The myth of realism?
mrbain007
Posts: 393MI6 Agent
A lot of people go on about the "gritty realism" of Fleming's novels. However I am unsure whether this is precisely accurate. True, the books were more serious compared to a lot of the films, however I don't think that necessarily makes them "realistic". I wouldn't have thought surving an obsticle course of death traps and a battle with a giant squid are "realistic" as such.
I'd be interested to know other people's opinions.
I'd be interested to know other people's opinions.
Comments
The books are a fantasy too.
They just tend to be more "realistic" than the movies.
The grittiness of the novels is mostly to be attributed to Bond himself: We read, feel what he thinks and feels.
That's pretty gritty in itself.
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But you yourself are nothing so divine.
Just next in line.
I think you have summed it up very nicely there
Fleming's Bond was certainly a flawed character, a man who sometimes felt pain, fear and anger. Physically he was also able to suffer from a beating - an aspect they often overlooked in the films.
However, his experiences were often very larger-than-life.
When pondering what I remembered from the novel Bond I came to the conclusion that he was an ordinary man in an extra-ordinary world.
I like your point about the flag-waving aswell . I remember a speech Bond makes near the end of GF when he's in the plane. Very patriotic - boarderlining on cheesy nowadays (and I'm British!)
Along these lines, another very popular myth out there is how DC's Bond is "so much like Fleming's Bond," because his rendition is starkly different and often stripped of the traditional Bond glamor; again this is so IMO because of the lazy correlations automatically being made about their respective labels of "gritty realism."
Bond's musing's on the sack of life (in GF, OHMSS & YOLT) are wonderful, some of his plot strands have subsequently become more realistic than they were when written (OHMSS, TB) and some stories do feel very Cold War, and have a dirty, seedy, edge to them (FRWL, FAVTAK, all the stories in OP).
I agree with the point about Le Carre. His tales are so dull.