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Ian Fleming as Major Dexter Smythe in 'Octopussy'?
Dragonpol
https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
Many of you here will know of the thesis put forward by some writers that 'Octopussy' is considered in some ways a suicide note from Ian Fleming. It is very self-referential and as part of my blog writing, I intend to write a substantial piece on this overlooked area of Bondology. In many ways 'Octopussy' is a sort of later 'Quatum of Solace' or 'The Hildebrand Rarity' from For Your Eyes Only (1960). Smythe and Fleming are the same age at the time of writing (1962) - it is a story of betrayal, deceit, murder, illicit gold dealings and tropical sealife like scorpion fishes and octopuses. It combines WWII memories for Fleming - his 30 AU 'Red Indians' especially - about which a new book appeared last year - Rankin's Ian Fleming's Commandos - he also has an interesting view on 'Octopussy' and its basic meaning. It is a story laden with sutextual meaning and I think it's high time these hidden qualities of this later gem from the pen of Fleming was reappraised.
I'd love to hear your views on this short story where again (after QoS), Bond has such a very minor role.
I'd love to hear your views on this short story where again (after QoS), Bond has such a very minor role.
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Comments
Personally, I think the reason that he used Bond as such a peripheral figure in these short stories was that it allowed him to take a break from writing about Bond, from being stuck into a formula, and was a way of expressing himself in a different way.
This is particularly true of Quantum of Solace, which has more in common, in terms of style, with a Somerset Maugham.
Fleming was getting bored of Bond, of that there is little doubt, or at least bored of the confines of the formula. Hence we see Bond "killed off" in From Russia With Love - a book that significantly breaks from the previous formulaic Bond novels by spending much of the novel with the antagonists and their plan. Similarly, The Spy Who Loved Me employs a similar break from tradition by writing from the first-person perspective of the heroine. By the time we reach You Only Live Twice, Bond has become a very different creature and the novel reads more like a travelogue than a piece of spy fiction.
With reference to Octopussy, I'm certain there is a degree of autobiography in it, much as there is a degree of autobiography in the character of Bond himself. However, I think that Fleming is just drawing on his wartime experiences to give us another type of story. I really love this short story, really because Fleming does go to some lengths to flesh out Smythe and make him a rather unlikable, yet somehow sympathetic character. The neat twist at the end, giving Bond a personal motivation as well as a professional one is neatly played by Fleming and it doesn't feel contrived. Also, Bond allowing Smythe to take an honourable way out adds another dimension to his character as well.
But is Fleming Smythe? I seriously doubt it. It's always interesting to revisit these short stories, but I think you may be reading more into this particular one than Fleming had intended.
@Dragonpol
It's interesting just how much Fleming seemed to dwell on suicide, death and mortality, particularly towards the end of his life: Tracy's attempt in OHMSS, Major Dexter Smyth in Octopussy, Bond himself considering it in YOLT and of course Shatterhand's whole Garden of Death.
Fleming may have been foreshadowing what he thought might be his own visit from the grim reaper.
The parallels between Smythe and Fleming though are striking, aside from one glaring difference, ie. Smythe was a right bastard and Fleming wasn't.
By making Smythe such a bad person, Fleming might have been attempting to take an exaggerated tough stand against his own foibles. When the chips are down, we often tend to judge ourselves harsher than others might, because we are only too aware of our own failings. But I'm not sure about that. Just speculation.
However it does seem Fleming was projecting somewhat via Smythe.
Thanks for your support - I do think that there's something to my theory. There was an article by Jacques Stewart of CBn in 2002 that posited that it was a suicide note, but others have had this theory too.
Or was he possibly drinking himself to death knowing his heart might not hold out?
I don't know. All we know is that he died of heart failure and that he might have been hitting the bottle kind of hard towards the end.
Yes, that's what I was getting at. He didn't want to give up on his luxuries and he seemed to hammer more heavily into them even after his first heart attack in April 1961. He seemed to not want to "waste his days in trying to prolong them" but rather "use his time". I think that would have made a fine epitaph to the life of Ian Fleming.
According to some of his acquaintances, he was (although not a murderer, of course).
Very good analysis of Fleming projecting too. Very interesting thread.
Well Bonds obituary in YOLT is certainly equally valid to use for Fleming and its pretty obvious throughout YOLT that Fleming is painfully aware of his own mortality and is fearing that his time is coming.
As for the 'suicide note' hypothesis I have a more literal anslysis. I would say that with his health failing and being told to cut down on his luxuries and take more and more pills its highly likely that on one of his daily snorkelling sessions the thought may well have occurred to him 'why not let an octopus grab you or a scorpion fish sting you and be done with it all?'
Of course this being real life he rejected this grisly idea but perhaps recycled it for the autobiographical character of Major Dexter-Smythe.
I think its unrguable that Dexter-Smythe was based on Fleming and I would even go further and say that Dexter-Smythe is actually an even truer portrayal of Ian than Bond himself who was more Flemings wish fulfilment.
Dexter-Smythe spoke German fluently, only really dabbled in terms of seeing action during the war, loved golf (The Henry Cotton irons!), retired to Jamaica, loved snorkelling and the underwater world, smoked and drank too much and he was dying of heart disease.
He ended up more against it than Fleming with his heart disease more advanced and the spectre of Bond appearing in the wings so Fleming maybe gave him the honourable way out that he had perhaps dreamed up as a suicide option for himself when he was having some of the morbid thoughts that pervade his later novels?
And let it not be forgotten that in the final paragraph of OP Bond himself assumes the death to be a suicide rather than an accident (although Fleming clearly shows the death of Major Dexter-Smythe accidental).
Wow! Thanks. Much food for thought there, Ice. I think you may be onto something there. This is all very much grist to the mill. I like the idea of the short story being Fleming's suicide pipe dream, so to speak. Perhaps the character of James Bond turning up was something of a sop to his audience - perhaps he represented the Frankenstein's Monster that the character had become for Fleming by this stage - James Bond had become a rat on a treadmill for Fleming and he did not know how to end the story arc.
Just some additional observations that come to mind.
http://commanderbond.net/1117/to-whom-it-may-concern-octopussy.html
Yes, it's a very good early CBn article from 2002. I'm writing a piece on 'Octopussy', although it will have a different focus.
Even his references to marriage ring true for old Ian.
Very interesting.
Who wrote that?
It was written by Jacques Stewart (username: Jim, http://debrief.commanderbond.net/user/399-jim/), a moderator on CBn Forums in 2002. It's one of the best pieces he ever wrote and I think it still holds up very well indeed.
I don't think so. Jim's essay is simply wrong: there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that Fleming felt guilty over the McClory case. Fleming wanted to keep battling on, and would have done so if Ivar Bryce hadn't thrown in the towel. When Fleming returned to Jamaica, he bitterly denounced Bryce to his mistress Blanche Blackwell (though he remained friends with Bryce, there was a cloud over the relationship). Fleming regarded McClory as a blarney artist and nothing more. He felt entitled to make use of the Thunderball drafts because he thought Bryce owned them and because a book of the film would have to be written anyway.
Undoubtedly Fleming drew upon himself to portray Major Smythe, the only British villain in the Bond books. Smythe perhaps represented a worst-case scenario for Fleming (the character's wife even commits suicide), but Smythe's guilty past owes more to Fleming's experiences and knowledge of WWII than to any guilty feelings on Fleming's part. There are very few things in his life that Ian Fleming ever felt guilty about. McClory was not one of them.
"Octopussy" is a fascinating story because it contains more direct elements of autobiography than usual in the Bond stories (as does The Spy Who Loved Me). But there's a danger in going too far in finding autobiographical resonances.
As much as I liked that article, I think you are right on this, @Revelator. I intend to write my own blog piece on this short story at some point, and I have a bit of a different take on things.
I'll look forward to it. I recently found Philip Larkin's review of Octopussy, and it turns out he beat us to the punch:
Trust Larkin to phrase it better than of us could! I'll post the full review tomorrow.
Wow! That is amazing! I look forward to reading the full review; it's all grist to the mill. I know that Anthony Burgess also wrote a review for I think the TLS for this short story collection, though I think that spynovelfan on CBn Forums shared it with us over there.
Yes, I really wish he had lived a lot longer too, @Readyhere. Welcome to MI6 Community, by the way!
Very nicely put there, @Samuel001!
The parallel between Smythe and Fleming is interesting but something else to bear in mind. It is somewhat of an exaggeration. It's fine for old Ian to be hard on himself. That's his prerogative. But the literary invention Smythe was a right murderous bastard. The parallel is there but its exaggerated in the person of Smythe.