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70 Years of 007
mtm
United Kingdom
Happy Birthday James Bond 007: today marks the 70th anniversary of the publication of Casino Royale.
The 70th birthday of our favourite spy seemed worth its own thread.
The 70th birthday of our favourite spy seemed worth its own thread.
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Comments
I hadn't thought about that, but yes! :-D If Casino Royale hadn't happened, the name 'James Bond' would have remained a fairly common name, probably given to a lot of blokes in the UK without any specific meaning.
70 years! My my. Happy B-day, James.
And a special thank you to this gentleman:
Happy anniversary Cmdr Bond.
In Archivo 007 we pay tribute through an impressive video with hundreds of CR covers. Yes, your edition is here too...
We can't publish it on youtube because it is also a musical tribute, but I assure you, you are going to enjoy it... CHECK HERE
The final few paragraphs are Fleming at his very best.
Mine too. It's a great but simple plot, with one of Fleming's best ever villains. It also has one of my favourite passages. The card game at Blades.
It's my favourite Bond novel too. Great plot, great villain, different sort of Bond girl, good minor villains like Willy Krebs and Dr Walter. It has it all, plus it was the first Bond novel I ever read too.
I love all the Flemings. MR is another awesome book in the collection. But to me, the simplicity and audacity of CR are what give it the advantage.
"On the publication of Casino Royale it was apparent to many that a remarkable new writer had arrived on the scene, in the tradition of Buchan, Dornford Yates, and Sapper, although at that stage almost certainly more promising than any of these had been. Original in construction, the book contained many of the elements which were to become Fleming’s hallmark: evident familiarity with secret-service activities (not least those of his country’s enemies), portrayal of the kind of rich life to be found in exclusive clubs, smart restaurants, and fashionable resorts, obsessive interest in machines and gadgets and in gambling, an exotic setting, a formidable and physically repulsive villain, a strong sexual component, a glamorous and complaisant but affectionate heroine, and—of course—James Bond himself. Bond, at any rate on the surface, was a carefully constructed amalgam of what many men would like to be—and of what perhaps rather fewer women would like to meet: handsome, elegant, brave, tough, at ease in expensive surroundings, predatory and yet chivalrous in sexual dealings, with a touch of Byronic melancholy and remoteness thrown in.
"Some would say that Fleming never surpassed, perhaps never quite equaled, his achievement in Casino Royale. Certainly there is a power and freshness about the book which, in an age less rigidly hierarchical in its attitudes to literature, would have caused it to be hailed as one of the most remarkable first novels to be published in England in the previous thirty years."
That said, Fleming himself considered From Russia With Love his best book, and I'm inclined to agree with him.
I want to emphasise that I love all Flemings, even the somewhat controversial The Spy Who Loved Me and The Man With The Golden Gun. What makes them all so appealing to me is that they tell amazing stories, each one of them written in such a way that you take them seriously while still having all the fun of a sexy fantasy trip.
Meanwhile, Fleming is very matter-of-fact about it all. He doesn't need highly perfumed prose or a collection of big words no one ever uses to confirm his literary authority. Rather, he writes what happens, clean and simple, but fast and without lulls. The books move at lightspeed. I turn a page and have my fingers on the next one already because the story never takes a pause.
Fleming didn't write to show us, commoners, that his farts smell like roses. Fleming fired normal words out of his typewriter but built countless memorable sentences with them and showed his marksmanship that way. I'll take a Fleming over half the big "masterpieces" discussed in college any day.
I have always enjoyed TSWLM. I have never quite understood the controversy, other than accepting that the world wasn’t ready for an Ian Fleming James Bond novel to be a woman’s tale written in first person (and our hero doesn’t enter the picture until the last third). Otherwise, I thought Fleming really did capture the feminine voice of Vivienne. It was a damn fine creative experiment.
I hope we get some Bond news.
You can order it here :
https://www.tresordupatrimoine.fr/221415843-2-euro-james-bond-enduite.html
Probably should mention bookshops or something to make it clear what the product is!
Yeah. I would have thrown an "Ian Fleming's James Bond" on there somewhere, too have the full name etc.
I agree, I like that title for James Bond. Just don't put "Writing as Ian Fleming" on a book again.
For the rest of the 70th anniversary year, what other announcements do you honestly expect? Books, movies, all James Bond guesses are welcome!
Other than that, and comic adaptations and the like, I'm not sure there's much IFP can do with it.
*Mind you, I remember the Fleming centenary had that stage celebration where plenty of folks from the films, including two 007s, turned up. That was lots of fun.
I think more and more that IFP might do two book series at once: one with a Adult Bond and another with spinoff character(s). I think that Kim Sherwood’s 2nd book will be announced soon as she’s currently at least editing it and she started writing her 3rd. As for Charlie Higson and the future. I hope he writes more modern day novels, and possibly a spinoff novel for a character. He listed Blofeld and Irma Bunt as two of his favorite villains. I think he should write them in a modern day novel.
https://www.mi6-hq.com/news/index.php?itemid=6231
Do her books being set in the present day possibly affect the Bond series' chance of doing the same though? Can you have two series set at the same time running concurrently but in different continuities?
But one assumes OHisMSS won't have Bond under orders of Moneypenny (she's in charge in Double or Nothing, isn't she?).
I imagine MP won’t be M. For a while, we thought that Kim’s trilogy would follow Carte Blanche honestly.
But I guess Higson and Sherwood have been seen together at events and things; maybe they could make it work potentially.
How good would it be if OHisMSS ended with a ‘JAMES BOND WILL RETURN IN…’ page though? :)