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But also ...
Let's get cracking on a look at all the Bond novels and short stories, through the entire canon. :)
I think we can add an equal sign too, if you love both the novel and the film.
So: +, -, or = (don't wrangle over this, it is just for fun!)
(The plus, minus, or equal signs are optional folks - but I think others may like to add that.)
I will add my mini review of Casino Royale later today.
Hope I'm clear enough. Have fun, folks! :)
Ian Fleming’s James Bond Titles
1. Casino Royale - 1953
2. Live and Let Die -1954
3. Moonraker - 1955
4. Diamonds Are Forever -1956
5. From Russia With Love -1957
6. Doctor No -1958
7. Goldfinger -1959
8. For Your Eyes Only (short stories) -1960
From A View To A Kill
For Your Eyes Only
Quantum of Solace
Risico
The Hildebrand Rarity
9. Thunderball - 1961
10. The Spy Who Loved Me - 1962
11. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - 1963
12. You Only Live Twice -1964
13. The Man With The Golden Gun -1965
14. Octopussy & The Living Daylights -1966
(short stories) Octopussy
The Living Daylights
The Property Of A Lady
007 in New York
- See more at: http://www.ianfleming.com/books/#sthash.CoQM3Ffi.dpuf
I expect this look at the novels (and short stories), with mini reviews will take a long time indeed. This will be ongoing.
Please note: As other Bond news becomes available we will be discussing that here also. This look at Fleming's novels will be the steady topic for some time (several months, I think, as we look at all the stories). But we will be interjecting discussion on SPECTRE film news (and whatever else may be truly Bond newsworthy) in this thread as we continue. Our underlying discussion point will be the novels. Thanks for joining us!
Cheers! (And here is a nice pic of recent reissue covers ...)
And yes, this is our main topic to carry us on most likely all the way to the release of SPECTRE. I do get excited when I think about this film! The location photos are nothing short of awesome. Bond news as it is officially announced (theme song artist! trailer! etc.) will definitely be discussed here, and I'll adapt the thread's title when that is happening, too.
But I'm happy for us to look at the novels themselves - SirHenry had mentioned that to me in a PM about a year and a half ago. He felt that would be a good thing to do at some point, while we were waiting for the next Bond film.
So crack open those Bond books, chaps and ladies, and let's share our thoughts on them as we continue this Bond journey together!
CASINO ROYALE
Surely one of the more memorable beginnings of any novel - certainly ripe with atmosphere. Fleming's writing pulls the reader in immediately: 'The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul erosion produced by high gambling - a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension - becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it.'
The first sentence puts you there, in smoke and sweat, so you can feel it, smell it, taste it ... and the second sentences grinds the effects into you immediately. The cadence of the first sentence is like a drumbeat. And the choice of words such as "compost" are, in my opinion, sublime.
I enjoy Fleming's writing very much indeed.
Throughout his many stories, Fleming had "a way with words" for sure.
:)>-
Casino Royale was the first James Bond novel to be adapted as a daily comic strip - it was published in The Daily Express and syndicated worldwide. The strip ran from 7 July 1958 to 13 December 1958, and was written by Anthony Hern and illustrated by John McLusky. To aid The Daily Express in illustrating Bond, Fleming commissioned an artist to create a sketch of what he believed James Bond to look like. McLusky felt that Fleming's 007 looked too "outdated" and "pre-war" and changed Bond to give him a more masculine look.
First, here is Ian Fleming's commissioned impression of James Bond.
For the comic strip, here is John McLusky's rendition of James Bond.
In 1957 the Daily Express, a newspaper owned by Lord Beaverbrook, approached Ian Fleming about adapting his James Bond stories as comic strips. Fleming was then reluctant, because he felt the comic strips would lack the quality of his writing, potentially hurting his spy novel series while he was still writing. To wit, Fleming wrote:
"The Express are desperately anxious to turn James Bond into a strip cartoon. I have grave doubts about the desirability of this ... Unless the standard of these books is maintained they will lose their point, and, I think, there I am in grave danger that inflation will spoil not only the readership, but also become something of a death-watch beetle inside the author. A tendency to write still further down might result. The author would see this happening, and disgust with the operation might creep in."
Regardless, Fleming later agreed, and the first strip Casino Royale was published in 1958. The story was adapted by Anthony Hern who previously had serialised Diamonds Are Forever and From Russia with Love for the Daily Express. The illustrations were by John McLusky, who later would illustrate twelve more James Bond comic strips with his partner Henry Gammidge until 1966.
********
Interesting, eh? Maybe plenty of you knew about the comic strip, but I didn't.
The McLusky strips were a contributing factor to Connery landing the role. He was a fitting face to Bond the way many saw him thanks to the popular newspaper comics.
When I read these books as a teenager, I only had a picture of Bond in my head ... until I came across DAF and Sean. But even after that, for the most part I was not picturing Sean as I read the novels. Interesting. Because I was crazy about Sean when I first saw him.
Now that you mention it, I can see how the bottom illustration favors Connery around the nose and mouth. However, the eyes, cheeks, forehead all are too "well worn" or tough looking for me to enjoy this face much. He looks like a thug to me. I don't really care for it, to be honest.
Here is today's Casino Royale quote/excerpt :
Bond liked to make a good breakfast. After a cold shower, he sat at the writing table in front of the window. He looked out at the beautiful day and consumed a pint of iced orange juice, three scrambled eggs and bacon and a double portion of coffee without sugar. He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street, and watched the small waves lick the long seashore and the fishing fleet from Dieppe string out towards the June heat-haze followed by paper chase of herring gulls.
I like, and sometimes am amused with, Fleming's details regarding food, drink, tobacco, and clothing. It certainly is a part of his literary style. I enjoy it. Ah, the days when people finished their breakfasts with their first cigarette of the day. ;)
Unfortunately and sinfully, it's been a while since I've read through the books (so I won't have such in depth reviews as you lot). But, while CR will forever remain my favorite Bond novel, you know what part has always stood out to me that I loved? The finale in DN. This mental image I concocted of the finale (which, if you haven't read the book, is much different from the ending we're given in the film) was always so expansive and imaginative that I had the full vision completely played out for months after I read it. I just imagined Connery doing all of those things in the ending (you know what I'm talking about, I won't spoil it for any rare few of you who haven't read it ;)) and had a wonderful time picturing it unveil.
Now, having said that, I don't necessarily have a problem with how DN ended at all. It kept some pieces from the book and definitely made an impression for the first major Bond finale in a movie, but still, I wouldn't have minded seeing a completely altered ending, taken directly from Fleming's novel.
@4EverBonded, I don't smoke any longer but I still wish Bond would light up a cigarette! Nothing better than seeing Fleming go into detail about smoking, and trying to convey that on screen with someone like Craig, who has smoked before and looks very cool and comfortable doing it in his films.
We do need to mostly stay on Casino Royale for chat. But some digression is okay.
The whole cigarette issue is ... interesting. I am glad we are all more aware of the hazards of smoking, and I don't smoke. I don't recommend smoking (anything). However, it was such a big part of the culture of those times! My parents both chained smoked (and often looked like Bogey and Bacall to me, in my eyes, though my mom was a lovely brunette; they seemed to be quite like those film stars at times when I remember thru my childhood vision). Smoking was absolutely everywhere. We had ashtrays in every room in our house, and I think including the bathroom. ;) And it is a real part of the Bond novels. So as we discuss Fleming's writing, I'd like to suggest we do keep in mind that these were written in the fifties and sixties and the culture was different then. Men also wore hats a lot more often. Little things like that. :) I think Daniel Craig gave up smoking personally, and that's certainly a good, healthy thing. Bond smoking again? I so doubt it will happen. I wouldn't mind seeing him with an occasional cigar on screen, but I bet that won't be allowed either.
I should have my Casino Royale mini review tomorrow (thank goodness, these are minis!). I definitely recommend everyone who has never read a Fleming Bond novel to start with this first one. It just makes sense and the immediate atmosphere pulls you in sublimely.
I'm sorry if I've derailed the thread, I just pulled up the Community and got a little click happy with what I wanted to put in these threads. Haven't contributed in a while, so I do apologize for jumping the gun. However, I'll be sure to discuss DN even further when we're there.
As for my mini review of CR? It's CR! It started it all. It's textbook James Bond at his finest, written by the one and only Ian Fleming. It's impossible to pick that book up (one that I have actually returned to quite a few times over the year) and not enjoy yourself. I love it.
I just did not want others to hop on and do a major Dr. No discussion just now.
Thanks for your comment and recommendation for Casino Royale. :-bd
okay I will stop posting for a while; glitch continues ...
CASINO ROYALE (the novel)
*****
Gambling debt and casino life, currently undergoing a renaissance in this country, are the modish concerns of both our hero, 007, and our arch-villain, the stateless le Chiffre. Bond has been charged by M with the unlikely secret mission of humiliating the communist-backed le Chiffre by defeating him at the gaming tables. Consequently, the playboy Fleming's own interest in gambling is mined for detail throughout, with industrial loads of card-sharpery and hefty slabs of mathematical analysis of 'playing the tables'. There are poised and leggy ladies too, most of whom can be seduced with the right amount of tough talk, caviar, champagne and, somewhat mysteriously, avocado pear served as a pudding.
*****
The real theme of this book, though, is the search for sophistication. It was a postwar fascination and Fleming's obsession and, somehow, his vision of the lifestyle that was enjoyed by the privileged consumer has been hugely influential. Whenever the author does make an occasional slip, as he does with the avocado pear, it merely demonstrates just how much Britain has changed, not what a fool Fleming may have been. Today, all his reading public know several things they could do with an avocado pear: the public James Bond originally served were still getting used to bananas.
*****
Back to me (4EverBonded) now ...
Yes, just to keep in mind many of these novels were written and published in post-war Britain, with its struggles and lack of access to a sophisticated or expensive lifestyle. Most British people during that time certainly were not used to luxuries. Reading about the high, so called elite lifestyle in vivid, sometimes lengthy detail (the food, the clothing, the wine, the exotic locations one could only dream about, gambling pursuits who could only fantasize about, etc.) must have been a treat, and rather an escape, for many British people. And indeed for readers everywhere.
And spies ... well, heck yes, we had all just come through one of the largest and most extensive wars in history; spies were definitely relevant and of interest.
So I think it is worth a mention to point out these novels came about not long after WWII officially ended. That was their initial audience. There is a strong contrast between Fleming's James Bond fiction and the more drab and difficult reality British (and other) people faced during those years of recovery.
Bond is about living a life so many of us really wouldn't want to live because we don't dare to live it. Having style or class is something you can set your mind to, but somehow we don't do it at all, or, I should say, many of us don't. Bond is a fantasy that still works 50+ years on, because it's too much, too cool. If we'd meet Bonds IRL we'd probably be just jelous of him and wouldn't like him much. Or many of us would.
If I met Fleming's Bond in real life, it would be a huge challenge to like and accept him exactly as written (due to Fleming's take on women, which I find hard to accept at times). But I still enjoy the stories very much. I remember when I first read them as a teenager I was really drawn towards the character. I would have changed some aspects, but I was definitely drawn towards James Bond. It was thrilling to read of his exploits, his exotic world, the global sweep of the stories, the fantastic villains and the gorgeous women, and to read of Bond's thoughts (Fleming often gives Bond's feelings and thoughts, which adds a good deal to these stories). I never felt that Bond novels were "cheap" or flat or not fleshed out. I always thought they were pretty well written, especially for that kind of story.
My mini review will be up before I go to work today. :)>-