incomparable brilliance.

 

I will ask, however:

 

Had Dr. No finished filming in Jamaica by December 1961?

 

(Every source I've consulted says that filming in Jamaica started on January 16, 1962. But, again, what do I know?)

[glidrose]

I know how she got the tan. Do you?

I dare not answer, for fear of once again being eclipsed by your incomparable brilliance.
 
I will ask, however:
 
Had Dr. No finished filming in Jamaica by December 1961?
 
(Every source I've consulted says that filming in Jamaica started on January 16, 1962. But, again, what do I know?)

 
 
Who said anything about Dr No? Oh, that's right. You did.
 
The correct answer is she got that tan in Israel when she was on location with hubby John Derek who was acting in Otto Preminger's film Exodus. That Israeli sun is so intense that her suntan lasted throughout 1960 into 1961.
 
I hate to break the news to you, but Fleming's novels are fictions. They don't have to adhere to the real world. Ergo, in Fleming's world Dr No was in production whenever he has it. BTW, as this thread shows, Fleming wasn't so hot on chronology.
 
Anything else you want to know, please ask. I'll be here all week. Try the veal.
 
Come to notice it, Ursula Andress and JB have something in common: a Swiss mother.

[AMC Hornet]

 
I hate to break the news to you, but Fleming's novels are fictions.

 

 

What! But...but...after all these years...Next you'll be telling me that Santa Claus - no, let's not go there.

[Secretan]

The solution is that TSWLM occurs in the middle of OHMSS, so that in Sept. there's been no trace of Blofeld, but by Oct., SPECTRE has resurfaced. I'm posting my chronology of the Fleming series as a new topic.

[Guy Haines]

That possibility occurred to me when listening to the audio books and checking particular chapters of the printed pages. But would Ian Fleming have thought that far ahead - working on one book (TSWLM) but having in mind this as an incident in another's timeline? Would he, I wonder, have mentioned the events of TSWLM in OHMSS,  had the first book been a success? It wasn't so we'll never know.

[glidrose]

The solution is that TSWLM occurs in the middle of OHMSS, so that in Sept. there's been no trace of Blofeld, but by Oct., SPECTRE has resurfaced. I'm posting my chronology of the Fleming series as a new topic.

 

Excellent suggestion and probably the only valid one.