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What Genre Would Fleming Have Wrote In Today ?
PussyNoMore has been reflecting on his recent literary choices and virtually without exception contemporary thrillers that contain elements of espionage have moved more and more into what I would call the 'Cross Over Genre'.
To illustrate my point, if you take the case of Don Winslow's excellent drug wars novels (The Power Of The Dog & The Cartel) they include every under cover agency known to man and this is because the criminal underworld, terrorist organisations, financial institutions and governments are inextricably linked.
The same is true of some of the fabulous Deon Meyer's work. PussyNoMore has just finished the excellent 'Cobra' and although Meyer's principle hero is a cop, he is obliged to do business with MI6 and the South African Secret Service in the pursuit of justice.
All of this means that the traditional tropes of the spy story and the Fleming formula of the lone agent saving the world have lost their relevance unless written within a historical context.
Espionage today is a technology driven team game with police and intelligence agencies crissing and crossing in pursuit of their objectives and this is reflected in the work of those writing. contemporary thrillers today.
In this scenario, how would Fleming have evolved? What would he be writing today? Which current author most closely mirrors his style ?
To illustrate my point, if you take the case of Don Winslow's excellent drug wars novels (The Power Of The Dog & The Cartel) they include every under cover agency known to man and this is because the criminal underworld, terrorist organisations, financial institutions and governments are inextricably linked.
The same is true of some of the fabulous Deon Meyer's work. PussyNoMore has just finished the excellent 'Cobra' and although Meyer's principle hero is a cop, he is obliged to do business with MI6 and the South African Secret Service in the pursuit of justice.
All of this means that the traditional tropes of the spy story and the Fleming formula of the lone agent saving the world have lost their relevance unless written within a historical context.
Espionage today is a technology driven team game with police and intelligence agencies crissing and crossing in pursuit of their objectives and this is reflected in the work of those writing. contemporary thrillers today.
In this scenario, how would Fleming have evolved? What would he be writing today? Which current author most closely mirrors his style ?
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But I do find it interesting to see the adverse effect advancement in technology has had on the writing world, especially when it comes to espionage because so much of the stories are predicated on communications between agents and the usage of various jargon and gadgetry that have now been completely changed in the modern era. In the old days Fleming would have Bond in the field trying to find a man using only the clues left in a location, utilizing his detective side to interrogate people and track the target the "old fashioned way." Nowadays however, Bond would just call in to MI6 and have them track a guy's phone, IP address or last known location based on credit card use; if all else fails, get the guy via satellite! It takes the spying out of spy craft and makes a spy character rather lacking in agency, no?
The advancement of technology has severely undercut the special feeling books from other times had, where everything wasn't so easy with computers in the palms of our hands and governments with tech wizards in their employ that can find anyone anywhere at the drop of a hat using satellite and find out what enemies are doing through e-mail hacking, phone tapping, etc within seconds or minutes of time.
And you're also right to point out the modern, globalized world, where spies, soldiers and detectives would have to work with a full set of agencies, organizations and more in what is termed as the alphabet soup of acronyms to complete their jobs or investigations. I can't recall a modern spy book where the hero is truly on his own for most of the time, as there is always a group of agencies at the back. Fleming of course had Bond working with Scotland Yard at times, or organizations and outfits in his field location while on a mission, but these were not common plot points and more often than not, despite any support, Bond was facing threats on his own or with just a girl and one ally instead of constantly reporting to MI5 and MI6 or the American CIA, DEA, ATF, etc. It was a lone spies game, largely because that time wasn't so hyper-connected with technology and communication, and agents couldn't just be gotten on the line in seconds as they can now. Spies had to work long and hard with little resources, and were very closed off from their superiors most of the time beyond what could be daily reports that were their own projects to deliver because of the technical hindrances of the day.
As for what Fleming would write in this day and age, I can't even get past how a man like him would function in society the way it is now because there really would be no room for him. A man of vices and a personality that at times could be viewed as sexist or racist in a casual sense, Fleming would be enemy number one in this politically correct society that assassinates anyone for nearly anything, regardless of whether what they are saying is an obvious joke or a real thought they have. His characters, like Mr. Big for example, would be attacked as racist caricatures, despite Big being a beautifully crafted character that showed in a very anti-racist way how brilliant, educated and tactful black people could be while other writers were doing the real racist caricatures. Characters like Drax and his Germans would be called insensitive to the suffering of World War II and vilify all Germans everywhere, Bond would be roasted on an open fire for even daring to criticize a woman and blacklisted outright if he implied one was a "bitch," and figures like M would be seen as outdated men of an older empirical age that needed to die out to let the new guard take over.
And if people couldn't accept Fleming and how he wrote his characters, so much of his books would be crucified, and for what? He would probably still be targeted for not being PC enough, for not being progressive enough, for representing too much of the old world. Despite the fact that he did write strong characters from what were seen as inferior races or groups at the time that weren't predicated on or ruled by stereotype-including blacks (Mr. Big, Quarrel), Germans (Drax and his group), Chinese (Dr. No) and even the villainous Russians (Klebb, Kronsteen, SMERSH)-when other writers weren't. Despite the fact that he created shockingly human and beautifully crafted female characters that were written as more than damsels and often as equal to Bond in their hearts and minds (Tiffany, Tracy, Gala, Tatiana, Honey, the list goes on), strong, independent, sharp and capable women that were by no means sexist or misogynistic in their presentation. And what of Bond, a flawed man in areas, sure, but one who was the hero that we deserve who would throw himself at a problem if it threatened the weak and helpless, the man who compared himself to the burning boy on the deck in a moment of agony and danger that gives us every indication of his loyalty and wealth of heart.
Fleming was undoubtedly a man of his time in some ways, but his actual writing and how he compiled his characters were ahead of that time as well. His characters, whether they were on the side of good or bad, were largely human in their representation and showed all aspects that we have as living, breathing things in our strengths, weaknesses, contradictions, merits and more. The villains weren't perfect, and neither were the heroes, but in writing as he did Fleming didn't attach himself to stereotype or weak presentation and instead gave his cast of figures in the text a great sense of life and complexity no matter who they were. That is the kind of work that should be valued in a writer, but I fear that the books as they are would still not be accepted as either real fiction or even as progressive writing, written off as offensive and regressive in content instead. Let's not forget that this is the modern society that rescinds all "offensive" language from classic literature, like Mark Twain's books, regardless of the context in which the words are used and how the writer wanted to use them to convey a sense of character or place. They see nothing but that word and, beyond anything else, must see it erased. A man like Fleming would be dead in the water, regardless of how forward thinking and progressive his work was at the time.
In short, I feel that everything that made Fleming's books riveting and even at times counter-cultural (despite him always being called racist, sexist, misogynistic), would still not be seen as good enough in a PC landscape and couldn't exist as they would or should be. I fear that the world as it is now, and how books of the espionage nature are created at the moment, would hinder and sap Fleming's best assets as a writer, which very much were about taking a lone man and throwing bizarre and fantastical threats at him. I don't think Fleming's ability to mesh a grounded world with bizarre elements, like villains with pincer hands, giant proportions, bloated bodies, bloodlusts dictated by the position of the moon and other bizarre or fantastical features that often approached sci-fi would be as accepted now.
The fiction books I see in the modern age, as relative a term as it is, are so grounded in reality that they have no room or interest in engaging the fantastical that Fleming so beautifully did. The villains of modern spy books are very dimensionless, forgettable terrorists, arms dealers, traitors, etc (at least from what I've read) and they have none of the strangeness and exciting life and villainy Fleming gave his characters that made them leap off the page every time. In other ways I think Fleming also gave his villains a lot more merit than you see now in fiction books, where those figures are far too often obviously evil with nothing else to them as if they are only bad and nothing else to offset that side of themselves. Fleming would give you a "bad guy," but would also show you how crafty, sharp, cultured or resourceful they were to underscore that, despite them being on the wrong side, they were skilled and worthy opponents for Bond. Bond admired their ability to stump him and as readers Fleming at times makes us feel the same admiration in turn.
And even if Fleming could get away with holding on to his fantastical style, how he wrote his characters and more, would he be able to set his books in the modern world where so many of his character's problems would be undercooked because of the horrid advancement of technology we seem to agree is hampering things? Perhaps he would set his books in another period setting, like the original decades of his books outside this hypothetical scenario, to recapture the feeling of isolated, tension and danger that espionage has so lost in the modern age. We see a lot of modern writers doing just that, going back to the 50s, the 30s or even in other centuries outside the 20th to stage their books because for them the creative process is made too torturous and neglected by setting stories in the 21st century that leave little room for suspense or excitement. Our end goal in developing technology, to make things easier for ourselves in our daily tasks, has actually made the writing of books in the espionage field harder in an ironic way, and a helluva lot less interesting.
It does make you wonder where Fleming would fit in, or how he could. I just know he'd hate the world as it is now, so focused on regressing society and people's minds while pretending that they are progressing the world, and how the old values he held in his generation are slowly being sapped away by wars fought with drones, reality TV, a gradually ignorant and exhausted populace and a world moving so fast we're all feeling the motion sickness of it all. I'd much rather go back to his time, as I know many would. It wasn't perfect either, but at least people had a firmer grip on reality and weren't so up their own arse to be offended about everything.
0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 covers a lot of ground and makes some excellent points.
PussyNoMore thinks that, had he lived, Fleming would have moved into the arena of geopolitical thrillers. His journalistic credentials and interest in global affairs would have driven him in this direction.
A key '70s influence for him would have undoubtably been Forsyth's 'Day Of The Jackal'. PussyNoMore thinks he would have loved that book and that it would have encouraged him to move in a different direction. Although he admired Deighton (a proven fact) and probably respected Le Carre, PussyNoMore doubts that the ultra realistic Whitehall warrior would have been Fleming's game. Not glamorous or sexy enough.
Interestingly, one writer operating today that is directly comparable with Fleming, IPNSHO (In PussyNoMore’s Not So Humble Opinion, Is Daniel Silva. He writes with the Fleming sweep but his books are ensemble pieces that are pre-occupied with the enemies of Israel.
Fleming would have stayed contemporary and would have been writing very much in the Winslow vein. This is PussyNoMore’s best guess.
He would not have gone the pure crime route. Too restricting. Geopolitical is the best guess.
Just to take up @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 example, if the guy they are searching for doesn't use his cell phone or they simply don't know his number, pays everything in cash and lives let's say somewhere in Paris, no satellite will help them find him. So what they need then is boots on the ground. Competent and clever boots that is. Voila, welcome to the world of the tried and true espionage novel/movie.
My comment wasn't a general one, but an observation that the world as it is now makes for more boring or labored fiction writing. People are up in arms about the effect technology has had in the later Bond films for example (I'm sure you yourself have complained about it recently) and that is very much a sign of the times. My point was to say that technology is so inseparably a part of society now that you can't go without it, and when you write a spy trying to track down a man you can give him a more old-fashioned cat and mouse through some plot conveniences, but not before explaining why the man being hunted doesn't use his phone, his credit cards, why he doesn't use the internet or leave a digital footprint and all this other hoopla that old age writers didn't have to jump through the hoops of.
When Bond got into the field in the 50s or 60s we knew he simply had to find a lead using the wits he had and not a smartphone, laptop, team of IT wizards or all the rest. A man without the ability to lean on technology to do his job in an age where advancement was certainly contemporary, but nowhere close to the nano-tech, high-speed age we have now. That's the point being made here.
And on top of that the culture of today doesn't seem to let in the kind of punchy, pulpy and near fantastical fare Fleming specialized in because everything must be grounded and colorless in content and style. However could we get a spy book now with a Dr. No type villain, where the plot dared to twist the ordinary and the fantastic and gave readers something they didn't already hear on the evening news.
@PussyNoMore, I like your prediction about Fleming entering the realm of geopolitical thrillers, and you back it up well. I agree that while Fleming would've respected other men in his field, like Le Carré, he would leave them to their work and do his own thing, not only because he was a hyper-individual, but also because that style didn't suit him. Le Carré seemed to be a hint in his day of where the spy genre would go, away from Fleming's more sexualized, punchy and fantastical stories to more cold, sterile and altogether realistic to a fault books.
One question of mine that I think fits this thread is this, and I'd be interested to hear what people think:
What do we think Fleming would've done with Bond post-The Man with the Golden Gun? The end of his life and the end of the books as consequence seemed to come at the perfect time, where Fleming appeared to be getting exhausted and stressed at the thought of producing more Bond books each year, an experience he was quite open about. If he'd lived beyond into the late 60s and 70s with the likes of Le Carré or Forsyth, what do we think would've come of his Bond novels and Bond as a character through that age?
Would Fleming have written a definitive ending to the Bond series after he felt he'd done all he could with that character, moving on to a new lead in another set of books? Would he have gone so far as to kill off Bond as he tempted before, ending the book series by showing the fact of the matter that he had Bond ponder many times, that the spy wouldn't make it to the age of forced retirement?
It would've been fascinating to see how Fleming aged with the times as a man and writer and how that aging would've impacted his writing of Bond, or his decision to close up shop entirely. Furthermore, it would've been fascinating to see his work either stand out or retreat in reaction to the big names of the day, of the aforementioned Le Carré or Forsyth and even Robert Ludlum.
PussyNoMore thinks that going off the grid in the way noSolaceleft describes is virtually impossible to maintain in the developed world. You’d have to be in the Amazon not Paris.
Number recognition technology, CTV and satellite surveillance, vendors who won’t accept cash etc....would make this a short lived phenomena and the inevitable exposure, when it came, would be at the hand of teams and technology. Not at the hand of some sort of Bond figure.
This is why those writing spy stories in the modern idiom certainly aren’t devoid of creativity - Daniel Silva, Mick Herron, Le Carre and Cumming, to name but four, incorporate their main protagonist into teams and write ensemble pieces that incorporate technology as appropriate.
Those writing the traditional, man alone, type thriller - including the Bond continuation novels tend to work in a period setting. John Lawton, Philip Kerr, Alan Furst are classic examples.
PussyNoMore thinks that had he lived, Fleming’s best work would have been ahead of him. He was a terrific writer who embraced the technology of the day. He would have consigned Bond to history and would have probably written in a similar vein as Daniel Silva. Maintaining the famous sweep in a modern world.
Pure speculation of course but interesting to contemplate.
Knowing he really did want to to kill his character off, I think Bond would have had one final mission, shortly after TMWTGG where he made sure England was safe, but, in the process, he would be mortally wounded.
Fleming would have given us a poetically written final observation of wherever Bond was at the time of his death. And, I have to believe, some of the most beautiful final thoughts of the character himself.
The book would end just moments before Bond's final breath-- but it would be clear that he was not returning to us...
A great ending for Bond. Different to the fate he nearly suffered at the end of FRWL. Many thought Fleming's original intention was to see him off at the hands or feet of Klebb.
That said, PussyNoMore is absolutely convinced he would have continued to write post Bond.
I suspect @PussyNoMore hasn't got a solid grasp on the possibilities/impossibilities of today's technique. Again, if they don't have your cell phone number or you don't use any kind of credit cards or whatever and limit yourself to paying in cash ( I have yet to meet a merchant who refused to take my cash), if you have learned to keep your head level slightly down on public places and subways there's hardly a way you can be found. Actually, the larger the city you're in the better. You can use public phones, Internet cafés or permanently buy new prepaid phone cards. And if you're still doubting,all the dozens or hundreds terrorists known to the intelligence services but still impossible to track down are ample proof of my claims.
PussyNoMore thinks that there hasn’t been a terrorist attack in Europe in recent times when the perpetrators haven’t been brought to book within a couple of weeks but perhaps they didn’t read noSolaceleft’s how to guide?
Regarding terrorists known to intelligence services - given radicalisation over the internet, this is a slightly different subject - that said, once they are out of their bedrooms they are soon on the radar.
Interesting thoughts, @peter, in line with what I wondered in my initial post, if Fleming would pay off Bond's comments that he wouldn't make it to retirement. A death of the character would've been profound, and would've matched up to the peace he felt with his life long before and being okay with his end coming.
Perhaps Fleming would've called back to Bond's boyhood inspiration through the boy on the burning deck in Moonraker to underscore the moment of sacrifice and loyalty, with Bond drifting off in the knowledge that he lived life to the full.