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Advice on how to read a Fleming novel
A lot of people have never read the Bond novels and the success of Skyfall have gotten people interested in the books, here is some advice:
1. Read them in order of publication, including the short-stories. Start with Casino Royale and end with Octopussy and The Living Daylights. This will help in the later novels.
2. Clear your mind of the movies. There are no space based weapon systems, no volcano lairs, no lasers, no space flights, no Bibi Dahl.
3. Understand the era. Bond was born around 1920, most of the Bond women in the novels were born in the around 1930. There are things like 'wire recorders' in the novels that people will not have any idea what they were. If you need to, look them up on the internet. The kindle versions will help since you can get a definition.
4. Read them slowly including the "boring parts". Fleming paints a picture. He does not come out and says "the man dropped a grenade in the water", he will describe the action instead. Also, there are many references to gothic literature and mythology in the novels, if you read the books too fast you will miss them. The books were written in a time when people read and did not watch TV.
5. Ignore the continuity mistakes from novel to novel; Fleming was unaware that his novels would be successful and he never wrote fully anticipating he might have to be consistent in future editions.
1. Read them in order of publication, including the short-stories. Start with Casino Royale and end with Octopussy and The Living Daylights. This will help in the later novels.
2. Clear your mind of the movies. There are no space based weapon systems, no volcano lairs, no lasers, no space flights, no Bibi Dahl.
3. Understand the era. Bond was born around 1920, most of the Bond women in the novels were born in the around 1930. There are things like 'wire recorders' in the novels that people will not have any idea what they were. If you need to, look them up on the internet. The kindle versions will help since you can get a definition.
4. Read them slowly including the "boring parts". Fleming paints a picture. He does not come out and says "the man dropped a grenade in the water", he will describe the action instead. Also, there are many references to gothic literature and mythology in the novels, if you read the books too fast you will miss them. The books were written in a time when people read and did not watch TV.
5. Ignore the continuity mistakes from novel to novel; Fleming was unaware that his novels would be successful and he never wrote fully anticipating he might have to be consistent in future editions.
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Comments
However I would always read with my eyes and not my feet. So avoid the feet.
I think it's critically important to forget the movie version when approaching the books. Anyone going into the novels expecting they'll have anything to do with the screen version will be sorely dissapointed. That said, I find it impossible not to imagine one of the Bond actors in my head while I read the books.
As for all the racism, sexism criticisms — get a life - Fleming was no racist. In fact he was one of the few mainstream mid 20th century writers to feature non caucasians as heroes (Quarrel, Tiger Tanaka , etc.) and his language was simply the language of the time and doesn't have to be excused!
Fleming may or may not have been racist. I'm sure that was the language of the times but reading chapters with headlines like Nigger Heaven on a packed train going through Brixton might turn a few heads or worse.
He sure as hell was a sexist and a sadist.
But he had a great imagination and fine talent for simile, metaphor and attention to detail. Mind you, OHMSS some times reads more like a bar menu than a book!
The Bond of the novels is a queer thing. Not particularly witty, or characterful sometimes. Again maybe the time it was written but sometimes he comes across as something of a bore in long passages of speech, but I still love the books.
About to start Moonraker and Goldfinger then I think I've completed them.
@Quarrel, you are correct. No way was Fleming a racist. In fact he pretty much had a life long love affair with Jamaica where he was highly regarded. Indeed he is fondly remembered to this day.
His language was very much the language of the times and any reader of John Buchan or Rider Haggard could level similar accusations when few did more to help develop relationships with Africa.
The Bond novels should be read as period pieces and nobody should take offence. As one that read them as they were published I can assure you it was never the intent.
Who really knows what future generations will think of our current attitudes, beliefs and political policies? Whether it be our turning a blind eye toward the daily horrors and abject poverty in Africa, to our destruction of the environment, to our stubborn refusal to wean ourselves off our oil addiction, to religious fanaticism, there's plenty to condemn already. And if history teaches us anything, its that there will be plenty more things that seem normal to us that will seem odd and downright wrong to future generations. We are of our time, as was Fleming.
Great advice @Perdogg
I'm passing this onto a friend who has not read any of them yet.
As for Kerim, he is a larger than life caricature, but just the same, Fleming had reason to believe that such men did exist, yet as we saw, they weren't without virtue either. Kerim lived and thrived in a very patriarchal society.
60 years later,I am not sure much has changed in such societes.
I can overlook the bits I don't like as a result of this.
If I met anyone now who thought like this though I'd consider them an arsehole
I am reading one now, David Stone, that @perilagukhan was kind enough to recommend in another thread.
I remember too well how disappointed I was when the Thunderball novel I read when I was 16 didn´t feature laser watches and flying cars, me unaware that the novel was written 30 years earlier. Twenty years later I re-discovered Flemings novels and had the revelation that they can be great entertainment if viewed i the context of the times. Fleming tought me to read the publisher´s info on the first pages of any novel ;-).
And, if I count correctly, number 7 ought to be not to spend too much time with Fleming´s novels. With Stephen King, you can read 20 pages today, the next 20 pages next week, it doesn´t matter. If you do that with Fleming, you´ll get bored. As one member years ago proposed: get yourself a comfortable chair and read one novel over night ;-).
You totally missed my point. What I'm trying to point out is that there are attitudes and beliefs that seem perfectly normal and justifiable to us, but future generations might see them as wrong, barbaric, or otherwise stupid.
It's not that difficult a concept to understand. For well over 2000 years of human history certain things like slavery and the subjugation of women were accepted beliefs. It wasn't that long ago that humans also thought the world was flat. These beliefs were so commonly held as to be seen as unquestionable and certain. But our modern, more enlightened minds see these beliefs for what they are. Should we condemn them for thinking that? Or should we simply understand that those people were of their time, as we are of our time? It's call human progress. And human progress does not stop with us.
Fleming was of his time, and thus his writing refected those times. If we condemn Fleming for not being able to transcend the errors of his time, we should be prepared to be condemned by our children for not being able to trancend our own time.
I can somewhat agree with you. It took me forever to finish LALD because I read it during my senior year and couldn't really focus enough to read it that much, and it was a rough personal time for me when I wasn't too ambitious. I found it hard to follow the plot because it would be days at a time before I picked it up to read again, so I lost some of the greater details in consequence. Whether those factors hurt my enjoyment of the novel I don't know, but I will revisit it along with CR and MR when I attempt to tackle the novels one by one from the beginning.
While it may be a better idea to read tons of the novel in one sitting, when I do that I have a hard time summarizing the plot up to the point that I left off because everything is all one big blur.
Who's talking politics? The discussion is about how to approach Fleming's novels. Giving consideration the era of an author and his work is an integral part of approaching any novel (or any work of art, for that matter). Did you not pay attention in freshmen English?
I understand @quarrel but where did I condemn Fleming anyways. Im trying to warn about the bigotry of his time showing up in the books they are not as timeless as some peopl are led to beleive. This is just my opinion but wide spread bigotry doesnt make each bigoter less guilty. PS Im not angry.