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The graphic violence in Raymond Benson's James Bond Novels?
Dragonpol
https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
It's been a while since I read them, but can anyone here provide me with some quotes of the more violent passages of the Raymond Benson James Bond novels. I've got a few in mind, but I wouldn't mind a few more, especially from the later James Bond novels of Raymond Benson. I think that the Benson Bond novels did become more graphically violent when compared to some of what came before.
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Dragonpol, you ask too much. I couldn't bare to pick one of these things up again — rubbish is rubbish even if it's violent. Whatever were IFP thinking about?
I'm a thread starter, twisted thread starter. Plus, why do the Benson Bond novels get such a very bad rap here on MI6?
That aside, if anyone can provide me with a few quotes of gory scenes from Benson's Bond novels, especially his later Bond novels, I'd be ever so grateful.
Because the guy is a terrible, terrible writer. I feel awful criticising him because I used to correspond with him occasionally back in the days of alt.fan.james-bond and he seemed like a nice guy, plus he's not a professional but just a fan who got lucky - and if IFP offered any of us a contract to write Bond novels, I'm sure we'd take it. But his prose is dreadful to the point of being almost unreadable.
Are there any Benson fans out there? If so, make your voices heard...
It has been a few years since I've read a Benson, but I can't remember any particularly horrific violence (certainly not to the degree of some of the more grisly passages in the works of Amis and Gardner), what I always found distasteful about Benson's work was his adolescent approach to the sex scenes, for instance the idea of Bond copulating with a couple of twin sisters seems vulgar when compared to Fleming's more delicate handling of the romantic entanglements.
Yes, well I think that Benson upped the sex and violence in his Bond novels, just like Amis that came before him did, in my view. I have a few gory passages from Benson, it's just that I'm rather looking for a few more, if that makes sense. And yes, Benson perhaps did coarsen the sex and made it more graphic. But times had changed in the years since the rather tame sex of the original Fleming canon. There were even more swear words in the Benson novels, especially the explicit use of the f-word in The Facts of Death (1998). It's rather sad to see no love for Benson on these boards. I think personally that he did a good job and was in a very difficult position.
I thought they were readable efforts, but I read them all as they were published, and then forgot about them. I've never gone back, so I can't recall any scenes. Someday I will re-read them, why not, if only to refresh.
As you can see, there hasn't been a big rush.
Can't we just conceed that they were utter rubish?
It's been a while since I've read any of them but apart from the Union throat slitting thing and Mathis getting blinded in Never Dream Of Dying I can't think of any particularly graphic or shocking acts of violence, certainly not when compared with thrillers of today such as the Andy Mcnabs, and even in the Bond cannon I think the Kingsley Amis torture scenes in Colonel Sun are more memorably disturbing and unpleasant.
Perhaps you could give us a few of your examples to jig our memories and maybe inspire us to reread the Benson efforts.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that you are speaking for everyone or of speaking too soon, my friend.
You might be waiting for a while @Dragonpol!
I'm prepared to sit it out. I've got my camp bed here. I'm in it for the long haul, friend, come what may.
Yes, I remember your saying so on BaB - thank you for your input here and there. I think there's too much elitism in literary circles. I like unpretentious writing and indeed writers. We have much in common in terms of literary tastes, I suspect. I'm not a great one for the classics, as Kingsley Amis himself might have said...
And as for reading, I enjoy history books (religious history as well), scifi, spy and adventure genre, and the odd classic.
@SaintMark On re Dan Brown, yes, he must be doing something right, for sure. Millions of readers can't be wrong, but again it's the tall poppy syndrome at play - they tend to cut it down.