31 replies to this topic

[Loomis]

Here's a question to identify the purists among us: is Fleming's Bond the only "authentic" literary James Bond? I'm fully aware that, say, "For Special Services" and "High Time To Kill" are every bit as "official" as "You Only Live Twice", but is anything going on beyond attempts to keep "James Bond" in business as a brand name?

I've not read any Gardner, but from what I gather the 007 of his novels bears virtually no resemblance to the character created by Fleming. I've read a couple of Bensons, and I'd guess that Benson's Bond has little in common with Gardner's.

Now, obviously one could make the point that Roger Moore's Bond shares almost nothing apart from a name with Timothy Dalton's, but filmmaking is a collaborative process, while a novel is the product of one person. Therefore, I believe it would be natural to claim that the EON films amount to a single series, while the only "authentic" James Bond literary series is comprised of the novels written by Bond's creator, Ian Fleming.

I know that many people who post on these forums won't take kindly to suggestions that Fleming's is the one and only true James Bond, but I'd like to get a discussion going.

[Roebuck]

James Bond was, at the end of the day, the fictional alter ego of Fleming himself. That's why the original novels have a distinctive style and voice that I think of as the 'authentic' 007.

With the exception of 'Colonel Sun' the continuation novels seem confused as to whether they're about the Fleming character or the guy from the movies. Maybe trying too hard to please everybody. So, yeah, Amis, Gardner, Benson and Wood have all made a good stab at Bond. But for me they're just not the real deal.

[Loomis]

I agree entirely, Roebuck. The post-Fleming novels - with the exception of "Colonel Sun" (written by Kingsley Amis, who I believe co-wrote "The Man With The Golden Gun" with Fleming) - are not really about the same character, and lack the distinctiveness and brilliance of Fleming's writing.

I've given Benson a chance, and, lest I be accused of "Benson-bashing", I don't say that he's a moron who should never have been allowed to come into contact with a typewriter. Clearly, his love and knowledge of Bond is world class. However, I'm currently reading "Goldfinger" and "High Time To Kill", both for the first time. With one of those novels, even though I've known the plot backwards since I was about eight, I find myself hard pushed to put it down once I've read a few lines; with the other, I find little to sustain my interest save the most rudimentary curiosity as to how the story will eventually resolve itself. I leave it to you to figure out which of those two novels works a magic for me, and which I feel merits the description "authentic Bond".

[Coop]

Writers have their own voice. To expect another writer to imitate Fleming's style would result in pastiche rather than a genuine Bond novel.

And as Roebuck says, Gardner, Benson and Wood have had to acknowledge the various Eon Bonds as well as the literary one. I've enjoyed reading some of the non-Fleming novels, but maybe IFP have got it right. Perhaps we should forget the imitators and stick with the originals.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Coop
Writers have their own voice.  To expect another writer to imitate Fleming's style would result in pastiche rather than a genuine Bond novel.

You're quite right, Coop. I wouldn't consider a Hannibal Lecter novel written by anyone other than Thomas Harris to be the real deal, so why should I care about non-Fleming Bond fiction? (I'll make an exception in the case of "Colonel Sun".)

[Roebuck]

Originally posted by Loomis
with the exception of "Colonel Sun" (written by Kingsley Amis, who I believe co-wrote "The Man With The Golden Gun" with Fleming) - are not really about the same character, and lack the distinctiveness and brilliance of Fleming's writing.

There by hangs a tale. When Glidrose decided to posthumously publish TMWTGG they let Amis read Fleming's draft and asked for his suggestions on how the novel should be completed. Apparently they chose to totally ignore the notes he provided them and Amis claimed to have no idea who finished the book.

[Loomis]

Really? I guess there are always three or four different accounts for this sort of thing. Maybe even "The Man With The Golden Gun" shouldn't be regarded as "authentic Bond", in that case. I mean, I don't really consider "Free As A Bird" to be "authentic Beatles".

A couple of other questions that spring to mind are: how much of "Thunderball" was Fleming's work?, and did Fleming give his blessing to Amis and/or others writing Bond novels after his death?

[General Koskov]

I think most puratians would like to slough off Benson, Gardner, Wood, and even Amis as 'unauthenic'. But it really all depends on the eye of the beholder. Personally, I like all of Fleming, the Early-Gardners, Wood's JBTSWLM (but not JBAM), but I dislike Benson and the Later-Gardners.

However, these sort of 'personal' lists are too specific and obviously do not do much more than tell other people what I like. So, I think that all Bond fans, no matter how eager to 'Benson-bash', 'Gardner-gash', 'Wood-whallop', or 'Amis-assault' must admit that all books are, technically, authentic--even if they are made merely for keeping Bond's brand name alive in the bookstore.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by General Koskov

I think that all Bond fans, no matter how eager to 'Benson-bash', 'Gardner-gash', 'Wood-whallop', or 'Amis-assault' must admit that all books are, technically, authentic--even if they are made merely for keeping Bond's brand name alive in the bookstore.  

I'd use the word "official" rather than "authentic".

As Roebuck and Coop point out, Benson and others seem to have been obliged to acknowledge that his Bond may be the Bond of the films rather than the Fleming novels. I enjoyed "Zero Minus Ten", and went out and bought "High Time To Kill", but as soon as I reached HTTK's ludicrous car chase in Belgium in which Bond activates a flying "scout" to take care of his would-be assassins, I wondered why I was reading something evidently aimed at 13-year-olds.

[Loomis]

From the Introduction to the 2002 edition of "The Bond Files" by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson:

"Bond's adventures are still of annoyingly variable quality. Whereas, in the 1980s, the serious fan considered the John Gardner books to be authentic Bond and the Roger Moore films to be trivia, now it's the Pierce Brosnan films that are considered authentic Bond while the Raymond Benson books are the trivia. If the books could be written to the same standard that the films are made the fans would be in Bond heaven, but that hasn't happened since around 1968. What, one wonders, would Ian Fleming - a consummate journalist who moved among the most pre-eminent literary writers of his time - have made of the various products that bear his name today?"

[KMHPaladin]

At least they haven't ghost-written the books like the Stratmeyer Syndicate did with the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, etc. books I'm sure a lot of us grew up reading. I have read a few Gardner and Benson books, mostly movie novelizations. Unfortunately, they don't have the depth that Fleming's books have had, at least for me.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by KMHPaladin
At least they haven't ghost-written the books like the Stratmeyer Syndicate did with the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, etc. books I'm sure a lot of us grew up reading.  

That's true, and it's something to be thankful for. The thought of Bond novels being knocked together by teams of anonymous writers is not a pleasant one. As a Bond fan, a part of me wonders whether it's better to have the continuation novels, with all their faults, than nothing. Then again, why bother with a series of (often abysmal) books that chronicle the adventures of a character who mostly bears only slight resemblance to Fleming's creation, and often (see Gardner) laughably little resemblance? Why pretend that the torch has been passed on when it hasn't been, especially as it looks like even the folks at IFP have given up the ghost regarding the continuation novels and are content to let "Colonel Sun", the Gardners and the Bensons remain unpublished and be damned?

I know that no one is forcing me to read Gardner or Benson, but let's face it: the literary Bond died in the 1960s, and it's a sad irony that the only works of Bond fiction to have appeared since "Colonel Sun" that to my mind come close to conjuring up the universe of Ian Fleming have been written by fans, and not authors commissioned by Glidrose: online fiction by the likes of Thomas Clink and Jacques I.M. Stewart (Jim). But what we've been given by Glidrose (or IFP, or whatever it's calling itself these days) is, at best, the Oasis to Fleming's The Beatles, or the xXx to Fleming's, well, Bond, and often much less than that.

[clinkeroo]

I enjoy the continuation novels because they remind me of Fleming's creation. But there was only one Ian Fleming, and Fleming's Bond was the only one that always sounded true to form (even TSWLM). Amis was brilliant, and his language skills and craftmanship were superior to any of the others, including Fleming, but he could not duplicate Fleming's ear for easy flowing prose, nor could he enter that fantasy world where the Fleming sweep existed.

[Red Grant]

For once , I would have to agree with the majority of other posts and say that I don't consider anything other than Fleming and Amis to be "official" James Bond. Colonel Sun was written in the same era as the Fleming novels and very much in the same style thus continuing the same feel to the novel. I thought Gardner's efforts were awful and haven't even bothered with any Benson. I don't want the plot set in the modern world. That's part of the charm. You are reading about history in a sense not something contemporary that you can easily identify with. In my case later Fleming stories were contemporary! But that's another story....

[Mister Asterix]

To me it depends on what I am reading. If I am reading Benson or Gardner then I consider all of the Fleming, Amis, Gardner, and Benson books as part of the life of the character I am reading about. If I am reading Fleming then it is really only the other Fleming books that I think about as chronicles of the hero’s life. In fact, it does not matter very much because each story is really only molded by its own past.

[Dr Noah]

"James Bond was, at the end of the day, the fictional alter ego of Fleming himself. That's why the original novels have a distinctive style and voice that I think of as the 'authentic' 007."

That's pretty much how I feel about it too. I guess there is a novelity value in reading further adventrues of Bond, as there is in reading pastiches of Chandler and Conan Doyle, but at the end of the day, it is Fleming's creation.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Mister Asterix

To me it depends on what I am reading. If I am reading Benson or Gardner then I consider all of the Fleming, Amis, Gardner, and Benson books as part of the life of the character I am reading about. If I am reading Fleming then it is really only the other Fleming books that I think about as chronicles of the hero’s life. In fact, it does not matter very much because each story is really only molded by its own past.  

That's more or less the way I look at it, although to connect Benson's Bond universe to that of Fleming requires one heck of a suspension of disbelief, and I suppose the same must go for the Gardners. From what I've read so far, "High Time To Kill" seems Bond-by-the-numbers, with as many nods and winks to the films as to Fleming. It begins in the Caribbean, with some "Thunderball"-style nookie and gunplay, and continues via a game of golf to an absurd hi-tech car chase that could have come from a Moore or Brosnan film, and then we're back to hotel rooms, punchups and seduction. And everywhere, dated Fleming references land with a thud. Bond wears his blessed Sea Island Cotton shirts and mentions the Ink Spots. How many men in their 30s or 40s in 1999 would have even heard of the Ink Spots, let alone admitted to liking them? Benson evidently wants the hardcore fans to know that he's read his Fleming, but this sort of thing is just annoying, as though he's trying to bestow "legitimacy" on his work by citing the original Bond books every couple of pages. And if Benson is so keen to for his work to be seen as continuing a series, why doesn't he acknowledge Amis and Gardner?

I view the Fleming, Gardner and Benson books as three separate series united by nothing more than a protagonist named James Bond and a number of common recurring characters, nearly all of whom are very different in each series, including Bond (especially Bond). I really don't see how the works of Gardner or Benson can be described as "authentic Bond".

[Roebuck]

Originally posted by Loomis
How many men in their 30s or 40s in 1999 would have even heard of the Ink Spots, let alone admitted to liking them?

By answering that question I would only incriminate myself.

But you do highlight one of the pitfalls of trying to bring the Bond of the novels into the present era. Sure, if Bond was a jazz fan it's reasonable he'd still be listening to (for instance) Charlie Parker. But you'd expect names like Winston Marsalis and Natalie Cole to be in his CD collection rather than The Ink Spots. It's not enough to just crib from Fleming. You have to have a feel for how Bond would live NOW. What would he wear. Where would he dine in New York or Paris. Ray Benson is probably a very nice bloke, but you'd never ask him to recommend a tailor. It all comes back to Bond being an extension of Fleming himself; bit of a snob with some curiouse notions about women. And that makes the task of writers who try to continue the literary franchise extremely difficult.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Roebuck

It's not enough to just crib from Fleming. You have to have a feel for how Bond would live NOW. What would he wear. Where would he dine in New York or Paris.

That's true, and it's something that I think the films have succeeded in doing. With Benson, Bond is all over the place. One moment he's a techno-savvy, computer-using 90s/00s guy, and the next he's a dinosaur, reminiscing with a colonial governor about wanting to marry an air hostess or a Japanese woman, and mentioning the Ink Spots. To quote Hannibal Lecter, it won't do.

So-called hardcore fans aren't stupid. Having Bond wear shirts that Fleming knew about, or allude to his being tortured with a carpet beater doesn't bring Fleming's Bond back to "life". All it boils down to is trainspotting and nostalgia-wallowing, not authenticity. I'd rather read a so-called Bond thriller and not be interrupted every couple of pages by the author shouting loudly: "See! I've read 'The Spy Who Loved Me'! I'm a Bond expert!"

But even if Benson had cut back on the in-jokes and written his Bond adventures as period novels and 007 "as bit of a snob with some curious notions about women", it still wouldn't have been the real thing. Amis didn't provide the real thing, either, but he was at least talented enough to write a Fleming pastiche worth reading. A number of other writers, most of them now dead, might have been able to pull off the same trick around the same time (I'm thinking of people like Anthony Burgess and Graham Greene). Yet even if someone like Greene had written a Bond novel that was far superior as a literary work to anything bearing Fleming's name, that novel would still not have been "authentic Bond". But "quality Bond" would have been great, and I don't believe we've seen it in the literary series since "Colonel Sun".

[jwheels]

If the continuation novels are not authentic, than are we to say that the movies that bare little to no resemblance to the Fleming novels (ie, the Brosnan movies) are not authentic?

i just look at it as this: each author has their own interpretation of bond, just like the different actors who played Bond did.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by jwheels57

If the continuation novels are not authentic, than are we to say that the movies that bare little to no resemblance to the Fleming novels (ie, the Brosnan movies) are not authentic?

No.

Whether the films bear little to no resemblance to the Fleming novels has no bearing on whether they are "authentic Bond films". After all, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967) bears little resemblance to both the universe of Fleming in general and the novel "You Only Live Twice" (1964) in particular, yet the film is considered not only "authentic" but a classic from the golden age of the cinematic Bond. Fleming was not a filmmaker, and his sole area of jurisdiction was the printed page. Therefore, even a Bond film that has virtually no connection whatsoever to the works of Fleming - TOMORROW NEVER DIES, to pick a random example - may be seen as perfectly "authentic".

It's not a question of content so much as of "authorship", or, rather, of who's indispensable to writing an "authentic Bond novel" and who's indispensable to making an "authentic Bond film". As I see it, the reason why the films have always been "authentic" and the continuation novels are not is that film, unlike literature, is a collaborative affair. When the first Bond films were made, Fleming was still alive and writing Bond. Fleming worked alone, while vast numbers of people were involved in shaping the films. No one person is or has ever been indispensable to making an "authentic Bond film", while the one thing indispensable to an "authentic Bond novel" is Fleming's vision and style.

It's a case of different rules of "authorship" and "authenticity" applying to different media.

[Mister Asterix]

Of course, we can argue authentisity all we wish, but it all comes down to whether you enjoy the piece of work or not. So far I have enjoyed all of the Bond books and all of the Bond films—all to different degrees, of course. I am not going to skip reading a fine piece of work by Benson, for example, mearly because it is not in the league of Fleming’s high standards. Fleming will now forever be the unacheivable level any Bond author must strive for. That does not mean the reader shouldn’t be able to enjoy the other authors’ strivings. I still do get enough of that tingle of excitement that I got from the Fleming novels when I read a new continuation novel to keep me reading. To find out what happened in the life of my favourite fictional hero is still bliss. And for me it is not that this man in his late thirties has around in the 1950s that requires the suspension of disbelief, rather a suspension of disbelief would be needed for me to accept that this great hero could ever grow old.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Mister Asterix

it all comes down to whether you enjoy the piece of work or not. So far I have enjoyed all of the Bond books and all of the Bond films—all to different degrees, of course. I am not going to skip reading a fine piece of work by Benson, for example, mearly because it is not in the league of Fleming’s high standards. ... And for me it is not that this man in his late thirties has around in the 1950s that requires the suspension of disbelief, rather a suspension of disbelief would be needed for me to accept that this great hero could ever grow old.

Very well put. I agree with you to a large extent.

Originally posted by Mister Asterix

Fleming will now forever be the unacheivable level any Bond author must strive for.

Well, I guess that's the problem. Gardner and Benson seem to me an enormous comedown after Fleming (and Amis) - but, as you point out, Mr Asterix, there are people, such as yourself, who enjoy the Gardner and Benson books, and it all comes down to personal taste.

Imagine that the film series - the most successful in cinema history in the same way as the Fleming novels constituted one of the most successful literary series of all time - came to an end, and there were no new movie adventures for 007 for 15 or 20 years, at which point the copyright owners decided to revive the franchise with straight-to-video outings made on tiny budgets by people who were not remotely in the same league professionally as the men and women behind the EON films of yesteryear. I wouldn't welcome such a development, but, to my mind, that is the equivalent of what they've done with the continuation novels. I can understand the fan argument of "better to have disappointing Bond than no Bond at all", but when you really love something, isn't it better to see it go out in its prime rather than thrash away for years like a mortally wounded beast before finally petering out into nothingness? I for one am glad that The Beatles, for example, quit while they were still ahead.

Mr Asterix, despite all that I've written on this thread, I don't hate Gardner and Benson. I don't propose to blame either author for not being Ian Fleming, and I am aware that neither man had an entirely free hand in writing the continuation novels, which I'd also say (from a layman's perspective, of course) would seem to have been quite atrociously marketed, especially in recent years. I'm sure that I'll continue to give Benson a chance, and try to see the merit in his work, and that I'll pick up any Gardners I come across (they're not easy to come by these days, so it's possible that I'll never find any), but.... Mr Asterix, I know where you're coming from, but do you understand the disappointment I feel as a fan that the post-Fleming novels weren't a heck of a lot better?

It's rather like the STAR WARS prequels. Heaven knows I want to like them, but, like many others, with the best will in the world, all I see are the emperor's new clothes.

[Loomis]

Would it be fair to say that the Bensons were written for a younger readership than was the case with the Flemings, or would that be rather wide of the mark? (After all, the Fleming novels were never intended as "literature".) What about the Gardners?

If it's a case of different markets, then we really are talking apples and oranges.

[Roebuck]

I'll probably get my head shot off by Benson fans, but let me quote just two lines from his DAD novelisation.

''So the British spy has a few extras in his fancy Aston Martin? he thought. Wait till he gets a taste of Moon's Jaguar...!''

I can practically see the comic book thought balloon forming about the words as he typed them. As a writer of fiction he's (at best) an enthusiastic amature. On the other hand while Gardner's Bond bore less and less resemblance to Fleming's character with each successive book, for the most part they're competently written thrillers. And, like Amis, he understood the importance of sadism and sex in the Bond formula. Something Benson never seemed comfortable with.

[Loomis]

Originally posted by Roebuck

I can practically see the comic book thought balloon forming about the words as he typed them.  

Quite. Which is why I ask, in all seriousness, whether Benson was under orders to write for a younger readership than Fleming had written for.

I quote again from "The Bond Files" (Lines to Flick Past from "Doubleshot"):

"A group of hardened criminals are described as being 'thrilled' at some news, as if they were small kids at a party; bullets always 'zip' and 'zing'...."

Does everyone see what I mean when I question whether the continuation novels ought to be seen as "authentic Bond", the real deal? I'll take the professionalism of Fleming and Amis over the amateurishness of Benson (I've yet to sample Gardner), regardless of his enthusiasm for all things Bond. I'm sure he means well, but the cold, hard fact of the matter is that acquiring his books costs me money.

[zencat]

I don't have an answer to this...but, man, do I miss having a book to look forward to this summer.

[Loomis]

zencat, I admire and envy your enthusiasm. I wish I'd been able, like yourself, to look forward to the annual Bond novel over the past few years, and to derive such pleasure from Gardner and Benson. Must be much more fun than being a Fleming-only purist.

Believe it or not, though, I am looking forward to the paperback release of "The Man With The Red Tattoo". I'll say one thing for Benson: he's good at locations (an essential aspect of Bond both literary and cinematic), and I'm interested in finding out what he's made of Japan. I fear I'll almost immediately be running screaming back to my collection of Flemings, but, hey, I'll be there when the TMWTRT paperbacks hit the book shops.

[Hotshot007]

Well,this is a delicate topic.I do enjoy Benson and Gardner but their Bonds are quite different from Fleming's.Fleming tended to make his novels with more depth and description,his Bond wasn't superman,and Bond's life was far from wonderful.The newer novels lack that amount of involvement and reality.Yes,they are made for the next generation,and overly modernized.They aim at more action than intrigue and are very to the point.Fleming's novels are often disturbing and dark,and more for adults.Benson's are more just for fun,books that you can breeze through and then forget about kind of thing.Fleming really gets in touch with your "inner self" and often leaves you something to think about.TSWLM had this effect on me.When you begin to read a Fleming novel,you know to expect an involving and intriguing ordeal.You look forward to reading it and exploring it.With Benson or Gardner,you expect a fun little book that's just one of the many you're going to read in your lifetime.Basically,Gardner's Bond is more like an American detective,Benson's is the super-cool multi-mega-gadget-weilding-superhero,and Fleming's is just...Fleming's.I havn't read Amis' yet.

[Hotshot007]

Oh,and Loomis,I resnt that comment about 13-year olds.I'm only 11 and I've already been into Bond for about 4 years.