I grew up with James Bond. I remember watching Goldfinger at the Drive-In, (at the Dakota I think it was, but may be wrong), and Moonraker at the Kine Flora. I was an instant convert. When Sean Connery introduced himself as Bond, (flick the lighter open, light the cigarette, flick the lighter closed), James Bond, I knew that he was going to become a fixture in my life. And that he did. Not Sean Connery so much, but Mr. Bond. I saw all the movies, remaining a steadfast and loyal audience even through the dreadful Moore years, until new light dawned with Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. I even watched the Australian Bond and the come-back of Sean Connery, hairpiece and all. As a teenager I read the books. Even then I understood that the difference between the film version and the Fleming version of Mr. Super Spy was profound. I enjoyed both genres, for different reasons. The spectacle of the film always diverted, while the written words conjured exotic, dangerous, situations with beautiful, desirable, erotically available women. What more could I wish for?
With the latest release I thought it a good idea to revisit the books, both to find out if I would still enjoyed them and to establish how far we have drifted away from the original article. I decided to begin at the beginning and read Casino Royal, where Bond made his bow. For a start I was astonished at how much James smoked (I suppose this should come as no surprise when you consider the picture of Ian Fleming that graces the back cover of the paperback). In our era the sentence: “Then he lit his seventieth cigarette of the day… (p.13) makes one fair choke on one’s granola bar.
Briefly, Bond is sent to Royale-les-Eaux to take on a communist spy, Le Chiffre, at the gaming tables to bankrupt him and expose his pilfering of party funds. As is to be expected there is a lot of card play, fisticuffs, racing cars, a beautiful woman, descriptions of spy craft, some torture, SMERSH, several loud bangs and some dead bodies. All most diverting.
In this book, written in the mists of pre-political correctness, women were not equal. At all. “Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around.” (p.33) No forceful, intelligent, tough, female M here. Though of course M is here, only he’s a crusty older man, a secretive, shadowy manipulator of others.
Also absent here is Bond’s Aston Martin. In fact, Bond is dated a tad. “Bond’s car was his only personal hobby. One of the last of the 4.5-litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Amherst Villiers, he had bought it almost new in 1933 and had kept it in careful storage through the war.” (p.36)
And what of the famous vodka Martini? Shaken not stirred? Ha! Our man gives very careful instructions for his own drink, one he has invented and is proud of: “’A dry Martini,’ he said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet… Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it is ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.’”(p51)
Both Fleming and Bond know a lot about food, drink, guns and (rather surprisingly) clothes. It does seem unlikely that Daniel Craig would describe a woman’s attire thus: “Her medium-length dress was of grey soie suavage with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts (OK!). The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down from a narrow, but not thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, handstitched black belt. A handstitiched black sabretache rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cart-wheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather.” (p.39) Good grief.
Of the Double O: Bond says: “It’s not difficult to get a Double O number if you are prepared to kill people… That’s the meaning it has. It’s nothing to be particularly proud of.” (p.64)
And: “A Double O number in our Service means you’ve had to kill a chap in cold blood in the course of some job.” (p.142)
In the end you realise that but for the ghastly gadgets and the abomination of Roger Moore in a bespoke Safari suit, the celluloid Bond has not been too untrue to himself. He is a misogynist, he smokes and drinks too much, he is violent but does not enjoy it too much, and he does suffer occasional spasms of conscience. He is more human, the way Fleming wrote him, and more believable. While no one has been able to, (despite much speculation) ascertain how closely the character of Bond comes to the life of his creator, he is most certainly a more human character than he appears to be on celluloid. He bleeds a lot more, for one thing, and spends a long time recuperating from his wounds. A superman he is not, a veteran of the shadow world of assassins and spies he most certainly is.
With the latest release I thought it a good idea to revisit the books, both to find out if I would still enjoyed them and to establish how far we have drifted away from the original article. I decided to begin at the beginning and read Casino Royal, where Bond made his bow. For a start I was astonished at how much James smoked (I suppose this should come as no surprise when you consider the picture of Ian Fleming that graces the back cover of the paperback). In our era the sentence: “Then he lit his seventieth cigarette of the day… (p.13) makes one fair choke on one’s granola bar.
Briefly, Bond is sent to Royale-les-Eaux to take on a communist spy, Le Chiffre, at the gaming tables to bankrupt him and expose his pilfering of party funds. As is to be expected there is a lot of card play, fisticuffs, racing cars, a beautiful woman, descriptions of spy craft, some torture, SMERSH, several loud bangs and some dead bodies. All most diverting.
In this book, written in the mists of pre-political correctness, women were not equal. At all. “Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around.” (p.33) No forceful, intelligent, tough, female M here. Though of course M is here, only he’s a crusty older man, a secretive, shadowy manipulator of others.
Also absent here is Bond’s Aston Martin. In fact, Bond is dated a tad. “Bond’s car was his only personal hobby. One of the last of the 4.5-litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Amherst Villiers, he had bought it almost new in 1933 and had kept it in careful storage through the war.” (p.36)
And what of the famous vodka Martini? Shaken not stirred? Ha! Our man gives very careful instructions for his own drink, one he has invented and is proud of: “’A dry Martini,’ he said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet… Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it is ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.’”(p51)
Both Fleming and Bond know a lot about food, drink, guns and (rather surprisingly) clothes. It does seem unlikely that Daniel Craig would describe a woman’s attire thus: “Her medium-length dress was of grey soie suavage with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts (OK!). The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down from a narrow, but not thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, handstitched black belt. A handstitiched black sabretache rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cart-wheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather.” (p.39) Good grief.
Of the Double O: Bond says: “It’s not difficult to get a Double O number if you are prepared to kill people… That’s the meaning it has. It’s nothing to be particularly proud of.” (p.64)
And: “A Double O number in our Service means you’ve had to kill a chap in cold blood in the course of some job.” (p.142)
In the end you realise that but for the ghastly gadgets and the abomination of Roger Moore in a bespoke Safari suit, the celluloid Bond has not been too untrue to himself. He is a misogynist, he smokes and drinks too much, he is violent but does not enjoy it too much, and he does suffer occasional spasms of conscience. He is more human, the way Fleming wrote him, and more believable. While no one has been able to, (despite much speculation) ascertain how closely the character of Bond comes to the life of his creator, he is most certainly a more human character than he appears to be on celluloid. He bleeds a lot more, for one thing, and spends a long time recuperating from his wounds. A superman he is not, a veteran of the shadow world of assassins and spies he most certainly is.
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