PPK 7.65mmSaratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,234MI6 Agent
I am currently reading the Dark Horse comic book story "Light Of My Death" by Das Petrou which was published in 1993. It took me a while to find all of the issues, but I am glad that I have all of them at last. I have only read the first issue so far, but I am enjoying the 1960's Cold War setting and the artwork.
Just reread Icebreaker. I had a positive memory before this new reading and I can confirm it was justified. We have here a genuine spy thriller like FRWL and there are several common points between the two plots. The actual reason why the Soviets launch this operation and contact MI6 is to have Bond assigned and standing near the Finland-Russia border, then he can be captured easily, which reminds me the Smersh Konspiratsia. Furthermore, the way Mosolov gets killed with the phone of the Saab is very similar to the way Bond gets rid of Grant with the throwing knife of the briefcase on the Orient Express.
The story is not particularly original but the characters of Paula, Rivke, Brad and Kolya are very well written. The fact we don't know anything about their real identities/intentions until the last third of the book is very enjoyable. I also like the way Gardner describes Lapland and the Arctic landscapes. Cold can be seen as a character here (the torture part is such a great moment !) and the atmosphere suits very well with the stakes.
The main issue of the novel is von Glöda, who should have been much more cunning. He's described as a charismatic leader who doesn't trust anyone while all the people he deals with double-cross him eventually, which is not very credible considering he's supposed to be a mastermind. Creating strong villains is probably Gardner's biggest weakness while it was Fleming's biggest strength...
What about you guys ? Do you appreciate Icebreaker ?
PPK 7.65mmSaratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,234MI6 Agent
edited June 2023
Finished reading "Light Of My Death" over this weekend. Despite the short length, it was a pretty decent story overall. Especially when you compare it to some of the later Daily Express newspaper comic strips which were original stories. The biggest surprise for me was that despite the return of Tatiana Romanova from Fleming's From Russia With Love story, she and James Bond only interact twice in the span of the whole story. Also, given that this story was included in an anthology with other Dark Horse titles, I cannot but wonder if the author was under pressure to kept his story at a shorter length. Indeed, there are only some short action sequences and the mastermind of the whole scheme, a Mr. Amos is not captured or killed at the climax. Rather M tells Bond that MI6 will be keeping tabs on him, since he is still at large in spite of Bond stopping his plans to disrupt a trade summit of countries sending financial aid to Southeast Asia.
Still I will say that I enjoyed it more than some of the other original stories by the continuation authors in both novel form and some of the comic book stories from both Dark Horse and Dynamite comics.
UPDATE:
Got my copy of On His Majesty's Secret Service today, looking forward to reading it once I finish working on The Last Adventures Of James Bond. Sounds like it will be a fun read even if it the length of the story is short.
I don't know if you're familiar with Calvin Dyson's YouTube channel, but among other great content he's reading and reviewing the Bond novel in publishing order. He has just reviewed Never Send Flowers.
I've enjoyed seeing Calvin's journey through the Bond novels on Youtube. It's good that such a well known Bond fan is giving them some attentiom which seldom seems to happen outside forums like this. Unfortunately many of the reviews will probably put potential readers off giving Gardner a try. At least he does give Gardner some credit for being entertaining at times, as in the case of Never Send Flowers. I'm curious what his reaction the Raymond Benson books will be when he gets round to those.
I've just finished reading Never Dream of Dying. For a long time the final two Benson books have been the only two of the main line of continuation novels that I haven't read. One of the reasons I've left this book unread for so long was because I liked the idea of always having a couple of Bond novels still to read. The other reason was that I've read extremely negative reviews of NDoD on this forum so I was afraid that one of my last Bond novels to read was going to be terrible and leave me feeling a bit depressed.
After reading it, I'd agree that it is among the weaker Bond novels but I'm nonetheless pleased to say that I had a reasonably enjoyable time reading it and was entertained. It was a bit like watching Die Another Day (my least favourite Bond film but still fun to watch from time to time). Raymond Benson made a contentious choice in this novel with regards to one of Ian Fleming's original supporting characters, and I have to say that didn't really bother me much. I remember reading Benson's explanation of this when he was interviewed by our very own Barbel for this site and I'm inclined to agree that it was not an unreasonable path for the character to take. More bothersome was the often uninteresting prose, which felt more like reading the descriptions in a film script, as well as some unnecessarily graphic and tacky attempts at erotic scenes.
Much of the story also takes place around the world of film and celebrity culture, with Bond even landing up on the cover of Paris Match at one point, which I found a disconcerting scenario for Bond to be in. On the other hand, setting the story in the world of film was also kind of fun, because that appeals to my personal interest in movies. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed that Benson was doing a lot of injokes, naming chartacters after people associated with the Bond films in some capacity. An obvious one is a character called David Worrall. But there were some others that I thought might have been sneaky little references, like a stuntman called Rick (named after Rick Sylvester perhaps) . I think there were a couple more but I can't remember them now. These were a bit distracting and felt unnecessary.
On the plus side, I thought the character of Tylyn Mignonne was one of the more memorable female characters in the continuation series. I often find that the female characters and sometime the villains in the continuation books are easily forgettable and there are very few Bond girls from these books whose names I can even remember. NDoD at least has a decent Bond girl and a memorable villain (it helps that this is the end of a trilogy featuring Le Gerant and The Union as the antagonists). The helicopter assault on the island at the end also brought back pleasant memories of the attack on Piz Gloria in OHMSS. So, NDoD turned out to be not as bad as I'd often been led to believe, but I certainly won't be recommending this book to anyone as a must-read Bond novel, unless you really want to read them all.
I agree. Icebreaker is a very strong novel. I have big issues with the way Gardner made Fleming's universe his own but this one was a big surprise considering I discovered it after For Special Services, Role of Honour, Scorpius, Win, Lose or Die, Brokenclaw, The Man from Barbarossa...
I didn't really appreciate any of these, and when I started reading Icebreaker, I had the feeling it was completely different from what I was used to with this author. I also liked Licence renewed which reminded me Moonraker in some way (espacially the part in Murik's castle).
I think the main problem of NDoD is the plot. It's very weak and Benson uses no geopolitical context to develop the Union threat. The beginning is not so bad but from the moment Bond goes to France, the book is not a spy thriller anymore, it becomes a crime novel, and a pretty average one. The chapter where Bond tries to escape from the TV studios in Paris is probably one of the most ridiculous moments in the entire literary universe (the Benny Hill gags with the dogs are absurd and do not fit with the stakes).
It's a shame because I think Benson did a very good job with his first novels, especially Zero Minus Ten which remains a very strong one in my opinion (the way Hong Kong is described is absolutely amazing). Unfortunately, I belong to those who don't appreciate the Union Trilogy, precisely because of its lack of originality. What Fleming did with SPECTRE and Blofeld is something unique and I just don't buy the concept here.
I first obtained a copy of this collection when the Daniel Craig movie was released. Ian Fleming’s debut novel Casino Royale had gained a new lease of life thanks to the Craig movie and Penguin Classics wanted something to boost sales on the back of the new Bond. I never read the thing. Why would I? At the time I was about to embark on a marathon read through of Fleming’s whole canon, so there was no need. The book has sat in a box with my other ‘oversized’ paperbacks ever since. So, on perusing the shelves of my local Marie Curie charity bazaar, I noted the spine of the Penguin Red Classics QOS [pocket version, also published 2008] and snapped it up, as I don’t have this copy. This’ll do for my journeys in and out of London this week, thinks I.
I remember being a bit sniffy about For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy, Fleming’s original short story collections, enjoying them but not considering them to have any depth, particularly as the stories are based on ideas for a prospective television show, or musings about the author’s own demise. I haven’t read any Ian Fleming except Thrilling Cities and The Diamond Smugglers since 2009, so this was a pleasant revisit of familiar pastures.
From a View to a Kill
A simple story, sparsely told. SMERSH agents in France are using a secretly constructed fox hole to launch attacks on NATO Signals Dispatch Riders. FAVTAK is set in Paris and leafy Ile-de-France, near the Palace of Versailles, a residence that must have inspired the writers of the film adaptation, who relocated Max Zorin’s estates to Chantilly. An exciting murderous beginning is followed by James Bond’s personal reflections and reminiscences of Paris, along with his and Mary Ann Russell’s opinions of French seduction techniques. Mary Ann is an active and efficient low level operative and I rather like her. She saves Bond’s life, although his attitude towards her is a bit arrogant, perhaps because he wants her to be around for him to seduce after the dirty espionage work. The reveal of the Russian hideout is well constructed and the final action well-orchestrated.
In terms of the story’s relationship to the movie, other than the Parisian locations, there isn’t a lot. The hidden elevator in Zorin’s stables could be seen as a reinvention of the fox hole. The Russians stealing coded signals is reversed into the British stealing Zorin’s microchips. I suppose swishing around Paris in Mary Ann’s battered Peugeot at high speed pre-calls Bond’s crazy car chase in the movie. That’s about it. I’m not entirely sure why the writers didn’t ditch the name Stacy Sutton for Mary Ann Russell. That would have been a nice touch.
I could easily visualise this story as a fifty minute television episode. It has several images which would translate well onto the small screen – the opening motorcycle chase is extremely detailed, so too Bond’s discovery of the fox hole. Fleming doesn’t waste time deepening the background of his characters; there would not be time on telly; dialogue must suffice! The story took me a little over 40 mins to read.
Fleming mentions Bond has just returned from a mission gone wrong. A Hungarian defector wanted to escape to Vienna but died in a border minefield. OO7 had been placed in charge over the Head of Section V, which made him unpopular, especially when the defector died. Bond doesn’t seem to get on terribly well with foreign representatives of the Secret Service unless they are natives.
For Your Eyes Only
A great title. The murder of the Havelocks is another great opening, very visual. Gonzales makes a suitably menacing bad guy. The man behind the murders, Von Hammerstein, is less convincing. We don’t really meet him at all. Von Hammerstein is an ex-Gestapo Nazi, hiding in plain sight in Cuba and running Batista’s Counter Intelligence Service. As Castro’s rebels have tightened the revolutionary noose, Von Hammerstein has fled the country with embezzled money and is investing in property around the Caribbean. Interestingly, the SIS has agents in both Cuban camps and it is the Russian backed Castro rebels who provide the detail on Von Hammerstein and Gonzales. As much as M dislikes Castro, communism and the Russians, he deplores more the bad scent of corruption and old World War II enemies. This was a theme Fleming utilised in Moonraker. The interview scene is interesting as M struggles with what for him has become a personal matter. Bond volunteers for the assassination, easing one man’s conscience because he doesn’t, or cannot afford, to have one, unhindered as he is by children, responsibility or dependants. He truly has become M’s famous blunt instrument.
Judy havelock isn’t as successful as Mary Ann Russell, all that bow-and-arrow stuff is just too convenient. Bond twice refers to killing as ‘man’s work’ but again Judy, like Mary Ann, insists on being present. Melina – Judy’s substitute in the movie – shares similar determinations. Bond has similar troubles removing her from the scene of the action. The well-described gun battle is worth the wait and was reproduced rather effectively for the film. Some of the dialogue between Bond and Judy remains. The movie jettisons Jamaica and Vermont in favour of Greece and Spain. One does wonder why the action is set in Vermont and not in the Caribbean, but other than that, FYEO is a decent second stab at a short story.
This one took 50 mins to complete, exactly the length of a TV episode.
Quantum of Solace
There is nothing other than the title which the writers used for the Bond movie. They could have used Nassau harbour, but chose Port au Prince instead. Meanwhile, on page 93, the Governor explains his Law of the Quantum of Solace: “When all kindness has gone, when one person obviously and sincerely doesn’t care if the other is alive or dead, that particular insult to the ego – worse, to the instinct of self-preservation – can never be forgiven… [People] can survive anything so long as some kind of basic humanity exists.”
“Quantum of Solace,” repeats Bond, “the amount of comfort… [when] the quantum of solace stands at zero, you’ve got to get away to save yourself.”
Following on from FYEO, this tale also takes place in the run up to the Cuban revolution and Bond is tasked to sink two cargo ships using thermite bombs; this time these ships are owned by Castro’s gunrunners and their destruction eases US-UK relations about the Cuban crisis. The Bahamas are British territory and the UK must be seen not to be taking sides.
At the end of the story, which has a nice Chekhovian twist to it, Bond reflects that there is nothing so savage as the human heart. A neat touch, I feel. The story is easily imaginable as a flashback episode with narration, perhaps a longer preamble over the dinner table. It would make an unusually literate episode of an action series.
Risico
Probably the best of the short stories in terms of sheer espionage content, character and action, Risico takes place sometime after the events in Goldfinger, although in the same year. The same Mexican affair which Bond has concluded in the opening chapter of that novel is mentioned again here. Now, that sits fine with me, but does it fit with Anthony Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis, which begins with Bond carrying on a live-in relationship with Pussy Galore. Was Risico ever referred to by Horowitz, some guilt about sharing the bed of a prostitute and cheating on poor Pussy? I don’t recall and I am too lazy to check.
That’s enough on timeline speculation. Risico involves Bond jetting to Rome to meet one of the top middle men of the heroin trade, who in fact works as an informant for the US Narcotics Bureau. This is Kristatos and he is as suspicious of Bond and Bond is of him. The two share a couple of awkward encounters where friendship is replaced by stiff polite business talk, or as Kristatos calls it “pizniss”. In fact, the Russians are aiding Kristatos in his smuggling racket, and the man he wants to be eliminated, the man whose death he claims will solve the UK’s heroin problems, is Enrico Colombo – garrulous, cheerful, devil-may-care and winner of the King’s Medal for Gallantry. Bond rather likes him, as a friend and a confidant.
There are lots of lovely touches to this story, from its strong settings in Rome, Venice and Albania, from the action, from the villains, from the beautiful woman, from the telling dialogue – all half-truths and lies – to the exceptional restaurant scene, replicated immaculately in the movie and one of the smartest pieces of tomfoolery espionage Fleming ever wrote. The characterisations are concise and quick, so too the action and the potential seductions. It is very easy to visualise, including M’s briefing, which could be intercut with scenes of the smuggling route, as occurred in DAF. It is easy to see why Maibaum and Wilson chose this story to so faithfully recreate when writing the FYEO screenplay. Disappointing that Risico is seen as a dud of a title by Eon, although they used almost everything in the story on screen, so the title would be all that remained.
The Hildebrand Rarity
Naturally, Milton Krest, the nominal villain of THR, is of Prussian ancestry. He had to be to be such a bully. Fleming’s antipathy towards the Germans eeks out again, this time not through M, but through OO7: “The Old Hun again,” he muses. Krest looks like Hemingway but sounds like Humphrey Bogart, a curious combination. I feel he’s written more like Burl Ives, a loud, opinionated, big man of volume and appetite. He’s certainly nasty. Domestic abuse is his stock in trade, although tax evasion and dodgy business deals come a close second and third. Krest has a fabulous yacht [tax deductible] and is using it to collect samples for the Smithsonian. He’s seeking the famous [fictional] fish of the title. This rude, powerful man, is a very straightforward characterisation. His cowering wife equally so. A murder mystery that we don’t really care about, but a story which benefits from fantastic underwater descriptions and horrific comeuppance for its baddie.
Again, it is very easy to see this as a television script. I read it in 45mins. Krest in this form would make a very effective and brutal villain. The version we got in LTK, drunk, weaselly, almost pitiful, is a big disappointment. It is Franz Sanchez who seems to inhabit most of Krest’s vicious character. Some sections of THR were lifted for use in LTK and they fit neatly into that film, while the title was drafted into Spectre; like Risico, one feels we’ll never hear a Bond film called The Hildebrand Rarity. It is a bit of a mouthful.
Octopussy
Octopussy is a character study, effectively a personal biography of Ian Fleming’s deteriorating health in the 1960s. It was written in 1962, but went unpublished until 1965. Major Dexter Smythe is a terminally ill ex-intelligence officer whose past has caught up with him. James Bond is independent of the story, although he is the catalyst for both its telling and the unfortunate demise of Dexter Smythe. While not specifically written for the never-to-be television series, the story has the same guarded fell to it. Like QOS, I can imagine this as a narrated flashback episode as we witness Dexter Smythe’s crimes, his life’s precious moments and his ultimate regrets. As a short story it is well described, particularly the underwater scenes, and has a sense of decay about the central character that feels wholly appropriate. It proves that Fleming could write effectively for personalities other than James Bond; the failed experiment of Vivienne Michel only demonstrates that she was the wrong character [the wrong sex?] for Fleming to write about. We do get some nice background on James Bond’s prewar life, but this piece is really about the dying Dexter Smythe, the dying Ian Fleming, and the need to end it all. Rather sad really.
In terms of the cinematic adaptation, Maibaum and Wilson took all three books of the paperback collection Octopussy [the hardback contained only this and The Living Daylights] and pinched bits here and there. This tale is crammed into a few short sentences uttered by the titular heroine Octopussy, explaining how Bond allowed her treacherous father an honourable suicide instead of a notorious court trail. Pity that.
I always felt this short story could have been utilised in full as a flashback in the precredit sequence, followed by the as seen death of OO8. Despite enjoying the PTS we have, its general silliness pre-empts the film that follows, which I think needed something darker.
The Property of a Lady
Stolen almost wholesale for one of the better scenes in the movie Octopussy, TPOAL was originally featured in Sotheby’s auction house magazine The Ivory Hammer. As such the auction is the main thing. The movie used this as the launch pad for something completely different. For some reason, as with almost all the short stories, while scenes and titles are being used, character names are not; so the antique experts Snowman and Fanshaw become Douglas Wilmer’s Fanning. Odd.
I quite like this little piece of relaxed, intriguing, home espionage, which can also be easily adapted into a telly episode, taking 45 mins to read. Fleming didn’t like it. It was written in 1963 and mentions Mary Goodnight, dating the story to sometime just before OHMSS when she first appeared. I say before, because in YOLT Bond is grieving for his wife, unfocussed and drinking heavily. He would not be able to complete this close watch caper adequately, one feels.
Bond’s attitude towards the known double agent Maria Freudenstein seems very callous – casually expressing the belief she will be killed by her Russian paymasters once they realise she has been rumbled. As both M and Bond claim she is unattractive, one wonders what his reaction would be if she was good-looking. For evidence of that response, we need to look no further than the next story.
The Living Daylights
Because of the publication order and the chapter order, I always assumed that TLD was Fleming’s final work and that as he foresaw his likely terminal future, the author wrote an exit story for his hero. Not so, I subsequently learnt. TLD was written in 1962, was originally titled Trigger Finger and then Berlin Escape and appeared in The Sunday Times supplement. For those in the know there is an amusing mention of Fleming’s half-sister Amaryllis, a cello player. The story’s literary timeframe seems to date it to 1960 as there is no mention of the Berlin Wall except for a reference to the killing ground “a year later to become famous as Checkpoint Charlie’. The story’s cinematic adaptation relocated the action to Bratislava and changed a few aspects of the characters. In both versions, James Bond fails to kill an assassin because she is a woman, a good-looking one of course. The emphasis on the attractiveness of the girl has to be considered for Bond’s antipathy towards the squat ugly matrons Col Klebb and Irma Bunt develop into something resembling hate. No worries about killing them off...
Fleming dwells on the bleakness of Berlin and has some fun romanticising Bond as he considers the delights of the Red Light district and reads a trashy exploitation novel while contemplating murder or seduction. This feels entirely appropriate to the times. I noted the sour impression Bond has of Paul Sender, the firm’s man in Berlin, ostensibly considering him a product of the public school system, a Wykehamist [from Winchester School]. Curiously, this was the same insult Dennis Potter allowed his defector Adrian Harris to use against a pressman in the acclaimed Traitor. Perhaps Winchester is a byword for unimaginative underlings. In fact in the literary TLD, Paul Sender’s response to Bond’s failure to kill ‘Trigger’ doesn’t seem half as antagonistic as Thomas Wheatley’s Saunders makes it.
“Oh,” said Cpt Sender slowly. “I see…”
It’s rather like a disappointed schoolmaster confronting an errant pupil. Back to Winchester then.
“Got to do my duty, you know.”
The final lines of the story are very good, alluding to OO7 leading his own life and making his own decisions even as an British agent with a licence to kill.
OO7 in New York
Horrible title. What was wrong with Reflections in a Carey Cadillac? A good recipe for scrambled eggs. A short response by Fleming to his own essay on New York published in Thrilling Cities. It doesn’t bear any close examination, being a travelogue and not much more. The person of Solange, a name eventually used by the writers of Casino Royale, crops up as an American part-time lover of James Bond. This was the name of an imaginary girl he wanted to seduce in Paris at the beginning of From a View to a Kill. You wonder if Fleming thought he really ought to use the name. On a cinematic note – there is barely any literary note worth commenting on – I wondered if the neon sign described as reading BOND at Times Square was an allusion to an advertisement for the film Dr No.
I enjoyed the Quantum of Solace collection enormously, despite recognising it is a bit hit and miss. It certainly entertained me on the train.
A faintly hilarious mish-mash of opinions about our good friend OO7 written just before and published just after Ian Fleming’s untimely death in August 1964. Writer and antiquarian Oswald Frederick Snelling made fast headway to get this book into print before Kingsley Amis’ better known The James Bond Dossier and therefore he touches just briefly on the escapades of You Only Live Twice. That seems an oversight, although it still wouldn’t have been a complete report on the canon given three more adventures were to come. Snelling does briefly mention The Property of a Lady, which he’d seen published in Playboy, although he must have known it was due for publication in Sotheby’s magazine as he was head of the auction house’s Rare Book Department and met Fleming when he was researching the short story.
The “report” is split into five sections subtitled: Predecessors, Image, Women, Enemies, Future. This cuts out a lot of guff about gadgets, locations, politics, social attitudes and colleagues, although each of those subjects is investigated scantily across the full manuscript. Snelling was a big fan of Bond and that comes across in the writing and the several times he praises Fleming’s ability with words, in particular the descriptions of card games, rounds of golf and generous succulent meals. I think he perhaps could have mentioned underwater hijinks and Fleming’s deftness of observation regarding places and anonymous people. He does mention in passing the chapters set in Harlem in Live and Let Die, but nothing about the astute notifications on Caribbean locales in the same or Dr No, For Your Eyes Only, etc, or even the snow bound climes of On Her Majesty’s… That’s missing part of Fleming’s joy. Snelling really does seem to concentrate on the “sex, sadism and snobbery” angle that was famously emblazoned across the back of the paperbacks.
I enjoyed Snelling’s take on the women in Bond’s life, which made me chuckle over and over as the author gets progressively more envious of OO7’s good fortune in bed. His observation that Bond prefers broken or damaged women, rebuilding them being a sort of catharsis to his own damaged soul, seems very apt, but he does begin to lose interest as that chapter rolls on. He is incredulous at Pussy Galore’s ‘turning’, finding her the least interesting of the three women in Goldfinger. I was glad he liked Tatiana, but he barely scrutinises Bond’s marriage and the reasons why Tracy is the woman of Bond’s heart – that she encapsulates the best of all the previous Bond girls. In fact he seems rather dismissive of her.
The same could be said of the villain’s section. He doesn’t even mention General G or Emilo Largo, none of the nasties in For Your Eyes Only and while he revels in the trio of planner, operator and executioner at SMERSH in From Russia… and dwells on Oddjob, Wint & Kidd, he doesn’t even mention Tee Hee, Irma Bunt or Krebs. Nor does he discuss the people who help OO7, his friends when in need: Mathis, Leiter and Kerim. Perhaps if he had time to discuss You Only Live Twice, he might have designated a chapter to them, especially given how important Tiger Tanaka is in that story and Bond’s life evolvement. Placing M as the chief and first villain doesn’t sit well with me either. It feels like a cheap shot. Snelling though is quite good in picking out the facets of M’s personality which make him more of a rounded character than some of the less prominent crew at MI6 [Bill Tanner, Moneypenny, Loreli, etc. Mary Goodnight of course had hardly set her mantel out at this time]. The note that M and Fleming share the same birthday was something completely new to me and brings a different light onto how perhaps we ought to perceive Sir Miles. Not sure I agree with his assessment that Bernard Lee is a poor visual representation of M. Snelling’s choice of C Aubrey Smith made me scoff. Wat is this? Colonel Blimp land? I think even Fleming would have baulked at that.
I wasn’t sure about the comparisons to Richard Hanney, Bulldog Drummond and Jonah Mansel, but this is more because I am not familiar with those characters except in the briefest of assemblies. Maybe Snelling’s fascination with them explains that C. Aubrey Smith malarky, the faces made famous between the wars, as it were. Also, because Snelling is only concerned with James Bond he refers to Fleming as a sort of OO7 biographer. This is more noticeable when he discusses The Spy Who Loved Me with its co-writer credits for Fleming and Vivienne Michel. This effectively means he isn’t dissecting the Fleming literary output, so makes no references to how the novels were constructed, why Bond came into being, where the inspirations came from, his journalism career, the Naval Intelligence, etc. So, he rightly praises the golf game description in Goldfinger, but neglects the information that it, like the five episodes of For Your Eyes Only, was originally a defunct idea for an episode of the prospective OO7 television series.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this run-through of James Bond’s literary and [just] filmic world. It isn’t tremendously in depth, doesn’t take its subject too seriously and flirts with being obnoxious towards that subject, although not towards the author of the subject, whom Snelling quite clearly admires even if he recognises the short comings. Perhaps my feelings towards the book can be summed up by a couple of Snelling’s paragraphs in the final chapter His Future:
The point I am longwindedly trying to make is that mention of one James Bond is understood now in 1964 by practically everyone you might encounter. This, mark you well, entirely without a weekly series on the domestic screen. The name is accepted by those who don’t watch television, don’t go to the cinema and don’t read books. And there are such people, I assure you. I know one or two.
The more fortunate of us, during the normal daily round, are assailed on all sides. Railway station bookstalls bludgeon us with his name. Posters on the Underground tell us ‘James Bond is Back!’ Newspapers carry interviews with his creator. Radio and television programmes continually evoke those magic words. Cinema projects his image. Pop singers blare forth the saccharine theme songs. I telephone the most insular of my acquaintances, and during our conversation I let drop the name: the allusion is immediately understood.
So, Snelling is giving the public a potted history of their new and incredibly popular hero, one which would allow the uninitiated to investigate at shallow depth this character of film and page and his, now sadly departed, creator. Snelling leaves his tongue firmly in his cheek as he does so, perhaps recognising already that the first two Bond films saw something of the light in how to present this agent of sex, sadism and snobbery. As he attests, it certainly caught the public’s imagination.
Footnote:
I was interested to read that Snelling had wanted to write a sequel called OO7: James Bond Under the Microscope which would concentrate on the movies and the continuation novels up to 1981. The 2007 online version of A Report was given the Microscope title and included Snelling’s 1980 preface for the [never to be] Panther reissue. I must dig that out somehow…
These are brilliant reviews, Chris No1, absolutely first class.
I meant to snap up a copy of the Fleming short stories back in the day, they're nicely done. Snelling's book I tended to see around many a second hand bookshop in my teens so I got one for the customary 10p, I never saw Amis' one and had to buy it via a sort of book collector's search warrant (no eBay back then). I never knew he planned a follow-up all those years later, then again John Brosnan also intended a third book of his James Bond in the Cinema but didn't get around to it, or it wasn't commissioned.
I havent read the Snelling book for nearly 20 years so forgot all whats in it. I may have gotten Snelling's opinion of M confused with Amis's. I didnt realise Snelling met Fleming, that adds a bit of credibility to his opinions
your opinions on the short stories are interesting, and surprisingly similar to my own. always good to have more discussion of Flemings shorter works, these dont usually get focussed on so much.
I think everybody likes Risico because its a proper adventure in miniature. The others may frustrate because they read like fragments of a larger adventure, but thats why I like them. Fleming had certain types of set-pieces he liked to rework with each novel, but in his short stories he can separate some of those into complete stories on their own and expand and explore a bit more. for example, From a View to a Kill I always thought was a weaker adventure than some of the others in the book, but it makes a good opener because of the scene with Bond alone on the patio, reminiscing about his past and fantasizing about the women in the street.
within the novels theres actually a lot of sections that seem disconnected from the main plot, that could easily have been snipped off into short stories of their own: chapter 1 of goldfinger, the toronto flashback in the Spy who Loved Me, or the long first acts of Moonraker or Thunderball. Domino's fantasy about the cigarette pack couldve been its own short story. then theres all the full chapters digressing to give a characters biography, and other such non-essential yet well told content. its like Fleming had an urge to write less formulaic stories about topics other than Bond saving the world.
That's interesting regarding your thoughts on Goldfinger as I believe that the canasta game between Goldfinger and Mr Du Pont was originally conceived as a short story. I agree that the killing of the capungo in the first chapter could have been a short story of its own too. As it stood, it gave way to inspiring the pre-titles sequences where Bond was on an often unrelated mission from Goldfinger onwards.
I agree with the others. Thanks for providing your very interesting insights into the Bond short stories and Snelling's book, @chrisno1.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I'm reading "Honorable men - my life in the CIA" by William Colby.
Colby was the leader of the CIA back in the 70s. He was also the Commander of the only US Commando mission in Norway in WWII. So far the book of really interesting.
Pioneering work on proxemics (space as a system of communication).
Professor Hall expands on the differences of perception of space in various cultures and the very subtle effects people's perception of space has on interpersonal and business relations, cross-cultural interactions, architecture and city design.
The book explores the subtle cultural differences between different peoples based on their idea and need for privacy. How perceptions of personal space change behaviors of individuals and the cultures they live within.
Why do Germans like thick doors and have a great need for privacy?
Why Americans like their office doors open and Germans like office doors closed?
Eye behavior differences between British and Americans and why they have difficulty understanding each other.
Monochronic North European cultures (time compartmentalized cultures) and why they differ from Polychronic South European cultures.
The Japanese concept of 'Ma', the Arabic love for perfumes.
Comments
I am currently reading the Dark Horse comic book story "Light Of My Death" by Das Petrou which was published in 1993. It took me a while to find all of the issues, but I am glad that I have all of them at last. I have only read the first issue so far, but I am enjoying the 1960's Cold War setting and the artwork.
Just reread Icebreaker. I had a positive memory before this new reading and I can confirm it was justified. We have here a genuine spy thriller like FRWL and there are several common points between the two plots. The actual reason why the Soviets launch this operation and contact MI6 is to have Bond assigned and standing near the Finland-Russia border, then he can be captured easily, which reminds me the Smersh Konspiratsia. Furthermore, the way Mosolov gets killed with the phone of the Saab is very similar to the way Bond gets rid of Grant with the throwing knife of the briefcase on the Orient Express.
The story is not particularly original but the characters of Paula, Rivke, Brad and Kolya are very well written. The fact we don't know anything about their real identities/intentions until the last third of the book is very enjoyable. I also like the way Gardner describes Lapland and the Arctic landscapes. Cold can be seen as a character here (the torture part is such a great moment !) and the atmosphere suits very well with the stakes.
The main issue of the novel is von Glöda, who should have been much more cunning. He's described as a charismatic leader who doesn't trust anyone while all the people he deals with double-cross him eventually, which is not very credible considering he's supposed to be a mastermind. Creating strong villains is probably Gardner's biggest weakness while it was Fleming's biggest strength...
What about you guys ? Do you appreciate Icebreaker ?
Finished reading "Light Of My Death" over this weekend. Despite the short length, it was a pretty decent story overall. Especially when you compare it to some of the later Daily Express newspaper comic strips which were original stories. The biggest surprise for me was that despite the return of Tatiana Romanova from Fleming's From Russia With Love story, she and James Bond only interact twice in the span of the whole story. Also, given that this story was included in an anthology with other Dark Horse titles, I cannot but wonder if the author was under pressure to kept his story at a shorter length. Indeed, there are only some short action sequences and the mastermind of the whole scheme, a Mr. Amos is not captured or killed at the climax. Rather M tells Bond that MI6 will be keeping tabs on him, since he is still at large in spite of Bond stopping his plans to disrupt a trade summit of countries sending financial aid to Southeast Asia.
Still I will say that I enjoyed it more than some of the other original stories by the continuation authors in both novel form and some of the comic book stories from both Dark Horse and Dynamite comics.
UPDATE:
Got my copy of On His Majesty's Secret Service today, looking forward to reading it once I finish working on The Last Adventures Of James Bond. Sounds like it will be a fun read even if it the length of the story is short.
Loved Icebreaker. I actually logged in to see if anyone was currently reading any Gardner novels so this is good timing.
Just started Role of Honor for the first time as I'm working my way through some of the Gardner novels I've missed over the years.
Icebreaker is actually one of my favorite post-Fleming novels.
I don't know if you're familiar with Calvin Dyson's YouTube channel, but among other great content he's reading and reviewing the Bond novel in publishing order. He has just reviewed Never Send Flowers.
https://www.youtube.com/@calvindyson/videos
I've enjoyed seeing Calvin's journey through the Bond novels on Youtube. It's good that such a well known Bond fan is giving them some attentiom which seldom seems to happen outside forums like this. Unfortunately many of the reviews will probably put potential readers off giving Gardner a try. At least he does give Gardner some credit for being entertaining at times, as in the case of Never Send Flowers. I'm curious what his reaction the Raymond Benson books will be when he gets round to those.
I've just finished reading Never Dream of Dying. For a long time the final two Benson books have been the only two of the main line of continuation novels that I haven't read. One of the reasons I've left this book unread for so long was because I liked the idea of always having a couple of Bond novels still to read. The other reason was that I've read extremely negative reviews of NDoD on this forum so I was afraid that one of my last Bond novels to read was going to be terrible and leave me feeling a bit depressed.
After reading it, I'd agree that it is among the weaker Bond novels but I'm nonetheless pleased to say that I had a reasonably enjoyable time reading it and was entertained. It was a bit like watching Die Another Day (my least favourite Bond film but still fun to watch from time to time). Raymond Benson made a contentious choice in this novel with regards to one of Ian Fleming's original supporting characters, and I have to say that didn't really bother me much. I remember reading Benson's explanation of this when he was interviewed by our very own Barbel for this site and I'm inclined to agree that it was not an unreasonable path for the character to take. More bothersome was the often uninteresting prose, which felt more like reading the descriptions in a film script, as well as some unnecessarily graphic and tacky attempts at erotic scenes.
Much of the story also takes place around the world of film and celebrity culture, with Bond even landing up on the cover of Paris Match at one point, which I found a disconcerting scenario for Bond to be in. On the other hand, setting the story in the world of film was also kind of fun, because that appeals to my personal interest in movies. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed that Benson was doing a lot of injokes, naming chartacters after people associated with the Bond films in some capacity. An obvious one is a character called David Worrall. But there were some others that I thought might have been sneaky little references, like a stuntman called Rick (named after Rick Sylvester perhaps) . I think there were a couple more but I can't remember them now. These were a bit distracting and felt unnecessary.
On the plus side, I thought the character of Tylyn Mignonne was one of the more memorable female characters in the continuation series. I often find that the female characters and sometime the villains in the continuation books are easily forgettable and there are very few Bond girls from these books whose names I can even remember. NDoD at least has a decent Bond girl and a memorable villain (it helps that this is the end of a trilogy featuring Le Gerant and The Union as the antagonists). The helicopter assault on the island at the end also brought back pleasant memories of the attack on Piz Gloria in OHMSS. So, NDoD turned out to be not as bad as I'd often been led to believe, but I certainly won't be recommending this book to anyone as a must-read Bond novel, unless you really want to read them all.
I agree. Icebreaker is a very strong novel. I have big issues with the way Gardner made Fleming's universe his own but this one was a big surprise considering I discovered it after For Special Services, Role of Honour, Scorpius, Win, Lose or Die, Brokenclaw, The Man from Barbarossa...
I didn't really appreciate any of these, and when I started reading Icebreaker, I had the feeling it was completely different from what I was used to with this author. I also liked Licence renewed which reminded me Moonraker in some way (espacially the part in Murik's castle).
My personal top 5 post-Fleming novels ranking is:
I think the main problem of NDoD is the plot. It's very weak and Benson uses no geopolitical context to develop the Union threat. The beginning is not so bad but from the moment Bond goes to France, the book is not a spy thriller anymore, it becomes a crime novel, and a pretty average one. The chapter where Bond tries to escape from the TV studios in Paris is probably one of the most ridiculous moments in the entire literary universe (the Benny Hill gags with the dogs are absurd and do not fit with the stakes).
It's a shame because I think Benson did a very good job with his first novels, especially Zero Minus Ten which remains a very strong one in my opinion (the way Hong Kong is described is absolutely amazing). Unfortunately, I belong to those who don't appreciate the Union Trilogy, precisely because of its lack of originality. What Fleming did with SPECTRE and Blofeld is something unique and I just don't buy the concept here.
What should we all read in December? This year's AJB007 Christmas Special of course!
Follow our favourite secret agent on his yuletide adventures: https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/56289/the-ajb007-christmas-special-2023#latest
QUANTUM OF SOLACE
2008
I first obtained a copy of this collection when the Daniel Craig movie was released. Ian Fleming’s debut novel Casino Royale had gained a new lease of life thanks to the Craig movie and Penguin Classics wanted something to boost sales on the back of the new Bond. I never read the thing. Why would I? At the time I was about to embark on a marathon read through of Fleming’s whole canon, so there was no need. The book has sat in a box with my other ‘oversized’ paperbacks ever since. So, on perusing the shelves of my local Marie Curie charity bazaar, I noted the spine of the Penguin Red Classics QOS [pocket version, also published 2008] and snapped it up, as I don’t have this copy. This’ll do for my journeys in and out of London this week, thinks I.
I remember being a bit sniffy about For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy, Fleming’s original short story collections, enjoying them but not considering them to have any depth, particularly as the stories are based on ideas for a prospective television show, or musings about the author’s own demise. I haven’t read any Ian Fleming except Thrilling Cities and The Diamond Smugglers since 2009, so this was a pleasant revisit of familiar pastures.
From a View to a Kill
A simple story, sparsely told. SMERSH agents in France are using a secretly constructed fox hole to launch attacks on NATO Signals Dispatch Riders. FAVTAK is set in Paris and leafy Ile-de-France, near the Palace of Versailles, a residence that must have inspired the writers of the film adaptation, who relocated Max Zorin’s estates to Chantilly. An exciting murderous beginning is followed by James Bond’s personal reflections and reminiscences of Paris, along with his and Mary Ann Russell’s opinions of French seduction techniques. Mary Ann is an active and efficient low level operative and I rather like her. She saves Bond’s life, although his attitude towards her is a bit arrogant, perhaps because he wants her to be around for him to seduce after the dirty espionage work. The reveal of the Russian hideout is well constructed and the final action well-orchestrated.
In terms of the story’s relationship to the movie, other than the Parisian locations, there isn’t a lot. The hidden elevator in Zorin’s stables could be seen as a reinvention of the fox hole. The Russians stealing coded signals is reversed into the British stealing Zorin’s microchips. I suppose swishing around Paris in Mary Ann’s battered Peugeot at high speed pre-calls Bond’s crazy car chase in the movie. That’s about it. I’m not entirely sure why the writers didn’t ditch the name Stacy Sutton for Mary Ann Russell. That would have been a nice touch.
I could easily visualise this story as a fifty minute television episode. It has several images which would translate well onto the small screen – the opening motorcycle chase is extremely detailed, so too Bond’s discovery of the fox hole. Fleming doesn’t waste time deepening the background of his characters; there would not be time on telly; dialogue must suffice! The story took me a little over 40 mins to read.
Fleming mentions Bond has just returned from a mission gone wrong. A Hungarian defector wanted to escape to Vienna but died in a border minefield. OO7 had been placed in charge over the Head of Section V, which made him unpopular, especially when the defector died. Bond doesn’t seem to get on terribly well with foreign representatives of the Secret Service unless they are natives.
For Your Eyes Only
A great title. The murder of the Havelocks is another great opening, very visual. Gonzales makes a suitably menacing bad guy. The man behind the murders, Von Hammerstein, is less convincing. We don’t really meet him at all. Von Hammerstein is an ex-Gestapo Nazi, hiding in plain sight in Cuba and running Batista’s Counter Intelligence Service. As Castro’s rebels have tightened the revolutionary noose, Von Hammerstein has fled the country with embezzled money and is investing in property around the Caribbean. Interestingly, the SIS has agents in both Cuban camps and it is the Russian backed Castro rebels who provide the detail on Von Hammerstein and Gonzales. As much as M dislikes Castro, communism and the Russians, he deplores more the bad scent of corruption and old World War II enemies. This was a theme Fleming utilised in Moonraker. The interview scene is interesting as M struggles with what for him has become a personal matter. Bond volunteers for the assassination, easing one man’s conscience because he doesn’t, or cannot afford, to have one, unhindered as he is by children, responsibility or dependants. He truly has become M’s famous blunt instrument.
Judy havelock isn’t as successful as Mary Ann Russell, all that bow-and-arrow stuff is just too convenient. Bond twice refers to killing as ‘man’s work’ but again Judy, like Mary Ann, insists on being present. Melina – Judy’s substitute in the movie – shares similar determinations. Bond has similar troubles removing her from the scene of the action. The well-described gun battle is worth the wait and was reproduced rather effectively for the film. Some of the dialogue between Bond and Judy remains. The movie jettisons Jamaica and Vermont in favour of Greece and Spain. One does wonder why the action is set in Vermont and not in the Caribbean, but other than that, FYEO is a decent second stab at a short story.
This one took 50 mins to complete, exactly the length of a TV episode.
Quantum of Solace
There is nothing other than the title which the writers used for the Bond movie. They could have used Nassau harbour, but chose Port au Prince instead. Meanwhile, on page 93, the Governor explains his Law of the Quantum of Solace: “When all kindness has gone, when one person obviously and sincerely doesn’t care if the other is alive or dead, that particular insult to the ego – worse, to the instinct of self-preservation – can never be forgiven… [People] can survive anything so long as some kind of basic humanity exists.”
“Quantum of Solace,” repeats Bond, “the amount of comfort… [when] the quantum of solace stands at zero, you’ve got to get away to save yourself.”
Following on from FYEO, this tale also takes place in the run up to the Cuban revolution and Bond is tasked to sink two cargo ships using thermite bombs; this time these ships are owned by Castro’s gunrunners and their destruction eases US-UK relations about the Cuban crisis. The Bahamas are British territory and the UK must be seen not to be taking sides.
At the end of the story, which has a nice Chekhovian twist to it, Bond reflects that there is nothing so savage as the human heart. A neat touch, I feel. The story is easily imaginable as a flashback episode with narration, perhaps a longer preamble over the dinner table. It would make an unusually literate episode of an action series.
Risico
Probably the best of the short stories in terms of sheer espionage content, character and action, Risico takes place sometime after the events in Goldfinger, although in the same year. The same Mexican affair which Bond has concluded in the opening chapter of that novel is mentioned again here. Now, that sits fine with me, but does it fit with Anthony Horowitz’s Trigger Mortis, which begins with Bond carrying on a live-in relationship with Pussy Galore. Was Risico ever referred to by Horowitz, some guilt about sharing the bed of a prostitute and cheating on poor Pussy? I don’t recall and I am too lazy to check.
That’s enough on timeline speculation. Risico involves Bond jetting to Rome to meet one of the top middle men of the heroin trade, who in fact works as an informant for the US Narcotics Bureau. This is Kristatos and he is as suspicious of Bond and Bond is of him. The two share a couple of awkward encounters where friendship is replaced by stiff polite business talk, or as Kristatos calls it “pizniss”. In fact, the Russians are aiding Kristatos in his smuggling racket, and the man he wants to be eliminated, the man whose death he claims will solve the UK’s heroin problems, is Enrico Colombo – garrulous, cheerful, devil-may-care and winner of the King’s Medal for Gallantry. Bond rather likes him, as a friend and a confidant.
There are lots of lovely touches to this story, from its strong settings in Rome, Venice and Albania, from the action, from the villains, from the beautiful woman, from the telling dialogue – all half-truths and lies – to the exceptional restaurant scene, replicated immaculately in the movie and one of the smartest pieces of tomfoolery espionage Fleming ever wrote. The characterisations are concise and quick, so too the action and the potential seductions. It is very easy to visualise, including M’s briefing, which could be intercut with scenes of the smuggling route, as occurred in DAF. It is easy to see why Maibaum and Wilson chose this story to so faithfully recreate when writing the FYEO screenplay. Disappointing that Risico is seen as a dud of a title by Eon, although they used almost everything in the story on screen, so the title would be all that remained.
The Hildebrand Rarity
Naturally, Milton Krest, the nominal villain of THR, is of Prussian ancestry. He had to be to be such a bully. Fleming’s antipathy towards the Germans eeks out again, this time not through M, but through OO7: “The Old Hun again,” he muses. Krest looks like Hemingway but sounds like Humphrey Bogart, a curious combination. I feel he’s written more like Burl Ives, a loud, opinionated, big man of volume and appetite. He’s certainly nasty. Domestic abuse is his stock in trade, although tax evasion and dodgy business deals come a close second and third. Krest has a fabulous yacht [tax deductible] and is using it to collect samples for the Smithsonian. He’s seeking the famous [fictional] fish of the title. This rude, powerful man, is a very straightforward characterisation. His cowering wife equally so. A murder mystery that we don’t really care about, but a story which benefits from fantastic underwater descriptions and horrific comeuppance for its baddie.
Again, it is very easy to see this as a television script. I read it in 45mins. Krest in this form would make a very effective and brutal villain. The version we got in LTK, drunk, weaselly, almost pitiful, is a big disappointment. It is Franz Sanchez who seems to inhabit most of Krest’s vicious character. Some sections of THR were lifted for use in LTK and they fit neatly into that film, while the title was drafted into Spectre; like Risico, one feels we’ll never hear a Bond film called The Hildebrand Rarity. It is a bit of a mouthful.
Octopussy
Octopussy is a character study, effectively a personal biography of Ian Fleming’s deteriorating health in the 1960s. It was written in 1962, but went unpublished until 1965. Major Dexter Smythe is a terminally ill ex-intelligence officer whose past has caught up with him. James Bond is independent of the story, although he is the catalyst for both its telling and the unfortunate demise of Dexter Smythe. While not specifically written for the never-to-be television series, the story has the same guarded fell to it. Like QOS, I can imagine this as a narrated flashback episode as we witness Dexter Smythe’s crimes, his life’s precious moments and his ultimate regrets. As a short story it is well described, particularly the underwater scenes, and has a sense of decay about the central character that feels wholly appropriate. It proves that Fleming could write effectively for personalities other than James Bond; the failed experiment of Vivienne Michel only demonstrates that she was the wrong character [the wrong sex?] for Fleming to write about. We do get some nice background on James Bond’s prewar life, but this piece is really about the dying Dexter Smythe, the dying Ian Fleming, and the need to end it all. Rather sad really.
In terms of the cinematic adaptation, Maibaum and Wilson took all three books of the paperback collection Octopussy [the hardback contained only this and The Living Daylights] and pinched bits here and there. This tale is crammed into a few short sentences uttered by the titular heroine Octopussy, explaining how Bond allowed her treacherous father an honourable suicide instead of a notorious court trail. Pity that.
I always felt this short story could have been utilised in full as a flashback in the precredit sequence, followed by the as seen death of OO8. Despite enjoying the PTS we have, its general silliness pre-empts the film that follows, which I think needed something darker.
The Property of a Lady
Stolen almost wholesale for one of the better scenes in the movie Octopussy, TPOAL was originally featured in Sotheby’s auction house magazine The Ivory Hammer. As such the auction is the main thing. The movie used this as the launch pad for something completely different. For some reason, as with almost all the short stories, while scenes and titles are being used, character names are not; so the antique experts Snowman and Fanshaw become Douglas Wilmer’s Fanning. Odd.
I quite like this little piece of relaxed, intriguing, home espionage, which can also be easily adapted into a telly episode, taking 45 mins to read. Fleming didn’t like it. It was written in 1963 and mentions Mary Goodnight, dating the story to sometime just before OHMSS when she first appeared. I say before, because in YOLT Bond is grieving for his wife, unfocussed and drinking heavily. He would not be able to complete this close watch caper adequately, one feels.
Bond’s attitude towards the known double agent Maria Freudenstein seems very callous – casually expressing the belief she will be killed by her Russian paymasters once they realise she has been rumbled. As both M and Bond claim she is unattractive, one wonders what his reaction would be if she was good-looking. For evidence of that response, we need to look no further than the next story.
The Living Daylights
Because of the publication order and the chapter order, I always assumed that TLD was Fleming’s final work and that as he foresaw his likely terminal future, the author wrote an exit story for his hero. Not so, I subsequently learnt. TLD was written in 1962, was originally titled Trigger Finger and then Berlin Escape and appeared in The Sunday Times supplement. For those in the know there is an amusing mention of Fleming’s half-sister Amaryllis, a cello player. The story’s literary timeframe seems to date it to 1960 as there is no mention of the Berlin Wall except for a reference to the killing ground “a year later to become famous as Checkpoint Charlie’. The story’s cinematic adaptation relocated the action to Bratislava and changed a few aspects of the characters. In both versions, James Bond fails to kill an assassin because she is a woman, a good-looking one of course. The emphasis on the attractiveness of the girl has to be considered for Bond’s antipathy towards the squat ugly matrons Col Klebb and Irma Bunt develop into something resembling hate. No worries about killing them off...
Fleming dwells on the bleakness of Berlin and has some fun romanticising Bond as he considers the delights of the Red Light district and reads a trashy exploitation novel while contemplating murder or seduction. This feels entirely appropriate to the times. I noted the sour impression Bond has of Paul Sender, the firm’s man in Berlin, ostensibly considering him a product of the public school system, a Wykehamist [from Winchester School]. Curiously, this was the same insult Dennis Potter allowed his defector Adrian Harris to use against a pressman in the acclaimed Traitor. Perhaps Winchester is a byword for unimaginative underlings. In fact in the literary TLD, Paul Sender’s response to Bond’s failure to kill ‘Trigger’ doesn’t seem half as antagonistic as Thomas Wheatley’s Saunders makes it.
“Oh,” said Cpt Sender slowly. “I see…”
It’s rather like a disappointed schoolmaster confronting an errant pupil. Back to Winchester then.
“Got to do my duty, you know.”
The final lines of the story are very good, alluding to OO7 leading his own life and making his own decisions even as an British agent with a licence to kill.
OO7 in New York
Horrible title. What was wrong with Reflections in a Carey Cadillac? A good recipe for scrambled eggs. A short response by Fleming to his own essay on New York published in Thrilling Cities. It doesn’t bear any close examination, being a travelogue and not much more. The person of Solange, a name eventually used by the writers of Casino Royale, crops up as an American part-time lover of James Bond. This was the name of an imaginary girl he wanted to seduce in Paris at the beginning of From a View to a Kill. You wonder if Fleming thought he really ought to use the name. On a cinematic note – there is barely any literary note worth commenting on – I wondered if the neon sign described as reading BOND at Times Square was an allusion to an advertisement for the film Dr No.
I enjoyed the Quantum of Solace collection enormously, despite recognising it is a bit hit and miss. It certainly entertained me on the train.
OO7: JAMES BOND: A REPORT
1964
O.F. Snelling
A faintly hilarious mish-mash of opinions about our good friend OO7 written just before and published just after Ian Fleming’s untimely death in August 1964. Writer and antiquarian Oswald Frederick Snelling made fast headway to get this book into print before Kingsley Amis’ better known The James Bond Dossier and therefore he touches just briefly on the escapades of You Only Live Twice. That seems an oversight, although it still wouldn’t have been a complete report on the canon given three more adventures were to come. Snelling does briefly mention The Property of a Lady, which he’d seen published in Playboy, although he must have known it was due for publication in Sotheby’s magazine as he was head of the auction house’s Rare Book Department and met Fleming when he was researching the short story.
The “report” is split into five sections subtitled: Predecessors, Image, Women, Enemies, Future. This cuts out a lot of guff about gadgets, locations, politics, social attitudes and colleagues, although each of those subjects is investigated scantily across the full manuscript. Snelling was a big fan of Bond and that comes across in the writing and the several times he praises Fleming’s ability with words, in particular the descriptions of card games, rounds of golf and generous succulent meals. I think he perhaps could have mentioned underwater hijinks and Fleming’s deftness of observation regarding places and anonymous people. He does mention in passing the chapters set in Harlem in Live and Let Die, but nothing about the astute notifications on Caribbean locales in the same or Dr No, For Your Eyes Only, etc, or even the snow bound climes of On Her Majesty’s… That’s missing part of Fleming’s joy. Snelling really does seem to concentrate on the “sex, sadism and snobbery” angle that was famously emblazoned across the back of the paperbacks.
I enjoyed Snelling’s take on the women in Bond’s life, which made me chuckle over and over as the author gets progressively more envious of OO7’s good fortune in bed. His observation that Bond prefers broken or damaged women, rebuilding them being a sort of catharsis to his own damaged soul, seems very apt, but he does begin to lose interest as that chapter rolls on. He is incredulous at Pussy Galore’s ‘turning’, finding her the least interesting of the three women in Goldfinger. I was glad he liked Tatiana, but he barely scrutinises Bond’s marriage and the reasons why Tracy is the woman of Bond’s heart – that she encapsulates the best of all the previous Bond girls. In fact he seems rather dismissive of her.
The same could be said of the villain’s section. He doesn’t even mention General G or Emilo Largo, none of the nasties in For Your Eyes Only and while he revels in the trio of planner, operator and executioner at SMERSH in From Russia… and dwells on Oddjob, Wint & Kidd, he doesn’t even mention Tee Hee, Irma Bunt or Krebs. Nor does he discuss the people who help OO7, his friends when in need: Mathis, Leiter and Kerim. Perhaps if he had time to discuss You Only Live Twice, he might have designated a chapter to them, especially given how important Tiger Tanaka is in that story and Bond’s life evolvement. Placing M as the chief and first villain doesn’t sit well with me either. It feels like a cheap shot. Snelling though is quite good in picking out the facets of M’s personality which make him more of a rounded character than some of the less prominent crew at MI6 [Bill Tanner, Moneypenny, Loreli, etc. Mary Goodnight of course had hardly set her mantel out at this time]. The note that M and Fleming share the same birthday was something completely new to me and brings a different light onto how perhaps we ought to perceive Sir Miles. Not sure I agree with his assessment that Bernard Lee is a poor visual representation of M. Snelling’s choice of C Aubrey Smith made me scoff. Wat is this? Colonel Blimp land? I think even Fleming would have baulked at that.
I wasn’t sure about the comparisons to Richard Hanney, Bulldog Drummond and Jonah Mansel, but this is more because I am not familiar with those characters except in the briefest of assemblies. Maybe Snelling’s fascination with them explains that C. Aubrey Smith malarky, the faces made famous between the wars, as it were. Also, because Snelling is only concerned with James Bond he refers to Fleming as a sort of OO7 biographer. This is more noticeable when he discusses The Spy Who Loved Me with its co-writer credits for Fleming and Vivienne Michel. This effectively means he isn’t dissecting the Fleming literary output, so makes no references to how the novels were constructed, why Bond came into being, where the inspirations came from, his journalism career, the Naval Intelligence, etc. So, he rightly praises the golf game description in Goldfinger, but neglects the information that it, like the five episodes of For Your Eyes Only, was originally a defunct idea for an episode of the prospective OO7 television series.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this run-through of James Bond’s literary and [just] filmic world. It isn’t tremendously in depth, doesn’t take its subject too seriously and flirts with being obnoxious towards that subject, although not towards the author of the subject, whom Snelling quite clearly admires even if he recognises the short comings. Perhaps my feelings towards the book can be summed up by a couple of Snelling’s paragraphs in the final chapter His Future:
The point I am longwindedly trying to make is that mention of one James Bond is understood now in 1964 by practically everyone you might encounter. This, mark you well, entirely without a weekly series on the domestic screen. The name is accepted by those who don’t watch television, don’t go to the cinema and don’t read books. And there are such people, I assure you. I know one or two.
The more fortunate of us, during the normal daily round, are assailed on all sides. Railway station bookstalls bludgeon us with his name. Posters on the Underground tell us ‘James Bond is Back!’ Newspapers carry interviews with his creator. Radio and television programmes continually evoke those magic words. Cinema projects his image. Pop singers blare forth the saccharine theme songs. I telephone the most insular of my acquaintances, and during our conversation I let drop the name: the allusion is immediately understood.
So, Snelling is giving the public a potted history of their new and incredibly popular hero, one which would allow the uninitiated to investigate at shallow depth this character of film and page and his, now sadly departed, creator. Snelling leaves his tongue firmly in his cheek as he does so, perhaps recognising already that the first two Bond films saw something of the light in how to present this agent of sex, sadism and snobbery. As he attests, it certainly caught the public’s imagination.
Footnote:
I was interested to read that Snelling had wanted to write a sequel called OO7: James Bond Under the Microscope which would concentrate on the movies and the continuation novels up to 1981. The 2007 online version of A Report was given the Microscope title and included Snelling’s 1980 preface for the [never to be] Panther reissue. I must dig that out somehow…
These are brilliant reviews, Chris No1, absolutely first class.
I meant to snap up a copy of the Fleming short stories back in the day, they're nicely done. Snelling's book I tended to see around many a second hand bookshop in my teens so I got one for the customary 10p, I never saw Amis' one and had to buy it via a sort of book collector's search warrant (no eBay back then). I never knew he planned a follow-up all those years later, then again John Brosnan also intended a third book of his James Bond in the Cinema but didn't get around to it, or it wasn't commissioned.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I appreciate both reports agent Chris
I havent read the Snelling book for nearly 20 years so forgot all whats in it. I may have gotten Snelling's opinion of M confused with Amis's. I didnt realise Snelling met Fleming, that adds a bit of credibility to his opinions
your opinions on the short stories are interesting, and surprisingly similar to my own. always good to have more discussion of Flemings shorter works, these dont usually get focussed on so much.
I think everybody likes Risico because its a proper adventure in miniature. The others may frustrate because they read like fragments of a larger adventure, but thats why I like them. Fleming had certain types of set-pieces he liked to rework with each novel, but in his short stories he can separate some of those into complete stories on their own and expand and explore a bit more. for example, From a View to a Kill I always thought was a weaker adventure than some of the others in the book, but it makes a good opener because of the scene with Bond alone on the patio, reminiscing about his past and fantasizing about the women in the street.
within the novels theres actually a lot of sections that seem disconnected from the main plot, that could easily have been snipped off into short stories of their own: chapter 1 of goldfinger, the toronto flashback in the Spy who Loved Me, or the long first acts of Moonraker or Thunderball. Domino's fantasy about the cigarette pack couldve been its own short story. then theres all the full chapters digressing to give a characters biography, and other such non-essential yet well told content. its like Fleming had an urge to write less formulaic stories about topics other than Bond saving the world.
@chrisno1 I've only just got round to reading these. Thanks and as Napoleon says above absolutely first class.
That's interesting regarding your thoughts on Goldfinger as I believe that the canasta game between Goldfinger and Mr Du Pont was originally conceived as a short story. I agree that the killing of the capungo in the first chapter could have been a short story of its own too. As it stood, it gave way to inspiring the pre-titles sequences where Bond was on an often unrelated mission from Goldfinger onwards.
I agree with the others. Thanks for providing your very interesting insights into the Bond short stories and Snelling's book, @chrisno1.
I'm reading "Honorable men - my life in the CIA" by William Colby.
Colby was the leader of the CIA back in the 70s. He was also the Commander of the only US Commando mission in Norway in WWII. So far the book of really interesting.
'The Hidden Dimension' by Edward T. Hall
Pioneering work on proxemics (space as a system of communication).
Professor Hall expands on the differences of perception of space in various cultures and the very subtle effects people's perception of space has on interpersonal and business relations, cross-cultural interactions, architecture and city design.
The book explores the subtle cultural differences between different peoples based on their idea and need for privacy. How perceptions of personal space change behaviors of individuals and the cultures they live within.
Why do Germans like thick doors and have a great need for privacy?
Why Americans like their office doors open and Germans like office doors closed?
Eye behavior differences between British and Americans and why they have difficulty understanding each other.
Monochronic North European cultures (time compartmentalized cultures) and why they differ from Polychronic South European cultures.
The Japanese concept of 'Ma', the Arabic love for perfumes.
The appreciation of art in context to distance.
All in all...a fascinating study of distance.
Easy read.