Does reading Ian Fleming make you a better person or worse?

Revelator

Ludovico wrote:

Literature is not meant to be moral. I am not a better person after reading Fleming, the same way I am not a worse person after reading Sade (albeit I have not read Sade nearly as much).

I've read a good amount of Sade, and his books--though possibly the most evil ever written--are unlikely to make anyone a worse person. Partly because they can be excruciatingly boring, partly because Sade's philosophy of disinterested gratuitous evil is almost impossible to emulate.
As for Fleming, I think he has made me a better writer, since I try to keep his prose style in mind. Beyond that, I've occasionally felt tempted to play baccarat but never have. Perhaps Fleming has been slightly bad for my health, since I once convinced a friend to cook Scrambled Eggs James Bond. But I haven't eaten it since.

Villiers53

Do they, the Bond novels, make you a better person?
Well,they got me extracting 80 Moreland Specials a day from my gunmetal cigarette case and lighting them with my oxidised Ronson before enjoying a full inhalation of the bronchial tubes.
They have helped my daily pre-dinner alcohol intake rise to a minimum of a bottle of Bollinger and 5 or 6 Dry Martinis.
They've made me pick a good Saville Row tailor who fitted me out with 5 blue serge suits, 5 white sea island cotton shirts and a couple of great black knitted ties.
I've been introduced to telling the time via a Rolex Oyster Perpetual whilst emitting the bergamot fragrance of Floris No.89.
I often look after the environment by driving my 1930 4.5 litre Bentley to Blades where I help the night time economy by dropping a couple of grand at the tables.
Apart from all of this, they've helped turn me into a regular, misogynist, dinosaur that takes my hetrosexual pleasure with any divorcee or married woman I can and whenever I can.
Have they made me a better person - hell yes!

timmer

Villiers53 wrote:

Do they, the Bond novels, make you a better person?
Well,they got me extracting 80 Moreland Specials a day from my gunmetal cigarette case and lighting them with my oxidised Ronson before enjoying a full inhalation of the bronchial tubes.
They have helped my daily pre-dinner alcohol intake rise to a minimum of a bottle of Bollinger and 5 or 6 Dry Martinis.
They've made me pick a good Saville Row tailor who fitted me out with 5 blue serge suits, 5 white sea island cotton shirts and a couple of great black knitted ties.
I've been introduced to telling the time via a Rolex Oyster Perpetual whilst emitting the bergamot fragrance of Floris No.89.
I often look after the environment by driving my 1930 4.5 litre Bentley to Blades where I help the night time economy by dropping a couple of grand at the tables.
Apart from all of this, they've helped turn me into a regular, misogynist, dinosaur that takes my hetrosexual pleasure with any divorcee or married woman I can and whenever I can.
Have they made me a better person - hell yes!

Man, you've been living the life. Great Stuff!

007InVT

@Villiers53 - A poet in deeds...