Devil May Care: 50 things Right or Wrong....
chrisno1
LondonPosts: 3,309MI6 Agent
I read DMC in the last few days (and posted my review) and I wondered how many of you guys saw these 50 things....
If you have any more please add them on.
suffice to say, I didn't think much of DMC.
Devil May Care
Right or Wrong?
1.The opening chapter in Paris is irrelevant to the story. In fact all the scenes involving Mathis are completely irrelevant. Ok, so Mathis finds out about Chagrin’s origins, but so does Bond eventually.
2.Mathis is the most unlikely sounding Frenchman.
3.Mathis has more sex than James Bond.
4.Why does Bond see Gorner and Chagrin in Marseilles? Faulks seems to be trying to invoke the ghost of Fleming. Think of those “accidental” meetings between hero and villain in MR, GF, TB. Here it only serves to extend Bond’s briefing with M, as they laugh about the unexpected co-incidence.
5.Faulks stresses Bond’s lethargy; it’s familiar from OHMSS and YOLT, but no where near as affecting.
6.M has a wife? Since when?
7.Gorner is all over the place: Estonia, Lithuania, London, Oxford, France, Persia, Harvard. Can anyone remind me exactly where he comes from?
8.Spanking makes a re-appearance during an extended scene between Bond and Moneypenny. This is more a cinematic scene than one from the literary Bond.
9.Bond drinks Johnnie Walker Black Label. Really? Jeez, I suppose it’s better than Red Label, but why is he drinking it at all. I thought he preferred vodka or bourbon and branch water.
10.As in TB, Bond is menaced by motorcyclists on his way to the airport. He leaves quite a mess, but doesn’t do anything to investigate it. He telephone’s his secretary to have his car picked up and repaired though, so I guess that’s all ok then.
11.Bond seems to like Paris a lot. How times change. He hated it in FAVTAK.
12.Bond should twig Scarlet straight away. Not only does he not check out her Larissa Rossi alias, but he doesn’t even flinch when she repeats M’s line about destiny.
13.Scarlet drives like Mary Ann Russell in FAVTAK.
14.By this point Faulks has already mentioned Drax, Le Chiffre, Kristatos, the Mexico job from GF, Tracy and Honey. Later on he mentions Tatiana and Darko Kerim.
15.Gorner’s background is virtually the same as Hugo Drax.
16.Where does Scarlet get all her info from? Oh right her sister is enthral to Gorner who keeps her addled with drugs. But they still talk on the phone. Right...... Bond’s lethargy has definitely set in, hasn't it?
17.Why does Scarlet need to use the Poppy ruse. Bond gets dispatched to Tehran by M anyway.
18.Bond travels as David Somerset. The Russians would know this pseudonym from FRWL. Is Bond nuts?
19.Darius Alizadeh is the best character in the book, but he is a composite of Kerim, Colombo and Tanaka.
20.Darius takes Bond on a whistle stop educational tour of late sixties Tehran, including a rather exotic nightclub. It’s familiar territory from Bond’s visits to the geisha houses with Tanaka in YOLT or the gypsy camp with Kerim in FRWL.
21.Faulks injects some sensuality at The Paradise Club only for the hidden promise of sex to be denied the reader. DMC is a very unsexy novel.
22.All the stuff in Paris could have been done in Tehran. It would make more sense, especially as we learn Darius plays tennis. The cheating tennis game could have taken place at his club.
23.Tennis... a very dull reimagining of a golf game (GF) or a card game (MR)
24.Best piece of action is Bond’s night time swim to the warehouse at Nashahr, even if it resembles his swim to the Disco in TB and his recce of the wharf in LALD.
25.Isn’t the Hamid character just a little like Ernest Cureo from DAF?
26.The Ekranoplan was a real waterborne vehicle and Faulks uses it well, but not enough. Bond ends up in a plane, when you want him to be on the hovercraft!
27.Faulks allows Mathis to repeat in truncated form all the things Hashim described about French immigrants in chapter one. Yawn, yawn.
28.The method of contacting SIS headquarters hasn’t changed from DN. “... calling WWW”
30.Chagrin has obviously been to the Col Sun school of torture as his chopstick in the ear method sounds very familiar.
31.Bond supposes Gorner’s mad schemes all come about because an Oxford don took the piss out of his monkey hand. Doubtful.
32.Did SMERSH still exist in 1967? Belatedly Faulks suggest SMERSH and the KGB are running side by side. I think not...
33.Why do the CIA send Felix Leiter, the good old one armed, one legged, standby, instead of a proper field agent?
34.Darius knows where the Ekranoplane is, and he knows something’s up because his informant just told him. Why don’t they just raid the warehouse straight away? Or get someone to bomb it?
35.Why didn’t Darius get an informant before if it was so easy?
36.Why is Silver a traitor? I don’t understand that at all. A big loose end...
37.When Darius and Felix realise Silver has disconnected the phone in the hotel room, why don’t they just use the phone at reception?
38.Chagrin is a sort of hybrid monster, the result of Soviet experiments based on Nazi neurological research. Sound like AVTAK c. 1985 to me.
39.He also has an increased pain threshold. Sounds like TWINE c.1999 to me.
40.He also has a French kepi to cover the obscene scar on his forehead. Oh wait, doesn’t Gorner always wear a glove to cover his obscene apes paw. Sounds a bit DMC c.2008 to me. Hey wait, Faulks is referencing his own novel.....
41.The 5 tone key pad is from MR c. 1979. Hell, I even sang the notes myself.
42.Bond is put through a pointless training exercise because Gorner thinks it is fun. He gets trapped in a tunnel of death similar to the one in DN, but no where near as dangerous. The whole episode feels like an add in, as if Faulks tried to introduce more pace. He failed.
43.Bond overpowers the guard to his cell in a similar manner to his escape in GF c. 1964.
44.Bond depressurises the Comet, quoth GF book and film.
45.The extended sequence as Bond and Scarlet make there way from Kazakhstan to Moscow and onto Finland is, well, it is very boring and rather unlikely.
46.Bond doing a Bonnie and Clyde not once but twice is hilarious. The things he does for England!
47.A fight on a train. Seen it, done it.
48.Hashim’s brother is still working for Gorner, even though Chagrin eliminated his brother in chapter one. Wow, tough guys these Algerians.
49.Faulks is playing word games with Scarlet Papeva, Poppy and Larissa Rossi. Scarlet is the colour of the opium poppy, rossi is an Italian word for red which is the same colour, poppy is poppy and papeva is a derivative of the Latin for opium flower. Too clever by half I reckon.
50.I really hate the UK paperback cover. It’s a cartoon.
Over to you guys......
If you have any more please add them on.
suffice to say, I didn't think much of DMC.
Devil May Care
Right or Wrong?
1.The opening chapter in Paris is irrelevant to the story. In fact all the scenes involving Mathis are completely irrelevant. Ok, so Mathis finds out about Chagrin’s origins, but so does Bond eventually.
2.Mathis is the most unlikely sounding Frenchman.
3.Mathis has more sex than James Bond.
4.Why does Bond see Gorner and Chagrin in Marseilles? Faulks seems to be trying to invoke the ghost of Fleming. Think of those “accidental” meetings between hero and villain in MR, GF, TB. Here it only serves to extend Bond’s briefing with M, as they laugh about the unexpected co-incidence.
5.Faulks stresses Bond’s lethargy; it’s familiar from OHMSS and YOLT, but no where near as affecting.
6.M has a wife? Since when?
7.Gorner is all over the place: Estonia, Lithuania, London, Oxford, France, Persia, Harvard. Can anyone remind me exactly where he comes from?
8.Spanking makes a re-appearance during an extended scene between Bond and Moneypenny. This is more a cinematic scene than one from the literary Bond.
9.Bond drinks Johnnie Walker Black Label. Really? Jeez, I suppose it’s better than Red Label, but why is he drinking it at all. I thought he preferred vodka or bourbon and branch water.
10.As in TB, Bond is menaced by motorcyclists on his way to the airport. He leaves quite a mess, but doesn’t do anything to investigate it. He telephone’s his secretary to have his car picked up and repaired though, so I guess that’s all ok then.
11.Bond seems to like Paris a lot. How times change. He hated it in FAVTAK.
12.Bond should twig Scarlet straight away. Not only does he not check out her Larissa Rossi alias, but he doesn’t even flinch when she repeats M’s line about destiny.
13.Scarlet drives like Mary Ann Russell in FAVTAK.
14.By this point Faulks has already mentioned Drax, Le Chiffre, Kristatos, the Mexico job from GF, Tracy and Honey. Later on he mentions Tatiana and Darko Kerim.
15.Gorner’s background is virtually the same as Hugo Drax.
16.Where does Scarlet get all her info from? Oh right her sister is enthral to Gorner who keeps her addled with drugs. But they still talk on the phone. Right...... Bond’s lethargy has definitely set in, hasn't it?
17.Why does Scarlet need to use the Poppy ruse. Bond gets dispatched to Tehran by M anyway.
18.Bond travels as David Somerset. The Russians would know this pseudonym from FRWL. Is Bond nuts?
19.Darius Alizadeh is the best character in the book, but he is a composite of Kerim, Colombo and Tanaka.
20.Darius takes Bond on a whistle stop educational tour of late sixties Tehran, including a rather exotic nightclub. It’s familiar territory from Bond’s visits to the geisha houses with Tanaka in YOLT or the gypsy camp with Kerim in FRWL.
21.Faulks injects some sensuality at The Paradise Club only for the hidden promise of sex to be denied the reader. DMC is a very unsexy novel.
22.All the stuff in Paris could have been done in Tehran. It would make more sense, especially as we learn Darius plays tennis. The cheating tennis game could have taken place at his club.
23.Tennis... a very dull reimagining of a golf game (GF) or a card game (MR)
24.Best piece of action is Bond’s night time swim to the warehouse at Nashahr, even if it resembles his swim to the Disco in TB and his recce of the wharf in LALD.
25.Isn’t the Hamid character just a little like Ernest Cureo from DAF?
26.The Ekranoplan was a real waterborne vehicle and Faulks uses it well, but not enough. Bond ends up in a plane, when you want him to be on the hovercraft!
27.Faulks allows Mathis to repeat in truncated form all the things Hashim described about French immigrants in chapter one. Yawn, yawn.
28.The method of contacting SIS headquarters hasn’t changed from DN. “... calling WWW”
30.Chagrin has obviously been to the Col Sun school of torture as his chopstick in the ear method sounds very familiar.
31.Bond supposes Gorner’s mad schemes all come about because an Oxford don took the piss out of his monkey hand. Doubtful.
32.Did SMERSH still exist in 1967? Belatedly Faulks suggest SMERSH and the KGB are running side by side. I think not...
33.Why do the CIA send Felix Leiter, the good old one armed, one legged, standby, instead of a proper field agent?
34.Darius knows where the Ekranoplane is, and he knows something’s up because his informant just told him. Why don’t they just raid the warehouse straight away? Or get someone to bomb it?
35.Why didn’t Darius get an informant before if it was so easy?
36.Why is Silver a traitor? I don’t understand that at all. A big loose end...
37.When Darius and Felix realise Silver has disconnected the phone in the hotel room, why don’t they just use the phone at reception?
38.Chagrin is a sort of hybrid monster, the result of Soviet experiments based on Nazi neurological research. Sound like AVTAK c. 1985 to me.
39.He also has an increased pain threshold. Sounds like TWINE c.1999 to me.
40.He also has a French kepi to cover the obscene scar on his forehead. Oh wait, doesn’t Gorner always wear a glove to cover his obscene apes paw. Sounds a bit DMC c.2008 to me. Hey wait, Faulks is referencing his own novel.....
41.The 5 tone key pad is from MR c. 1979. Hell, I even sang the notes myself.
42.Bond is put through a pointless training exercise because Gorner thinks it is fun. He gets trapped in a tunnel of death similar to the one in DN, but no where near as dangerous. The whole episode feels like an add in, as if Faulks tried to introduce more pace. He failed.
43.Bond overpowers the guard to his cell in a similar manner to his escape in GF c. 1964.
44.Bond depressurises the Comet, quoth GF book and film.
45.The extended sequence as Bond and Scarlet make there way from Kazakhstan to Moscow and onto Finland is, well, it is very boring and rather unlikely.
46.Bond doing a Bonnie and Clyde not once but twice is hilarious. The things he does for England!
47.A fight on a train. Seen it, done it.
48.Hashim’s brother is still working for Gorner, even though Chagrin eliminated his brother in chapter one. Wow, tough guys these Algerians.
49.Faulks is playing word games with Scarlet Papeva, Poppy and Larissa Rossi. Scarlet is the colour of the opium poppy, rossi is an Italian word for red which is the same colour, poppy is poppy and papeva is a derivative of the Latin for opium flower. Too clever by half I reckon.
50.I really hate the UK paperback cover. It’s a cartoon.
Over to you guys......
Comments
It is for many of the reasons you mentioned above that I think Faulks read Fleming's work, worte a big list of characters, settings, events etc and ticked them off as he wrote, even dead Fleming creations were brought back through the guise of ther people. That being said DMC is a bareable read I just wish that such a big deal had not been made about Faulks "Writing as Ian Fleming".
"You see Mr Bond. You can't kill my dreams. But my dreams can kill you!"
"Time to face destiny."
-Gaustav Graves in Die Another Day-