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 In 1952, a retired British intelligence agent named Ian Fleming wrote a manuscript. Beyond all expectations, the novel that his ex-girlfriend thought was so bad that it should be published under a pseudonym sold out multiple print runs and suddenly became a phenomenon. The film adaptation of Dr. No in 1962 established a media juggernaut that hasn't stopped even now; the James Bond series is now worth an estimated $19.9 billion as of 2015 and spans 24 official films (and 3 unofficial ones), dozens of novels written long after Fleming's death, and 28 video games of such prominence as to change the face of gaming forever with the revolutionary GoldenEye 007. Despite this, I'd argue that the vast majority of Bond fans have left the books virtually ignored. It's not surprising, as they're old books written by an extremely British man. References have been out of date for two generations, action is subdued and often includes excessive detail regarding tense card games, and Bond is only one of the many shockingly racist and misogynistic characters displayed. It's little surprise that fans of a series that's been mainly known for its elaborate gunfights and car chases would rather forget the books existed as anything but a footnote. But I say they're still worth reading. Even aside from serving as the inspiration for one of the biggest fiction franchises in history, they serve as a looking glass into life in the 50s and 60s. The Bond series was a form of escapism for red-blooded British men still living under rationing until 1954. In a world where the average reader has probably never left smoggy England except for war service and is still living off of Spam and brown bread while puttering around in a used Morris, James Bond gets to travel to exotic locations from sea to shining sea, eating all the local cuisine that the audience may have never even heard of and driving rare sports cars in breakneck chases. Despite their reputation as two-fisted manly man quasi-pulp, the James Bond novels are some of the most exquisitely detailed works to ever come out of the 20th century. They almost serve as travelogues with a coating of intrigue, with whole paragraphs dedicated simply to describing the meals characters are eating and exactly why they order their food and drinks the way they do. The globetrotting action serves as a tourist's guide to Turkey, France, New York City, Florida, Japan, and countless other locations. Jamaica, in particular, receives a ton of focus for Fleming's personal reasons. Bond is not merely a window into everyday life and culture 60 years ago, but an example of what kind of life people wanted. How will we do this? At the moment, I only plan to cover the original Ian Fleming novels. I haven't read any non-Fleming books so I'm not sure if they're quite good enough and have the traits that this thread could be focusing on. This is more of a literary criticism thread than a "point and laugh" thread, unlike my prior Let's Reads that exclusively dealt with lovely books. I personally find Fleming's writing perfectly fine most of the time, so there's not much to criticize from that front. That said, feel free to talk about any mistakes or especially good things he does. This thread will have a lot of focus on the detail Fleming fills his books with. I'll be stopping regularly to talk about the food, drinks, cars, guns, and other descriptions of what Bond experiences and enjoys; you could almost consider this a food and drink thread with how much Bond eats and drinks (and holy poo poo does he drink). Along with just the enjoyment of it, it provides historical and local context that Fleming may have failed to provide because he expected anyone in that contemporary setting to recognize it. And yes, this thread will focus on the really bad stuff. Bond is very intentionally written as racist, sexist, and homophobic to a degree that a modern GOP candidate would be unsure of quoting him in public. Fleming blamed this partially on intentionally writing Bond as a not-very-good man and targeting the quintessential tough heterosexual male audience with his books, but they still serve to make Bond unintentionally unsympathetic at times. The books can be somewhat controversial in modern day for how terrible of a hero Bond is, and that's absolutely a topic that should be talked about even if we enjoy the rest of them. Spoiler Policy When it comes to the books, no spoilers. Not even in spoiler tags. Also, no movie spoilers if they match what happens in the books. While some of the movies are adaptations in name only, some of them (especially Casino Royale) angle so closely to the book that having seen the movie means you already know how the plot will go and what the ending twist is. I'd like for any legitimate surprises to stay legitimate. That said, any aspects of the movie that don't happen in the books are free game! I'm sure we all have strong opinions on Moonraker. Also, there will be a few moments where I intentionally spoil something for the purposes of exposition. When I do this, it'll be included in spoiler tags and will be free to talk about as long as you keep spoiler tags on until we reach it. Table of Contents 1. Casino Royale 2. Live and Let Die 3. Moonraker 4. Diamonds Are Forever 5. From Russia With Love 6. Dr. No 7. Goldfinger 8. For Your Eyes Only 9. Thunderball 10. The Spy Who Loved Me 11. On Her Majesty's Secret Service 12. You Only Live Twice 13. Octopussy and The Living Daylights 14. The Man with the Golden Gun 15. Bonus chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Mar 23, 2020 |
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Jun 26, 2018 21:29
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I read the first half of the series a number of years ago, then re-read that and finished it late last year and early this year, so I'll follow with interest.
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Jun 26, 2018 21:57
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Who was Ian Fleming? While ordinarily a long post on the author wouldn't really do much good for understanding the books, to understand Ian Fleming is to understand James Bond, and vice versa. Some have gone so far as to say that Fleming was Bond, though not all agree. Ian Lancaster Fleming was born on May 28th, 1908 (also my birthday!) to a wealthy family that made its money on a merchant bank and a Parliament seat; when his father was killed in World War I, Winston Churchill wrote his obituary. Fleming went to private schools, excelling in athletics but having trouble with academics and his housemaster at Eton for basically behaving like a womanizing playboy. He failed to get into the Royal Military College in 1927 after contracting gonorrhea. Fleming got a job as a Reuters journalist, covering show trials in Moscow and even getting a personally signed letter from Stalin himself apologizing for being unable to give an interview. After some romances and affairs while working in the unsatisfying banking and stockbroking fields, Fleming finally followed in his family's footsteps and was recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy, as his personal assistant. He had basically no qualifications whatsoever, but excelled in the role and served as a liaison with all the major sections of British Intelligence. Fleming quickly began writing plans for special operations despite never once serving in the field, from planting faked invasion plans on a corpse to be found to faking a downed German bomber and capturing the Kriegsmarine vessel that tried to rescue the "airmen". Not all of his ideas were awesome, but some were workable enough that other people put similar plans into motion like Operation Mincemeat. Fleming even assisted in creating the blueprint for the office that would eventually become the CIA. The first plan of his to be put into motion was Operation Goldeneye, intended to prevent Spain from potentially joining the Axis and assisting in the invasion of Europe, though it was shortly canceled after it became apparent that Spain wasn't a threat. Fleming also formed 30 Assault Unit (30AU), a unit of special commandos intended to target enemy headquarters in advance of an attack to seize vital documents before they could be destroyed. 30AU saw heavy action in operations all the way through Operation Overlord into the invasion of Germany, though Fleming never actually saw combat with them and fought attempts to utilize them as a generic commando unit; they didn't like him very much. Fleming also served on the target selection committee for the Target Force, or T-Force, which would capture important documents, equipment, and intelligence in recently captured towns (and earned the Danish Frihedsmedalje in 1947 for his work in helping Danish officers escaped the German occupation into Britain). During a 1942 Anglo-American intelligence summit in Jamaica, he fell in love with the island and established a home there: Goldeneye.  Upon his retirement, Fleming returned to work as a newspaper editor and the Foreign Manager for the Kemsley newspaper group, where he took 3 months' holiday in Jamaica every year. It was on one of these vacations at Goldeneye that he decided to write a spy novel, and did so in just 2 months. While initial feedback from friends and family was mixed, he took a chance and published it. The sudden success led to Fleming writing a whole series of books about the worldwide adventures of James Bond. While he suffered criticism, the success (including President John F. Kennedy listing two of the books on his list of favorites) led to attempts to turn the books into films, finally succeeding with Dr. No in 1962. Fleming loved the choice of Sean Connery for the role, to the point of writing in Scottish heritage in the later books. Unfortunately, Bond's habit of heavy smoking and drinking mirrored Fleming's own. On August 11th, 1964, Fleming collapsed shortly after dinner from a heart attack and died the next morning. The Man With The Golden Gun had been completed but still in the first draft, and was reluctantly published in its simplistic, virtually unedited form. -------------- So where does this all come into play with James Bond? The most obvious is that Bond is a spy much as Fleming was a spy. Fleming loved the opportunity to travel the world, eating fine foods on the government's dime and gambling in international casinos and bars. It's unclear right now with currently unclassified documents just how much (if any) action Fleming saw as a spy, and some have brushed him off as a playboy who liked to pretend he was gambling against dangerous foreign agents instead of drunken tourists. Much of the Bond novels come from Fleming's own life experiences and the people he knew. Real soldiers and spies named as an inspiration for Bond include Patrick Dalzel-Job, Conrad O'Brien-ffrench (that last name's not a typo), Duško Popov, Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale, and Sir Fitzroy Maclean. Many of Bond's personal traits come from Fleming as well, from his custom cigarettes to his food and toiletry brand preferences. Fleming's love of Jamaica shows itself in a huge number of appearances all the way from the first book. Even the name of James Bond came from an ornithologist whose book Fleming had; ironically in retrospect, he chose it because it was a very boring, masculine name that would never attract any attention. Even other characters came from Fleming's life. Scaramanga was named after a school bully. Goldfinger was named after architect Ernő Goldfinger specifically because Fleming hated his work. It wasn't just enemies that became villains, as "Boofy" Kidd in Diamonds Are Forever was named after a close friend of his, Arthur "Boofy" Gore, 8th Earl of Arran. The books thus act as a sort of look at what Fleming was like and what he was into. He took "Write what you know" to heart, showcasing his own lifestyle, preferences, and experiences.
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Jun 26, 2018 23:25
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Fleming was actually opposed to Connery before he saw the movie; his preferred choice was supposedly Richard Todd, but he changed his mind when he saw Dr No which is what convinced him to add in Bond's Scottish heritage.
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Jun 27, 2018 00:39
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Wheat Loaf posted:Fleming was actually opposed to Connery before he saw the movie; his preferred choice was supposedly Richard Todd, but he changed his mind when he saw Dr No which is what convinced him to add in Bond's Scottish heritage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZNULYec0WA&t=85s I'd definitely say Connery was the better choice. Todd is lacking the sort of roughness that Connery's face and voice provided that matched Fleming's commissioned sketch of him.
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Jun 27, 2018 02:08
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Casino Royale All of the Bond novels went through a lot of covers as new editions were printed over the decades, but I'll be starting each book with the first edition as conceived and/or approved by Fleming. Casino Royale is a rather subdued intro to James Bond and lacks some of the hallmarks of later books, like wide globetrotting adventurism and pulp-style action scenes and traps. The main plot is centered around high stakes gambling rather than elaborate plots that must be investigated; while later Bond novels take some inspiration from detective fiction by having Bond presented with a case to solve (albeit normally ones of greater stakes than a single dead body), the plot for Casino Royale will be laid out very soon in the book. Rather than requiring Bond to learn what the villain's plan is or how he's getting away with it, the tension comes instead from twists on the basic plot itself: we know what Bond's task is, but not if he'll succeed or what the costs will be. As we read the later books, you'll also notice a rather different characterization to Bond. Fleming conceived of Bond as kind of a lovely person even beyond his backwards views, a government tool struggling to deal with his place in a world where the definition of good and evil changes sides often. While some get through to him, Bond is a stone cold killer and is initially treated as exactly that. This began to change as Fleming's stories became more elaborate and popular, and we especially start seeing changes after the first few films start to overtake the books in prominence in the 1960s and Fleming feels like he should write closer to Sean Connery's portrayal.
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Jun 27, 2018 15:28
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Chapter 1: The Secret Agent I'll be posting the chapter names simply for the sake of one really, really, really awful one in the next book. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it. quote:The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling – a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension – becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it. Fleming hits us hard with a lot of old French casino terminology, from an antiquated spelling of "cashier" to unexplained summaries of how winnings were made. The only game you'll really have to know how to play is baccarat, which is fortunately a very easy game to learn (similar to blackjack) and is explained in full by Bond later in the book. Bond nods to the man guarding the doors of the salle privée (a private gambling room, generally reserved for high stakes) and casually reflects on how hard it would be for someone to rob the Casino Royale. He estimates it would require at least 10 men and probably killing one or two employees, and there's certainly no way Le Chiffre could find 10 killers in France who would never squeal to the cops. quote:As he gave a thousand francs to the ‘vestiaire’ and walked down the steps of the casino, Bond made up his mind that Le Chiffre would in no circumstances try to rob the caisse and he put the contingency out of his mind. Instead he explored his present physical sensations. He felt the dry, uncomfortable gravel under his evening shoes, the bad, harsh taste in his mouth and the slight sweat under his arms. He could feel his eyes filling their sockets. The front of his face, his nose and antrum, were congested. He breathed the sweet night air deeply and focused his senses and his wits. He wanted to know if anyone had searched his room since he had left it before dinner. The numbers that get thrown around in this book seem tremendous, like a 1000 franc tip. Francs were actually heavily devalued in the 1950s, though it can be rather difficult to figure out exactly what any of these numbers are worth in modern dollars. Some research suggests a conversion of 350 francs to 1 dollar in 1950s money, and $1 in 1953 is $9.46 now. Assuming I'm doing my math right, 1000 francs in 1953 would have been equivalent to $2.85 in 1953, or $26.96 in modern dollars. A pretty standard high roller's tip for a concierge. quote:He walked across the broad boulevard and through the gardens to the Hotel Splendide. He smiled at the concierge who gave him his key – No. 45 on the first floor – and took the cable. The telegram is a coded message letting Bond know that the 10 million francs (a little over $270,000 in modern money) he requested that afternoon was on its way to him. Remember how I mentioned that Bond shares Fleming's love of Jamaica after going on an assignment there? For his cover, Bond has chosen to be an employ of Messrs Caffery, the principle import/export firm of Jamaica. His controller, Fawcett, is the head of the picture desk for the Daily Gleaner (another reference to Fleming's newspaper career); he was formerly the bookkeeper for a turtle fishery in the Cayman Islands and volunteered as a paymaster's clerk in a small Naval Intelligence section in Malta. After the war ended, he was recruited by the Secret Service, trained in photography, and planted at the Gleaner. In addition to sorting through news photographs to decide what to put in the papers, Fawcett is now occasionally contacted to perform simple operations with the utmost speed and discretion, receiving a monthly paycheck of 20 pounds (about $530) deposited in his Canadian bank account by a fictitious relative in England. quote:Fawcett’s present assignment was to relay immediately to Bond, full rates, the text of messages which he received at home by telephone from his anonymous contact. He had been told by this contact that nothing he would be asked to send would arouse the suspicion of the Jamaican post office. So he was not surprised to find himself suddenly appointed string correspondent for the ‘Maritime Press and Photo Agency’, with press-collect facilities to France and England, on a further monthly retainer of ten pounds. I wonder if Fawcett has any connection to someone Fleming knew. As you can see, even the start of the book is filled to the brim with details that other authors would likely have considered extraneous. Fleming's writing style at the time, per his own words, was about three hours in the morning and another hour in the evening, without going back and editing anything. After he became a true professional author he would save the details for later drafts and start by submitting a more bare manuscript, but Casino Royale is practically an alcohol-fueled stream of consciousness from Fleming's own experiences and imagination. Bond tears off a notepad page (to avoid leaving a carbon copy for the casino's office) and writes a short thank-you telegram back. He pockets the telegram he got, figuring any spies would easily be able to get a copy of it through bribery or reading the upside-down page in Bond's hands, and takes the stairs instead of the lift. quote:Bond knew exactly where the switch was and it was with one flow of motion that he stood on the threshold with the door full open, the light on and a gun in his hand. The safe, empty room sneered at him. He ignored the half-open door of the bathroom and, locking himself in, he turned up the bed-light and the mirror-light and threw his gun on the settee beside the window. Then he bent down and inspected one of his own black hairs which still lay undisturbed where he had left it before dinner, wedged into the drawer of the writing-desk. Satisfied that his room had not been searched, Bond takes a cold shower and smokes his 70th (!) cigarette of the day. He records his winnings in a small notebook, brushes his teeth, and climbs into bed. quote:His last action was to slip his right hand under the pillow until it rested under the butt of the .38 Colt Police Positive with the sawn barrel. Then he slept, and with the warmth and humour of his eyes extinguished, his features relapsed into a taciturn mask, ironical, brutal, and cold.
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Jun 27, 2018 16:26
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chitoryu12 posted:Casino Royale is practically an alcohol-fueled stream of consciousness from Fleming's own experiences and imagination. Still better prose than the last few 'authors' we suffered through.
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Jun 27, 2018 18:30
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Sperglord Actual posted:Still better prose than the last few 'authors' we suffered through. Yeah, I actually enjoy Fleming's style. The detail especially helps, as these books were meant to showcase all the wonders of the world that ordinary men in rainy ol' England would never get to see. Live And Let Die is an East Coast book that goes all the way from Manhattan to St. Pete and ends in Jamaica.
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Jun 27, 2018 18:53
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Fleming had a number of influences; his plotting and characters, for instance, were quite heavily influenced by adventure writers like John Buchan and Eric Ambler. But I think his prose style is influenced mainly by Raymond Chandler Maybe with a bit of Mickey Spillane, though it's obviously not hardboiled like Spillane was.
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Jun 27, 2018 19:10
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Wheat Loaf posted:Fleming had a number of influences; his plotting and characters, for instance, were quite heavily influenced by adventure writers like John Buchan and Eric Ambler. But I think his prose style is influenced mainly by Raymond Chandler Maybe with a bit of Mickey Spillane, though it's obviously not hardboiled like Spillane was. The later books definitely take inspiration from detective fiction. The biggest difference is probably that Bond is a dude with very particular tastes obsessed with eating fine food and drink and taking full advantage of his unlimited mission budget, so in between finding clues and interrogating people he’s waxing poetic on fine dining and drinking absolutely dangerous amounts of whiskey.
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Jun 27, 2018 19:17
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chitoryu12 posted:Yeah, I actually enjoy Fleming's style. The detail especially helps, as these books were meant to showcase all the wonders of the world that ordinary men in rainy ol' England would never get to see. Live And Let Die is an East Coast book that goes all the way from Manhattan to St. Pete and ends in Jamaica. I've never read Fleming, but I liked the parts you've quoted so far. His writing conveys a real texture to his settings giving a high-scale casino a real film of grimy desperation in the wee hours of the morning.
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Jun 27, 2018 19:37
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Oh man, I remember reading all of the Fleming books when I was a kid. This is going to be fun.chitoryu12 posted:The later books definitely take inspiration from detective fiction. The biggest difference is probably that Bond is a dude with very particular tastes obsessed with eating fine food and drink and taking full advantage of his unlimited mission budget, so in between finding clues and interrogating people he’s waxing poetic on fine dining and drinking absolutely dangerous amounts of whiskey. In one of the earlier books, at least, I remember there's a short passage about how MI6 frowns on a lot of his living-it-up expenses, but he does a lot of them (particularly his gambling) with his own savings. While he's living at home he lives a modest but comfortable roast-beef-soft-boiled-eggs-and-other-British-staples sort of existence. He has a government pension waiting in the future, but in truth it doesn't matter; he expects that one day before then he will take a mission where he doesn't come back alive. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow, Mr. Bond, you expect yourself to die.
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Jun 27, 2018 19:39
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Yond Cassius posted:Oh man, I remember reading all of the Fleming books when I was a kid. This is going to be fun. I think the quoted amount Bond gets for his salary is (adjusted for inflation) something like $30,000 a year. He just gets an unlimited expense account on missions, and at the Casino Royale he's specifically being bankrolled by MI6 to gamble. The books show off more of Bond's talent as a card shark where the movies just display gambling as a pastime to add flavor. Proteus Jones posted:I've never read Fleming, but I liked the parts you've quoted so far. His writing conveys a real texture to his settings giving a high-scale casino a real film of grimy desperation in the wee hours of the morning. It's one of those signs that Fleming really was writing a lot of this from experience. He probably spent a lot of nights drinking and smoking and playing cards until he stumbled out at 3:00 AM feeling ready to pass out.
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Jun 27, 2018 19:46
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chitoryu12 posted:I think the quoted amount Bond gets for his salary is (adjusted for inflation) something like $30,000 a year. He just gets an unlimited expense account on missions, and at the Casino Royale he's specifically being bankrolled by MI6 to gamble. The books show off more of Bond's talent as a card shark where the movies just display gambling as a pastime to add flavor. Bond definitely gets a lot of MI6 resources thrown behind him when the mission calls for it, but I remember being interested in the characterization that he lives big on assignment with the expectation that his future isn't worth saving for. It's just a little hint of that stone-cold government-thug Bond that you mentioned. The sophisticated, cosmopolitan "Bond, James Bond" is as much a character to himself as to the rest of the world.
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Jun 27, 2018 20:45
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chitoryu12 posted:The later books definitely take inspiration from detective fiction. The biggest difference is probably that Bond is a dude with very particular tastes obsessed with eating fine food and drink and taking full advantage of his unlimited mission budget, so in between finding clues and interrogating people he’s waxing poetic on fine dining and drinking absolutely dangerous amounts of whiskey. Appropriately enough, there is a point (and it's not a spoiler or even plot relevant so hopefully you won't mind me posting it - I'll delete this if you like since it's your thread) in On Her Majesty's Secret Service where M has a discussion with Bond which somehow leads to Bond remarking that he enjoys reading Nero Wolfe novels. 
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Jun 27, 2018 21:05
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Wheat Loaf posted:Appropriately enough, there is a point (and it's not a spoiler or even plot relevant so hopefully you won't mind me posting it - I'll delete this if you like since it's your thread) in On Her Majesty's Secret Service where M has a discussion with Bond which somehow leads to Bond remarking that he enjoys reading Nero Wolfe novels. So much of Bond is just Fleming and his life. We get a mention of Bond's cigarettes later, and they're the exact same custom blend and paper that Fleming smoked. He also smokes and drinks the same as Fleming did; it's no wonder the author died of a heart attack so young at 70-80 cigarettes a day. "Smokes like a chimney" is an understatement. Sometimes chimneys aren't being used. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jun 27, 2018 |
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Jun 27, 2018 21:14
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Chapter 2: Dossier For Mquote:Two weeks before, this memorandum had gone from Station S. of the Secret Service to M., who was then and is today head of this adjunct to the British defence ministries: Syndicat des Ouvriers d'Alsace, or SODA, translates to "Alsatian Workmen's Union". A major theme of all the books but especially this early one is the growing threat of communism around the world. At the time of this book's writing in 1952, fear of fifth columnists hiding in socialist organizations like trade unions was a major topic in the news. 1951 had also seen the sudden defection of Donald Maclean and Guy Hicks from the British embassy staff to the USSR after British authorities started to uncover that they were actually Soviet spies, a headline-making incident that would eventually uncover the Cambridge Five spy ring. The idea of a French union actually being a front for Soviet intelligence was a very real thing back then. The report goes into detail on what Le Chiffre has been up to. In 1946, he purchased control of the Cordon Jaune ("Yellow Ribbon") chain of brothels with 50 million francs provided by Leningrad Section III for financing SODA. The Secret Service suspects that he really did intend for this to be an investment to help finance Soviet operations, but was a careless choice from his desire to have access to women. Unfortunately he had the worst timing, as just a few months later France passed Law No. 46685, officially titled Loi Tendant à la Fermeture des Maisons de Tolérance et au Renforcement de la Lutte contre le Proxénitisme and popularly known as "La Loi Marthe Richard". quote:(When M. came to this sentence he grunted and pressed a switch on the intercom. ‘Head of S.?’ So at the time Le Chiffre purchased the brothels, France had legalized and regulated prostitution since 1804. However, when Marthe Richard was elected councilor of the 4th arrondissement of Paris in December 1945 she demanded an end to prostitution in Paris as an avenue for organized crime and in retaliation for perceived complicity by the prostitution industry in the German occupation of France (she was also a prostitute herself in her youth, in addition to being a pilot and interwar spy). This was passed quickly, and Richard was so emboldened by success that she immediately campaigned for the closure of all French brothels. Within 3 months, Le Chiffre's investment has had its bottom knocked out from under it. He tried to continue by converting the brothels into the French equivalent of "no-tell motels" and operating underground porn theaters, but it wasn't nearly enough to cover his overhead and the police quickly started closing down his illegal operations. quote:The police were, of course, only interested in this man as a big-time brothel-keeper and it was not until we expressed an interest in his finances that the Deuxième Bureau unearthed the parallel dossier which was running with their colleagues of the police department. So going by the inflation calculations we did earlier, that's about $1.4 million in modern money that Le Chiffre just bungled on a bad investment he didn't have permission to make. You can see why he might be up poo poo creek without a paddle. So, SMERSH. This Soviet intelligence organization is a common enemy in Bond books; while film aficionados are familiar with SPECTRE as Bond's nemesis, they're introduced later in the book series and many of the earlier books that were turned into movies actually had SMERSH in the role. In real life, SMERSH was actually a World War II organization specifically aimed at preventing German infiltration of the Red Army on the Eastern Front (in addition to other Army intelligence work like investigating traitors and sabotage, which in the Soviet Union could also include "failed to make a new project work in time"). In May 1946 the organization was disbanded and absorbed into the Ministry for State Security. The actual organization that would have been operating at the time would have been that ministry, the MGB, but obviously Fleming probably couldn't have known that SMERSH had already been disbanded at the time of writing. The Secret Service suspects that Le Chiffre knows how desperate his situation is, but the fact that he hasn't killed himself or gone into hiding suggests that he hasn't figured out that SMERSH is on his tail. He'd never be able to recoup the money with drug dealing, stock trading, or betting on races. Instead, it seems like Le Chiffre's plan is to take the remaining 25 million francs from SODA, move into a villa in Royale-les-Eaux just north of Dieppe on the Normandy coast, and visit the Casino Royale to engage in high stakes gambling to win the money back before SMERSH can find out. quote:Proposed Counter-operation The report goes into a biography of Le Chiffre next. His birth name is unknown and all of his aliases are variants on "The Cipher"; he was recovered from the Dachau concentration camp by American soldiers in 1945 suffering from amnesia and muteness. The only memory he regained was associations with Alsace Lorraine and Strasbourg, so he was given a stateless passport with a number and sent to France. He adopted Le Chiffre as his name, saying it's because he was "just a number on a passport". quote:Age: About 45. The inspiration Fleming took for Le Chiffre's appearance was partially based on famed occultist Aleister Crowley, which artwork of the character follows:   Le Chiffre has also had the most actors portraying him of any Bond villain, as it took several attempts at a Casino Royale film before it stuck. He was first portrayed by Peter Lorre in a 1954 TV play adaptation that cast Barry Nelson as the American "Jimmy Bond". The bizarre 1967 satirical adaptation cast Orson Welles (definitely closer to the 18 stone weight listed in his dossier), and finally the official adaptation in 2006 that saw the series rebooted with Daniel Craig cast Mads Mikkelsen as a fitter, sleeker Le Chiffre that probably encompasses the character's authentic danger a bit more.    quote:Appendix B.
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Jun 28, 2018 13:55
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chitoryu12 posted:Fleming probably couldn't have known that SMERSH had already been disbanded at the time of writing. Considering the name's meaning, I suspect he might well have chosen to keep it anyway.
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Jun 28, 2018 17:58
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Sperglord Actual posted:Considering the name's meaning, I suspect he might well have chosen to keep it anyway. Yeah, it's an awesome name for a villainous organization. And it's not as if Fleming was going for technothriller accuracy.
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Jun 28, 2018 20:28
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Depending on the nature of Fleming’s retirement, he may have just been unaware at the time that a rival intelligence organization had been absorbed back into the main body. This was written 2 years before the KGB was established.
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Jun 28, 2018 20:37
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so you've gone from the crazed xenophobic ramblings of a violent racist to *checks notes* the same thing but with a posh accent
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Jun 29, 2018 00:47
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Mel Mudkiper posted:so you've gone from the crazed xenophobic ramblings of a violent racist to *checks notes* the same thing but with a posh accent But what of the prose Mel Mudkiper
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Jun 29, 2018 01:38
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chitoryu12 posted:But what of the prose Mel Mudkiper I dunno I haven't read any James Bond I only got so much time to be dismissive and lovely all right?
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Jun 29, 2018 02:33
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I dunno I haven't read any James Bond Hey, we’re just happy you aren’t BoL
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Jun 29, 2018 13:20
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Odd fact: Sting wrote Every Breath You Take at Fleming's writing desk while vacationing at the Goldeneye estate in 1982.
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Jun 29, 2018 13:37
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Chapter 3: Number 007quote:Head of S. (the section of the Secret Service concerned with the Soviet Union) was so keen on his plan for the destruction of Le Chiffre, and it was basically his own plan, that he took the memorandum himself and went up to the top floor of the gloomy building overlooking Regent’s Park and through the green baize door and along the corridor to the end room. Moneypenny was originally named Miss 'Petty' Pettaval in the first draft of the book and was based on Kathleen Pettigrew, the personal assistant to MI6 director Stewart Menzies. To make his inspiration a little less obvious, he changed the name to something a bit more dramatic. In the films, Miss Moneypenny has gone through as many actor changes as Bond himself. Arguably the most famous depiction is from the late Lois Maxwell, who portrayed her from Dr. No all the way through A View To A Kill. Just as Roger Moore left the role due to being Grandpa Bond at that time, Lois Maxwell was replaced by the younger Caroline Bliss for the two Timothy Dalton films. Pierce Brosnan got yet another modernization with the very appropriately named Samantha Bond, easily recognizable by her short 90s haircut. The current Eve Moneypenny is by far the most dramatic change, a young black woman played by Naomie Harris who actually gets out in the field.     Bill is later given the full name of Bill Tanner. He makes intermittent appearances through both the novels and the films, though never very important ones. He doesn't even make his first film appearance until The Man With the Golden Gun and isn't even named until the end credits. He's been portrayed by Michael Goodliffe, James Villiers, Michael Kitchen and Rory Kinnear (the godson of Judi Dench's late husband).  M. gives his approval of the operation, and Head of S. and his Number Two talk about how things will go from there. They figure that a Double-O agent will be sent, most likely 007 since he's tough enough to deal with Le Chiffre's gunmen and a skilled gambler who spent two months in Monte Carlo before the war stopping a Romanian card cheat team. Bond's interview with M. is short, so short that we'll actually continue into the next chapter to avoid ending immediately. He initially tries to get out of it due to not liking the odds at baccarat, but M. knows the odds just as well and won't take "no" for an answer. quote:‘He can have a bad run too,’ said M. ‘You’ll have plenty of capital. Up to twenty-five million, the same as him. We’ll start you on ten and send you another ten when you’ve had a look round. You can make the extra five yourself.’ He smiled. ‘Go over a few days before the big game starts and get your hand in. Have a talk to Q. about rooms and trains, and any equipment you want. The Paymaster will fix the funds. I’m going to ask the Deuxième to stand by. It’s their territory and as it is we shall be lucky if they don’t kick up rough. I’ll try and persuade them to send Mathis. You seemed to get on well with him in Monte Carlo on that other Casino job. And I’m going to tell Washington because of the N.A.T.O. angle. C.I.A. have got one or two good men at Fontainebleau with the joint intelligence chaps there. Anything else?’ Chapter 4: L'Ennemi Écoute quote:As, two weeks later, James Bond awoke in his room at the Hotel Splendide, some of this history passed through his mind. Bond has been gambling constantly at the casino since arriving, earning 3 million francs, memorizing the casino floorplan, and watching Le Chiffre play. He's a "faultless and lucky" gambler. quote:Bond liked to make a good breakfast. After a cold shower, he sat at the writing-table in front of the window. He looked out at the beautiful day and consumed half a pint of iced orange juice, three scrambled eggs and bacon and a double portion of coffee without sugar. He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street, and watched the small waves lick the long seashore and the fishing fleet from Dieppe string out towards the June heat-haze followed by a paper-chase of herring-gulls. We get our first food and drink in this chapter! One thing Bond will display over the course of the series is an absolute love of eggs. Scrambled, fried, boiled, however you can prepare an egg. As much as he eats high class cuisine or exotic foreign food, when given the opportunity he'll often default to a hearty English or American-style breakfast. Also, the cigarettes Bond smokes are the exact same custom blend and shop that Ian Fleming had made for himself. While it's not mentioned yet, both Bond and Fleming held the rank of commander in the Royal Navy and customized the cigarette with three gold stripes to mimic the sleeve insignia of a commander's jacket.  The phone rings, the concierge informing Bond that a Director of Radio Stentor from Paris is here with the wireless set he ordered. This is the cover Rene Mathis is using to meet him. quote:When Mathis came in, a respectable business man carrying a large square parcel by its leather handle, Bond smiled broadly and would have greeted him with warmth if Mathis had not frowned and held up his free hand after carefully closing the door. As Mathis fiddles with the back of the set, a massive burst of static fills the room. He apologizes and begins messing with the knobs before music finally starts loudly piping through. As soon as they have their audio cover, Mathis gives Bond a smile and firm handshake. quote:‘My dear friend,’ Mathis was delighted, ‘you are blown, blown, blown. Up there,’ he pointed at the ceiling, ‘at this moment, either Monsieur Muntz or his alleged wife, allegedly bedridden with the “grippe”, is deafened, absolutely deafened, and I hope in agony.’ He grinned with pleasure at Bond’s frown of disbelief. Bond checks the fireplace and finds tiny scratches on the screws, confirming what Mathis said. I like Mathis, and I also like that in these early books especially Bond isn't portrayed as the best secret agent in the world. He's still vulnerable and still able to be outwitted and outfought by both his enemies and allies. Bond and Mathis turn off the radio and do some more play acting for the benefit of the enemy spies above, which ends with Bond cheerfully asking to hear the rest of the program and turning the radio back on. As they drown out their conversation yet again, they try to figure out exactly how Bond's cover was blown. Mathis is pretty sure no ciphers have been broken, but they can't make a call yet. quote:‘First of all,’ and he inhaled a thick lungful of Caporal, ‘you will be pleased with your Number Two. She is very beautiful’ (Bond frowned), ‘very beautiful indeed.’ Satisfied with Bond’s reaction, Mathis continued: ‘She has black hair, blue eyes, and splendid … er … protuberances. Back and front,’ he added. ‘And she is a wireless expert which, though sexually less interesting, makes her a perfect employee of Radio Stentor and assistant to myself in my capacity as wireless salesman for this rich summer season down here.’ He grinned. ‘We are both staying in the hotel and my assistant will thus be on hand in case your new radio breaks down. All new machines, even French ones, are apt to have teething troubles in the first day or two. And occasionally at night,’ he added with an exaggerated wink. Yeah, I make no excuses here. As Judi Dench's M put it in GoldenEye, Bond is a misogynist dinosaur of a bygone era. Mathis also fills Bond in on Le Chiffre. His villa is 10 miles down the coastal road and he has two guards with him; one of them has been seen in town visiting three "subhuman characters". Their paperwork says that they're stateless Czechs, but the other French spies in the area say they're speaking Bulgarian. quote:We don’t see many of those around. They’re mostly used against the Turks and the Yugoslavs. They’re stupid, but obedient. The Russians use them for simple killings or as fall-guys for more complicated ones.’ Fleming is not fond of Bulgaria except in terms of food and drink. quote:‘Anything else?’ Bond is very, very far from a heroic character here.
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Jun 29, 2018 16:44
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chitoryu12 posted:In the films, Miss Moneypenny has gone through as many actor changes as Bond himself. Arguably the most famous depiction is from the late Lois Maxwell, who portrayed her from Dr. No all the way through A View To A Kill. Just as Roger Moore left the role due to being Grandpa Bond at that time, Lois Maxwell was replaced by the younger Caroline Bliss for the two Timothy Dalton films. Pierce Brosnan got yet another modernization with the very appropriately named Samantha Bond, easily recognizable by her short 90s haircut. The current Eve Moneypenny is by far the most dramatic change, a young black woman played by Naomie Harris who actually gets out in the field. Piece of trivia about Moneypenny and specifically about Lois Maxwell: in the mid-1960s, after the Eon movies had made Bond one of what Adam West called "the three B's" of the decade (along with the Beatles and Batman), one of the innumerable parodies was an Italian movie called O.K. Connery, which starred Sean Connery's younger brother, Neil, as a doctor who has to step in when an unnamed James Bond is killed in action. Maxwell played "Miss Maxwell", the agent who recruits him. I mention this largely because she later estimated that she was paid more for this one role than she was for all of her appearances in the Eon movies put together.
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Jun 29, 2018 17:08
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Wheat Loaf posted:Piece of trivia about Moneypenny and specifically about Lois Maxwell: in the mid-1960s, after the Eon movies had made Bond one of what Adam West called "the three B's" of the decade (along with the Beatles and Batman), one of the innumerable parodies was an Italian movie called O.K. Connery, which starred Sean Connery's younger brother, Neil, as a doctor who has to step in when an unnamed James Bond is killed in action. Maxwell played "Miss Maxwell", the agent who recruits him. I mention this largely because she later estimated that she was paid more for this one role than she was for all of her appearances in the Eon movies put together. That film has a lot of Bond actors or their relatives. It even has the same actor as M for the commander of the Secret Service!
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Jun 29, 2018 17:49
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This is a fascinating thread, well done. I especially liked the franc conversion info, it makes the casino stakes more understandable.
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Jun 29, 2018 23:38
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Hyrax Attack! posted:This is a fascinating thread, well done. I especially liked the franc conversion info, it makes the casino stakes more understandable. Yeah, when I first read the book I thought they were throwing around ridiculous wads of cash. I didn't know how badly the franc had depreciated to the point where 100 francs was a few bucks in modern money.
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Jun 29, 2018 23:56
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Chapter 5: The Girl From Headquartersquote:It was twelve o’clock when Bond left the Splendide and the clock on the ‘mairie’ was stumbling through its midday carillon. There was a strong scent of pine and mimosa in the air and the freshly watered gardens of the Casino opposite, interspersed with neat gravel parterres and paths, lent the scene a pretty formalism more appropriate to ballet than to melodrama. Fleming actually put quite a lot of thought into the history of Royale-les-Eaux and how a high stakes casino ended up on the Normandy coast. It fits in well with the area and could easily be mistaken for a real location. Royale became Royale-les-Eaux when they discovered a natural spring behind the hills with sulfur, which they bottled and sold as a liver aid. Torpedo-shaped bottles of Eau Royale graced the mineral water lists of restaurants and dining cars and a casino was built before Vichy, Perrier, and Vittel put them out of business. The town was saved once more in 1950 when a group of expatriated Vichyites had their funds given to a Parisian syndicate that poured money into the casino and turned it into a nostalgic Victorian vacation destination. The Mahomet Ali Syndicate out of Egypt has leased a number of tables and high stakes games are occurring regularly. Bond heads down to the hotel garage to drive to the Hermitage Bar for his meeting. We get our first Bond car! quote:Bond’s car was his only personal hobby. One of the last of the 4½-litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Amherst Villiers, he had bought it almost new in 1933 and had kept it in careful storage through the war. It was still serviced every year and, in London, a former Bentley mechanic, who worked in a garage near Bond’s Chelsea flat, tended it with jealous care. Bond drove it hard and well and with an almost sensual pleasure. It was a battleship-grey convertible coupé, which really did convert, and it was capable of touring at ninety with thirty miles an hour in reserve.  Far from the sleek Aston-Martin and BMW sports cars or the submersible Lotus Esprit, Bond's first car is a tank that would look more at home on the track than in a car chase. This car actually makes a brief appearance at the beginning of the film adaptation of From Russia With Love, fitted with a high tech car phone to let MI6 call Bond from his trip to the lake.  quote:The room was sumptuous with those over-masculine trappings which, together with briar pipes and wire-haired terriers, spell luxury in France. Everything was brass-studded leather and polished mahogany. The curtains and carpets were in royal blue. The waiters wore striped waistcoats and green baize aprons. Bond ordered an Americano and examined the sprinkling of over-dressed customers, mostly from Paris he guessed, who sat talking with focus and vivacity, creating that theatrically clubbable atmosphere of ‘l’heure de l’apéritif’. Immediately afterward, we get our first Bond cocktail! Despite the reputation of Bond for "vodka martini, shaken not stirred", that was a simplification in the films (though we do see something like it, which I'll get into detail on because I've actually made one). In the books, Bond will drink pretty much anything that you put in front of him and orders different drinks depending on his mood.  The first ever cocktail Bond orders is an Americano. It was invented in the 1860s at Caffè Campari in Milan and was originally sold as the Milano-Torrino because of the geographic origins of its two ingredients: equal parts Campari (a bitter liqueur made from an infusion of herbs and fruit in alcohol and water) and sweet red vermouth (an aromatized wine with various botanicals like herbs and roots for flavoring) with enough soda water to fill the rest of the glass. It was renamed just before Prohibition due to its popularity with American tourists. While I've never had an Americano and really need to get around to finding a cocktail bar around here that can make one, knowing the ingredients I can imagine the taste would be a sort of bittersweet herbal fruit flavor with a bite from the carbonation. Bond mentions in a much later book that he actually doesn't really like the Americano but orders it mostly because it's one of the things a random cafe will have. As for the French folks, the quarter-bottles of champagne are 6 ounce bottles that you would get for yourself to go with a meal.  I took 3 years of French, so I don't need to worry about Google Translate! The women are talking about dry martinis, with one suggesting lemon peel as the garnish and the other advocating for the use of Gordon's gin.   The martini is one of the most classic cocktails, but I'll talk about it because not everyone has had it (and also I really love talking about food and drink so bite me). It's possibly named after Martini vermouth, as the classic recipe is 6 parts gin and 1 part dry vermouth (compared to the sweet red vermouth, dry vermouth is more bitter). There are cocktails dating as far back as the 1860s that bear a resemblance to the martini, but the proper martini has been dated to Prohibition in the 1920s due to the prevalence of easily produced illegal gin; gin requires no aging process, simply redistilling your lovely grain liquor in a tank full of botanicals to mask the horrible flavor. The vermouth originally served to further mask the taste of bathtub gin, and as time went on after Prohibition the amount of vermouth got lower and lower until people started making jokes about how you just wave the glass in the general direction of Italy or think about vermouth as you drink it. I actually don't drink martinis often, and there's only one local restaurant where I've ordered them (I prefer their Manhattan). However, a bit later on we'll see Bond's take on the martini and I'm a little in love with it. quote:Bond’s eye was caught by the tall figure of Mathis on the pavement outside, his face turned in animation to a dark-haired girl in grey. His arm was linked in hers, high up above the elbow, and yet there was a lack of intimacy in their appearance, an ironical chill in the girl’s profile, which made them seem two separate people rather than a couple. Bond waited for them to come through the street door into the bar, but for appearances’ sake continued to stare out of the window at the passers-by. I've seen some people misinterpret "fine à l’eau" as water. It's actually brandy or cognac with some water in it, which was a popular way of drinking brandy until just before this book's timeframe. The Bacardi appears to be a cocktail related to the daiquiri, made from white rum (in the US, it legally has to be Bacardi rum like Bacardi Superior as of 1936), lime juice, and grenadine to give it a pink color. And now to complete the trifecta, we get the first Bond Girl:  quote:Her hair was very black and she wore it cut square and low on the nape of the neck, framing her face to below the clear and beautiful line of her jaw. Although it was heavy and moved with the movements of her head, she did not constantly pat it back into place, but let it alone. Her eyes were wide apart and deep blue and they gazed candidly back at Bond with a touch of ironical disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly. Her skin was lightly suntanned and bore no trace of make-up except on her mouth which was wide and sensual. Her bare arms and hands had a quality of repose and the general impression of restraint in her appearance and movements was carried even to her finger-nails which were unpainted and cut short. Round her neck she wore a plain gold chain of wide flat links and on the fourth finger of the right hand a broad topaz ring. Her medium-length dress was of grey ‘soie sauvage’ with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts. The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down from a narrow, but not a thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, hand-stitched black belt. A hand-stitched black ‘sabretache’ rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cartwheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather. Ignoring the "touched wood" joke potentials, we can see a bit of slightly disquieting dominant feelings coming from Bond. In modern day, I could easily see him as being one of those overwrought doms on OkCupid or Fetlife who keeps trying to find submissive girls to abuse so he can feel better about himself but usually just gets laughed at. Vesper Lynd was not included in the 1954 Climax! TV adaptation of the book, with her place being taken by Le Chiffre's girlfriend Valerie Mathis; this gives Linda Christian the technical honor of being the first screen Bond Girl before Ursula Andress.  Vesper Lynd was first portrayed in the 1967 spoof by Ursula Andress, who previously played Honey Ryder in the adaptation of Dr. No. At the time of the official Bond film in 1962, she had such a thick Swiss-German accent that her voice had to be dubbed. In the 2006 film adaptation she was portrayed by Eva Green, probably the best casting choice. We also do have some official artwork of her! A later printing of the book included a drawing of her in the outfit she wears later on.    quote:Mathis had noticed Bond’s preoccupation. After a time he rose. Despite Bond's sexist reservations, Vesper's portrayal is far from the Bond Girl stereotype. We'll see more as we go on, but intellectually she's a sharp one and can be just as calculating as Bond himself. After Bond leaves, Mathis talks to Vesper about her rapport with Bond. She compares him to Hoagy Carmichael, but with a more cold and ruthless look to him.  quote:The sentence was never finished. Suddenly a few feet away the entire plate-glass window shivered into confetti. The blast of a terrific explosion, very near, hit them so that they were rocked back in their chairs. There was an instant of silence. Some objects pattered down on to the pavement outside. Bottles slowly toppled off the shelves behind the bar. Then there were screams and a stampede for the door.
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Jun 30, 2018 23:08
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This is your best thread yet.
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Jul 1, 2018 02:02
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Also, inspiring.
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Jul 1, 2018 02:10
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Subjunctive posted:Also, inspiring. What ratio did you use?
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Jul 1, 2018 02:40
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chitoryu12 posted:What ratio did you use? 6:1, of course.
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Jul 1, 2018 02:46
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Americanos are great in the summer!
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Jul 1, 2018 05:25
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Subjunctive posted:Also, inspiring. James Bond drinks a vodka martini tho check mate
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Jul 1, 2018 06:20
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James Bond would drink Toilet Duck and soda if you could convince him it was really an Old Reliable
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Jul 1, 2018 11:23
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Someone analyzed how much he drinks in From Russia With Love and it’s something like 13 ounces of pure ethanol equivalent in one day.
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Jul 1, 2018 13:45
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