Fleming´s library

ggl007

I´m rereading Fleming and finding a lot of great surprises. First of all I have to say that my editions are in Spanish and not noted, so I have some trouble sometimes...

My question is about Fleming´s quotes of great writers. How many can we find and where?

I´ve just finished DAF and I was quite surprised with this quote, when Bond discovers that Wind and Kidd are on board the Queen Elizabeth:

Bond sat for a moment frozen to his chair. Suddenly, there flashed unwanted into his mind that most sinister line in all poetry: 'They reckon ill who leave me out. When me they fly, I am the wings.'

Of course, I googled the line and found the Emerson poem but, first, I don´t find it such "sinister" and, second, I wonder if this is a common English scholar poem like Hemans´Casabianca that Bond quoted in MR.

So, is Brahma so famous in Great Britain? or was it during the 50´s? and, why is it the "most sinister line in all poetry"?

Furthermore, do we know what were Ian Fleming´s favourite writers?

Revelator

I recall Fleming expressing admiration for Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. He also made his wife read Mann's "Death in Venice."
One of Fleming's desert island books was a German translation of Tolstoy's War and Peace. He also adored F. Scott Fitzgerald's essay collection The Crack-Up.
He was so taken by Hugh Edwards' All Night at Mr. Stanyhurst's that he helped get the novel reprinted and supplied an introduction (both can be read online at http://archive.org/details/allnightatmrstan010625mbp).
That's about all I can recall about Fleming's favorite books. As for "Brahma," I was just as surprised as you, and my questions are the same as yours. Out of all the poems for Bond to quote, it seems the most left-field--one of the many unexpected bits that enliven the Bond novels.

ggl007

Thanks, Revelator, for your answer. I have no idea of that Hugh Edwards´story, really interesting!

Anyway, we´re still looking for answers here...

007InVT

He also enjoyed Carson McCuller's 'Reflections in a Golden Eye'

ggl007

Emerson´s Brahma?? Anybody?? Perhaps it´s not so well known as I imagine...

ggl007

Going on with my rereading. In FRWL, apart from the obvious (War and Peace or Eric Ambler), I found two references quite interesting:

A reference to An Appointment in Samarra, when Kerim and Bond go looking for Krilencu;

and one about Lermontov, when M tells Bond that Tania felt in love with him because he reminded her about a Lermontov´s hero (A Hero of our time? Probably...)

ggl007

In the last chapter of Dr. No we can read:

the 'heat waves, the cold spells—'The only country where you can take a walk
every day of the year'—Chesterfield's Letters?

Well, I googled "Chesterfield letters" and discovered the man and his work. The question remaining is: does the quote belong to a Chesterfield Letter? To which one?

Dragonpol

This is certainly a very interesting thread; I had an idea a number of years back to write an in-depth article on Ian Fleming's library and his literary inspirations, buy it is still languishing in my notebook, waiting to be brought to life on the page.

ggl007

Thanks, Dragonpol, for your answer.

Here comes another good one. In Goldfinger, Bond quotes: : 'Some love is fire, some love is rust. But the finest, cleanest love is lust.' That is from The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March, apparently an erotic, obscene poem-book from the 20´s...

Dragonpol

ggl007 wrote:

Thanks, Dragonpol, for your answer.

Here comes another good one. In Goldfinger, Bond quotes: : 'Some love is fire, some love is rust. But the finest, cleanest love is lust.' That is from The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March, apparently an erotic, obscene poem-book from the 20´s...

Interesting as Ian Fleming himself was a poet in his younger days and in fact had a poetry book published in the 1920s, though he later had all copies destroyed. There used to be excerpts from Fleming's poetry book on a now defunct website run by Nick Kincaid called 007 Forever. I assume that these first appeared in some print source.