Tuesday September 28, 2004

James Bond Books

I started reading Ian Fleming's books on James Bond as a teenager. I am continuing to reread them even now. If you buy a new one there is a good forward on Bond and Fleming written by Anthony Burgess which sums up the whole Bond character and how Fleming's is interwoven into it.

As Fleming worked in the secret service during the war he knew what he was writing about. The Russian organisation Smersh really did ( does) exist. He came up with covert operations for SIS which probably sowed seeds in his journalistic mind about the character Bond. In many ways I think Bond was the person Fleming wanted to be. I don't think he would have made it into the 'field' as he was a sickly man partly due to a sports injury he got at Eton on the playing field.

Fleming's character's are enormous. The criminals, Bond himself and of course 'M'. The details in the action in the books are mind boggling. That is why I reread them. I always find a little bit more each time that my eyes missed last time.

The books are small in number but like that TV series ( Fawlty towers being the best example) which they made just the right number means each book is perfect. I don't think he could have written many more without the plots becoming similar and loosing that edge each book has. To add to the collection are two that have short stories. Also the 'strange' The Spy who loved me the story of a woman who Bond meets and rescues from a gang.

The best for me are Thunderball, Dr No and Moonraker. In all of the books on Bond is the romantic interest and as Anthony Burgess points out each has a little imprefection, for Honey Child in Dr No her broken nose, the limp that Domino has in Thunderball.

The films of course were destined to move away from the storlyline as time marched on. Moonraker if filmed as per the story would show the UK developing with the aid of Drax the first nuclear weapon. As it was it had to be modernised with the space shuttle. Thunderball must be the best inline with the book.

as regards the modern books by John Gardener, Kingsley Amis and Raymond Benson, Amis single one Colonel Sun is the best , Benson's are not bad, Gardener's passable. In all cases these modern books have Bond in the modern ages and he must be sixty but still fighting Mick Jagger fit.

As in all things the best is the first.