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 Hello there! You're likely coming over here from my previous thread where we read through the entirety of Ian Fleming's James Bond series (plus a stop at Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang). If not, welcome! You should really read that thread first! After Ian Fleming's untimely death on August 12, 1964 from a lifetime of excessive smoking and drinking, the complex network of copyright had to be figured out. Glidrose Publications, the publishing company he bought out in 1952 to publish his work, maintained the broad control of the character....until 1967 when a Bulgarian author named Andrei Gulyashki suddenly published Avakoum Zahov versus 07, pitting his own Sherlock Holmes-esque spy character from The Zakhov Mission against James Bond. Glidrose protested, but the courts decided that they could not copyright the character of James Bond and other authors were merely not allowed to pass off their work as Fleming's. The book takes revenge at Fleming's portrayal of Bulgarians and Soviets and casts Bond as a lecherous pig who randomly molests maids and murders innocent civilians to get them out of the way. While the original Bulgarian version has Bond and Zahov part ways with Bond defeated, the limited run of an English translation from an Australian publisher spices things up by adding a sequence where Zahov seemingly kills Bond. To keep control of Bond, Glidrose needed to get back to publishing new books without Fleming. James Leasor declined after he was asked, so the torch was passed to famed English comic novelist Kingsley Amis, whom Fleming had befriended before his death and who had provided input on The Man with the Golden Gun. Ann Fleming, Ian's widow, hated Amis as a "left-wing opportunist" and hated the very idea of continuing to write her late husband's character, but she had little choice but to allow it to go forward for her finances' sake. Amis's book, Colonel Sun, was released under the pseudonym "Robert Markham". Geoffrey Jenkins of South Africa also submitted a manuscript for a book called Per Fine Ounce that he claimed he and Fleming worked on in the late 50s, which was rejected; the only publicly released section is two pages detailing Bond's traditional meeting with M. The Bond empire expanded from there, with Glidrose and the various trusts set up by or for Fleming profiting from the films and merchandise, but very little was done for decades with continuing to write new Bond books. John Pearson wrote James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007, a faux-biographical novel in which Pearson interviews the "real" James Bond about his fictionalized exploits and learns of more stories, and Christopher Wood wrote novelizations of the films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. There was also a rather odd attempt at a children's book in 1967, The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½ by an author under a pseudonym (believed to be Arthur Calder-Marshall) but otherwise new stories remained dormant after Amis. Well, except that one time a medium claimed to have transcribed Fleming's last work from beyond the grave. This all changed in 1979, when Glidrose made the decision to fully restart publishing original Bond novels. English author and ex-42 Commando John Gardner was given the task, publishing 14 books between 1981 and 1996 in addition to novelizations of License to Kill and GoldenEye. He took more influence from the films of the time, making crazier plots involving characters with cartoonish names and putting Bond in a blocky Saab hatchback. Gardner retired after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer and was replaced by Raymond Benson, in a controversial decision to have an American write Bond. The books have continued at a steady pace with even more authors, rarely staying for more than one or two books. The Bond character has been modernized more than once, adjusting his date of birth and the conflicts he fought in as needed, before suddenly being returned to the 1960s in stories that were meant to be direct sequels to Fleming's work, with the latest book (Forever and a Day by Anthony Horowitz) even acting as a prequel to Casino Royale. Every author generally picked and chose what they considered canon from other authors, or even took none of them and only accepted Fleming's canon. There's also been the Young James Bond and Moneypenny Diaries series, spin-offs covering Bond's childhood and the adventures that Moneypenny gets up to respectively. This has consequently complicated Bond. The character was filled with Fleming's fingerprints in every nook and cranny of his scarred skin and navy suit. He had a unique writing style born of the time and his experiences, which is very difficult to imitate. Many authors (Gardner especially) were content to copy the basic aspects of Fleming's work (lots of food and tech references and worldwide travel) while writing in their own style, which rarely makes it to Fleming's level. The novelizations also suffer the problem of many action film novelizations of excessively describing the action scenes, which are never as exciting to read about as they are to watch. Still, I think it'll be valuable to continue our Bond education by seeing just what these guys could come up with. You might be surprised! Sometimes in a bad way! What Books? I generally use a Kindle copy for my excerpts, though I can handle a PDF if nothing is available on Amazon. Unfortunately, a number of books are not currently available on Amazon. These are: * The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½ Please let me know if you can find a PDF copy of any of these books, as transcribing from a used paperback would be incredibly clunky and I'm not sure if I'm dedicated enough to do that. I'll be doing the books in publication order. I will also be doing an unofficial Bond book! In 1985, James Hatfield illegally published The Killing Zone by lying that Glidrose had given him permission. The book is out of print, but universalexports.net has graciously saved a copy on their website. Hatfield was a notorious publicity hound and convicted felon (he tried to car bomb his boss!) who published Fortunate Son, a controversial biography of George W. Bush that made numerous questionable allegations, and committed suicide in 2001 after his long criminal past got out and ruined him. Having read some of it, it's absolute garbage. As usual, our spoiler policy is to use spoiler tags for everything except the film novelizations (as much of the films' plots have been spoiled in the last thread anyway) and try not to post spoilers even behind tags if you can help it. We'll be keeping up with all the references like before, as the Bond books become far more topical for your own lives the newer they get! Without further adieu, let us begin our new journey. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2020 16:23
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Many thanks to Polyakov, as I now have all of the novelizations and The Authorized Biography! We're able to do an almost complete set! I'm finally looking at Benson's writing. It's seriously "90s thriller."
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Mar 23, 2020 23:16
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 Because when you're starting out, why not start out weird?  Sir Kingsley Amis was substantially younger than Fleming. He was born on April 16, 1922 to a Colman's mustard clerk in Clapham, a district in south London. He loved his grandfather dearly while hating his grandmother equally dearly; when he died, his grandmother only allowed him to inherit five books from his library under the condition that he write "From his grandfather's collection" inside each. He was well-educated, graduating from St. John's College at Oxford, and spent 1941 to 1956 as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (you can see why Ann Fleming was not amused by him taking over the role of author). He served in the Royal Corps of Signals from 1942 to 1945 before returning to his education, marrying Hilary Bardwell in 1948 after she accidentally became pregnant and they both refused a back-alley abortion. Of their three children, Martin Amis has become a prominent British writer almost of equal renown to his father. Amis gained national fame through the 1952 publication of his first novel, Lucky Jim, which detailed the relationship struggles of a lecturer at an unnamed university. He quickly became noted for writing in virtually every field he could, from food and drink writing (though I am not fond of some of his opinions...) to sci-fi and poetry. He was a noted essayist whose criticisms of society were published widely in magazines and newspapers. His writing style is noted as witty, educated, and often rude and irreverent. Much like his brief friend Ian Fleming, Amis was also a serial adulterer (Hilary would separate from him in 1963 because of his affair with author Elizabeth Jane Howard) and a massive alcoholic; whereas Fleming was a functional alcoholic who would down half a dozen drinks during his work, Amis was depressed by his mistreatment of people like his ex-wife and would regularly end up so drunk that he could barely stand to leave the bar. Unfortunately, he was also very anti-Semitic and even falsely accused Charlie Chaplin of being Jewish. His politics had also started a gradual right-wing shift by 1967, even co-signing a letter approving of US intervention in Vietnam, and he had become a full blown Thatcher conservative by the 80s. His memoirs, published in 1991, have been noted as incredibly mean and denigrating toward fellow authors such as Roald Dahl and JRR Tolkien. Amis's part in the James Bond canon comes from his fascination with the Bond novels. In 1964, shortly before Fleming's death, he contacted him to write an article about the stories. He quickly became enthralled with the books' surprising complexity, holding the controversial opinion (which some of us may share after spending almost 2 years going through my previous thread) that they had as much value in them as most other books on the shelf rather than cheap thrillers. Amis had long believed that pop culture was as equally valuable and worthwhile to academics as high culture. His essay turned into a book, The James Bond Dossier. After Fleming's sudden death, Glidrose Publications contacted Amis for feedback on the draft of The Man with the Golden Gun; it remains controversial to this day how much, if anything, from Amis ended up in it. His book was updated to include commentary on Fleming's unfinished final work and published in 1965 with it. He also published that same year The Book of Bond or, Every Man His Own 007, a tongue-in-cheek manual on living like Bond written from the perspective of Bill Tanner and hidden in a fake The Bible to be Read as Literature dust jacket. When Glidrose decided that they needed a new Bond novel to keep control of the character, Amis ended up being the one to get it. He had recently published The Anti-Death League, a puzzling thriller based around a secret military weapon being developed and the ensuing psychiatric problems of the colorful cast of British soldiers, which gave him some practice for the genre. Ann Fleming's exact words about him were: quote:Amis will slip Lucky Jim into Bond’s clothing, we shall have a petit-bourgeois red-brick Bond, he will resent the authority of M., then the discipline of the Secret Service, and end as Philby Bond selling his country to SPECTRE. In spite of Ann's hatred of him, Amis had the novel finished by May of 1967 and it was published the next year. Following the Fleming tradition, much of the book is based on a holiday Amis and Howard spent in Greece in 1965. Reviews of the novel are mixed and often highly confused, befitting Amis's wild oeuvre. It features Bond allying with the Soviets, even more racist caricatures than Fleming, a gruesome and protracted torture scene that was lifted almost in its entirety for the film Spectre (even the dialogue, to the point where Amis's estate was credited in the film), a Bond who is much more self-conscious and less sure of himself, and the replacement of gadgets with a character-driven thriller. A few other elements would be used for the Brosnan films, including the kidnapping of M and the original name of Colonel Tan-Sun Moon in Die Another Day. Amis lived longer than Fleming. In his final years he returned to living with Hilary and Martin, dying at the age of 73 on October 22, 1995 after suffering a stroke two months before. Ultimately, we begin our journey with what may be the most puzzling Bond. While later authors like Raymond Benson and John Gardner would have a more typical modern action style or grow content in their writing, Amis is a man of nearly the same generation as Fleming but an opposite trajectory. While Fleming was being shuttled around his life by his mother to make sure she raised a proper English gentleman, Amis was joining the Communist Party and penning sarcastic comedic essays. Fleming published very little outside Bond, while Amis was an extremely extensive writer in every genre and field he was interested in. Fleming was afraid of poor reviews of his work initially and often denigrated himself for writing thrillers, while Amis believed that all literature had merit in society. Their fingerprints are similar, but clearly distinct. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Mar 24, 2020 |
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Mar 24, 2020 03:20
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Chapter 1: A Man in Sunglassesquote:James Bond stood at the middle tees of the eighteenth on the Sunningdale New Course, enjoying the tranquil normality of a sunny English afternoon in early September. The Old Course, he considered, with its clumps of majestic oak and pine, was charmingly landscaped, but something in his nature responded to the austerity of the New: more lightly wooded, open to the sky, patches of heather and thin scrub on the sandy soil – and, less subjectively, a more testing series of holes. Bond was feeling mildly pleased with himself for having taken no more than a four at the notoriously tricky dogleg sixth, where a touch of slice in the drive was likely to land you in a devilish morass of bushes and marshy hummocks. He had managed a clear two hundred and fifty yards straight down the middle, a shot that had demanded every ounce of effort without (blessed relief) the slightest complaint from the area where, last summer, Scaramanga's Derringer slug had torn through his abdomen. Amis immediately establishes that his Bond is the same one we left off with. The New Course at Sunningdale Golf Club (about 30 miles from London) opened in 1923 and has served as a major competition ground for British golfing. Funny enough, Amis detested golfing and had a friend fill in the details because he never wanted to set foot on the course if he could help it. quote:Near by, waiting for the four ahead of them to move on to the green, was Bond's opponent and incidentally his best friend in the Secret Service: Bill Tanner, M's Chief of Staff. Noticing the deep lines of strain round Tanner's eyes, his almost alarming pallor, Bond had taken the opportunity of an unusually quiet morning at Headquarters to talk him into a trip down to this sleepy corner of Surrey. They had lunched first at Scott's in Coventry Street, beginning with a dozen each of the new season's Whitstable oysters and going on to cold silverside of beef and potato salad, accompanied by a well-chilled bottle of Anjou rosé. Not perhaps the ideal prelude to a round of golf, even a little self-indulgent. But Bond had recently heard that the whole north side of the street was doomed to demolition, and counted every meal taken in those severe but comfortable panelled rooms as a tiny victory over the new, hateful London of steel-and-glass matchbox architecture, flyovers and underpasses, and the endless hysterical clamour of pneumatic drills. As I said, similar yet distinct fingerprints. Amis was also a noted food and drink writer, even if I think some of his opinions are utter garbage (don't make his Old Fashioned recipe!), so it was easy for him to step into Fleming's detailed meal descriptions. He was also far more versed in wine in particular than Fleming; medium-sweet Anjou rosé was starting to become extremely popular at this point. quote:The last of the four, caddie in attendance, was plodding up to the green. Tanner stepped to his trolley – having some minor Service shop to exchange, they were transporting their clubs themselves – and pulled out the new Ben Hogan driver he had been yearning for weeks to try out. Then, with characteristic deliberation, he squared up to his ball. Nothing beyond a nominal fiver hung on this game, but it was not Bill Tanner's way to pursue any objective with less than the maximum of his ability – a trait that had made him the best Number Two in the business. Amis is wasting no time at all in establishing the mood of his Bond. We're barely on the second page and he's already wondering about if his life is going in the right direction! quote:With the sound of a plunging sabre, Bill Tanner's driver flashed through the still, warm air and his ball, after seeming to pass out of existence for an instant, re-appeared on its soaring arc, a beautiful tall shot sufficiently drawn to take him well to the left of the clump of Scotch pines that had brought many a promising score to grief at the last minute. As things stood he had only to halve the hole to win. Bond doesn't need to worry, because he's being watched. As he goes up to the 18th hole, a man wearing very large sunglasses is walking across the putting green. quote:If any member had marked out the man in sunglasses as a stranger and approached him with inquiring offers of help, he would have been answered courteously in a faintly non-British accent – not foreign exactly, perhaps South African – to the effect that no help was needed. Any moment now, the stranger would have explained, he expected to be joined by Mr John Donald to discuss with him the possibilities of being put up for membership. (Mr John Donald was in fact in Paris, as a couple of carefully placed telephone calls had established earlier that day.) But, as it turned out, nobody went near the man in sunglasses. Nobody so much as noticed him. This was not surprising, because a long course of training, costing a large sum of money, had seen to it that he was very good at not being noticed. I'm sure this isn't the first time a dastardly plot was messed up by Bond spending too long eating and drinking. quote:A casual glance showed that the two Englishmen had finished their round of infantile play and were approaching the club house. The man in sunglasses, his eyes invisible behind the dark lenses, watched sidelong until, laughing inanely together, they had passed out of sight. No further delay had occurred. Although he had not looked at his watch for half an hour, and did not do so now, he knew the correct time to within a minute. Amis is quite a long-winded writer by Fleming's standards, though not in a bad way. He's missing Fleming's unique rhythm, but still doing well establishing the scene. quote:‘Do you think I'm going soft, Bill?’ asked Bond twenty minutes later as they stood at the bar. This book takes place about a year after Bond's run-in with Scaramanga, so he actually seems to be right on time with his career! quote:‘It wasn't your fault that our rep. went sick before you turned up,’ said Tanner, falling automatically into the standard Service jargon for use in public. One thing that has always set Bond apart is his individuality. Contrary to his perception as either a simple thug or a debonair gentleman (depending on who you ask and what their opinion of Fleming is), he's kind of a quirky guy. If he's your enemy, he'll be cold and give you the exact amount of dignity he feels that you deserve. If he's your friend, he'll show up to the club dressed all wrong ("Moccasin loafers and short sleeves under his suit? Preposterous!"), drink your champagne, and tear up everyone at the card table while chain smoking like a madman before going on to have an affair with a married woman. quote:It is true that a secret agent on an assignment must never fall into any kind of routine that will enable the opposition to predict his movements, but it was not until later that Bill Tanner was to appreciate the curious unintentional significance of what Bond was saying. This book is also way more heavy on dialogue. Amis was an established and very famous writer long before he wrote Bond, giving him plenty of experience that Fleming lacked. Fleming's style seems to have been brought about by his natural way with words, developed over a lifetime of writing and corresponding but rarely publishing anything until he was middle aged, while Amis was a voracious reader who became equally famous around the same time as Fleming at a much younger age and leaped into every genre and format with abandon. Interesting dialogue is often one of the hardest parts of writing anything. quote:For a moment there was an odd silence between the two men. Then Tanner glanced at the clock, drained his glass and said briskly, ‘Well, I suppose you'll want to be getting along.’ It usually means you'll die on the ship! quote:The previous winter M had developed a distressing cough which he had testily refused to do anything about, saying that the drat thing would clear up when the warmer weather came. But the spring and early summer had brought rain and humidity as well as warmth, and the cough had not cleared up. One morning in July Miss Moneypenny had taken in a sheaf of signals to find M sprawled semi-conscious over his desk, grey in the face and fighting for breath. She had summoned Bond from his fifth-floor office and, at the angry insistence of the headquarters M.O., M had been bundled half by force into his old Silver Wraith Rolls and escorted home. After three weeks in bed under the devoted care of ex-Chief Petty Officer Hammond and his wife, M had largely recovered from his bronchial congestion, though his temper – as Bond had amply discovered on his periodic visits – looked like taking longer to heal … Since then, Bond had taken to breaking his weekly return journey from Sunningdale by looking in at Quarterdeck, the beautiful little Regency manor-house on the edge of Windsor Park, ostensibly for an informal chat about the affairs of the Service but really to keep an eye on M's health, to have a sly word with the Hammonds and find out whether the old man was following the M.O.'s orders, getting plenty of rest and, in particular, laying off his pipe and his daily couple of poisonous black cheroots. He had been prepared for a characteristic explosion from M when he suggested the first of these visits, but as it was, M had growled an immediate, if surly, assent. Bond suspected he felt rather cut off from the world by being, among other things, temporarily condemned to a three-day working week. (The M.O. had only won that concession by threatening to send him on a cruise unless he agreed.) I'm trying to imagine a surly M on a cruise. That man would be running the ship before the week's end. quote:Bond now said, ‘Why don't you come along too, Bill? Then I could give you a lift back to London.’ "Too many swords." quote:A quarter of an hour later, having dropped the Chief of Staff at the railway station, Bond swung the long bonnet of his Continental Bentley left off the A30. Ahead of him was the pleasant, leisurely drive of ten minutes or so that would bring him, via twisting minor roads, to Quarterdeck.  This thread will also showcase the evolution of technology through Bond's history. When we began this series in 1952, a walkie-talkie was a military device the size of a breadbox. Over a decade later they've become commercial devices, costly but available. quote:The occupant of the Zephyr sat quite still for another minute. It was his nature to avoid unnecessary movement even at moments like the present when he was as tense as he ever allowed himself to become. The timetable of the operation was now fifty minutes in arrears. One more major delay would entail, not merely cancellation, but disaster, for the step his radio signal had just initiated was as irreversible as it was violent. But there would not be another delay. None was inherently present in the situation. His training told him so. Bond is making the bad guys an hour late because he can't stop drinking. quote:Bond crossed the county boundary into Berkshire and made his unhurried way among the ugly rash of modern housing – half-heartedly mock-Tudor villas, bungalows and two-storey boxes with a senseless variegation of planking, brick and crazy paving on the front of each and the inevitable TV aerial sprouting from every roof. Once through Silwood village and across the A329 these signs of affluence were behind him and the Bentley thrummed down a gentle slope between pine-woods. Soon there were lush open farmlands on his left and the forest established in force on his right. Places like this would last longest as memorials of what England had once been. As if to contradict this idea, there appeared ahead of him a B.E.A. Trident newly taken off from London Airport, full of tourists bearing their fish-and-chip culture to the Spanish resorts, to Portugal's lovely Algarve province, and now, as the range of development schemes grew ever wider, as far as Morocco. But it was churlish to resent all this and the rising wage-levels that made it possible. Forget it. Concentrate on cheering M up. And on tonight's piquet session. Raise the stakes and gamble in earnest. Or scrub it altogether. A couple of telephone calls and a night out for four. Break free of the pattern …  That Hawker Siddeley Trident is one of the newest airliners in use at the time, having first entered service in April 1964. Remember when Bond was flying international on prop planes? Spain is quite famous today for their massive number of British expats, with about 310,000 currently. While only a few live in "British ghettos", they're notorious for their refusal to integrate by learning Spanish or associating with Spanish residents. Spain has actually had a bit of a problem with the coronavirus epidemic because of all the old gammons refusing to quarantine and wandering around the streets like they own the place! quote:These thoughts ran into Bond's head as he carried out almost mechanically all the minute drills of good driving, including, of course, an occasional glance at his rear-view mirror. Not once did the Zephyr appear there. Bond would have paid no particular attention if it had. He had never seen it before, would not have recognized its driver even if brought face to face with him. Although he had been under close surveillance for over six weeks, Bond had noticed nothing out of the ordinary. When not on an assignment abroad, a secret agent does not expect to be watched. It is also much easier to watch a man who keeps regular hours and has a fixed domicile and place of business. Thus, for instance, it had not been necessary to set up any kind of checkpoint at Bond's flat off the King's Road, nor to follow him between there and Service headquarters in Regent's Park. More important, the operation involving him was regarded by its planners as of the highest priority. This meant a lavish budget, which meant in turn that an unusually large number of agents could be employed. And that meant that watchers and followers could be changed frequently, before the repeated presence of any one of them had time to register on that almost subconscious alarm system which years of secret work had developed in Bond's mind. This is surprising carelessness from Bond, considering that in From Russia With Love he was suspicious enough of a television salesman showing up at his door that he briefly considered moving. quote:The Bentley slid across the Windsor-Bagshot road. The familiar landmarks came up on the left: the Squirrel public house, the stables of the Arabian stud, the Lurex thread factory (often a focal point of M's indignation). Now, on the right, the modest stone gateway of Quarterdeck, the short, beautifully kept gravel drive, and the house itself, a plain rectangle of Bath stone weathered to a faintly greenish grey, luminous under the evening sun, shadowed in parts by the dense plantation of pine, beech, silver birch and young oak that grew on three sides of it. An ancient wistaria straggled up to and beyond the tiny first-floor balcony on to which the windows of M's bedroom opened. As he slammed the car door and moved towards the shallow portico, Bond fancied he caught a flicker of movement behind those windows: Mrs Hammond, no doubt, turning down the bed. In his 2006 book Spy, Ted Bell shamelessly ripped off Amis and even used Quarterdeck for C's home! An easy way to tell (apart from, you know, the name) is that as an American author he doesn't seem to understand that there's no "Windsor-Bagshot Road" as he capitalized it. Amis was referring to the A332, the road that goes between Windsor and Bagshot. Amis is giving a very accurate description of the area here, accurate enough that either he spent a lot of time there or drove through it to take notes. Using Google Maps, you can find that he's traveling north from Sunningdale up the B383, turning right on Winkfield Road (there really was a Squirrel pub and Lurex factory on the left there, around the junction of North Street and Drift Road, both of which have closed). Presumably Quarterdeck is just off Winkfield. quote:Under Bond's hand, the hanging brass bell of a long-defunct ship of the line pealed out sharply in the stillness. Silence followed, unbroken by the least rustle of air through the tree-tops. Bond pictured Mrs Hammond still busy upstairs, Hammond himself in the act of fetching a bottle of M's favourite Algerian wine – the aptly named ‘Infuriator’ – from the cellar. The front door of Quarterdeck was never latched between sunrise and sunset. It yielded at once to Bond's touch. That seems highly irresponsible! quote:Every house has its own normally imperceptible background noise, compounded it may be of distant voices, footfalls, kitchen sounds, all the muted bustle of human beings about their business. James Bond was hardly across the threshold when his trained senses warned him of the total absence of any such noise. Suddenly taut, he pushed open the solid Spanish mahogany door of the study, where M habitually received company. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Mar 24, 2020 |
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Mar 24, 2020 15:29
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Chapter 2: Into the Woodquote:In the course of his career, James Bond had been held up and threatened in this sort of way literally dozens of times – often, as now, by a total stranger. The first step towards effective counter-measures was to play for a little time and analyze what information was immediately available.  A typical 9mm bullet is more like a quarter ounce. Also, Lugers have been suppressed many times but are generally regarded as unreliable when fitted with them because of the need for sufficiently high pressure on the toggle lock to operate it; DWM actually tested a modified Luger with a short suppressor and found that it would jam on every shot with subsonic ammunition. Fun fact: the need for high pressure is why Lugers have a reputation for unreliability! They're perfectly fine, but lots of soldiers bringing back war trophies were afraid of damaging them and loaded them with weaker ammunition. The problem was exacerbated as the guns aged. quote:The man himself had a thin, bony face and a narrow mouth. He was wearing a lightweight dark-blue suit and well-polished brogues. You might have taken him for a promising junior executive in advertising or television, with a taste for women. What Bond chiefly noticed about his looks was that he was as tall as himself, but slighter in build. Perhaps vulnerable in a physical tussle, then, if one could be engineered. What made him disquieting was the economy and force of the words he had just used and the businesslike tone in which they had been uttered, devoid of vulgar menace or triumph, above all without the faintest hint of that affected nonchalance which would have marked him down as an amateur and therefore a potential bungler. This was the surest possible guarantee that he knew how to use his gun and would do so at once if he felt it to be advisable. Amis's writing style is far more analytical and businesslike than Fleming's. It almost has a sense of formality to it, a "proper writer". quote:‘Out here and up, slowly,’ said the first man in the same tone as before. Presumably the HMS Repulse that M served on was the battlecruiser that launched in 1916 and served until December 1941, when she was sunk by Japanese aircraft. quote:James Bond's feet mounted mechanically on the worn old olive-green Axminster stair-carpet. The two gunmen preceded and followed him at the same safe distance. Despite their total competence they were obvious employees, non-commissioned material. The officer in charge of whatever operation this might be would no doubt be revealed in a moment. I think I know why Bond has his job now. quote:A voice spoke. It was a neutral sort of voice with a neutral accent, and it used the same practical, colourless tone as the earlier voices had done. It said sharply, but without hurry, ‘You need not be distressed, Bond. Your chief has not been damaged in any way. He has merely been drugged in order to render him amenable. When the drug wears off he will be fully himself again. You are now about to receive an injection of the same drug. If you resist, my associate here has orders to shoot you through the kneecap. This, as you know, would render you utterly helpless at once. The injection is painless. Keep your feet quite still and lower your trousers.’ The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by John Buchan published in 1915, which has had many adaptations in film, theatre, radio, and even a computer game. One can see how Bond got into this line of work if he grew up reading thrillers and adventure novels. quote:He had registered purely subconsciously the positions of his adversaries: one gunman facing him, the other somewhere on the landing or stairs covering the door, the man who was doing the talking stationed with his back to the windows that gave on to the balcony, a fourth man, a doctor of some sort, physically negligible, standing at the foot of the bed with a hypodermic in his hand. So much for that. What clamoured for solution were two problems, which Bond knew to be vital without understanding why. Where was the fallacy in what the man by the windows had just finished saying? And what was the tiny unimportant fact about those windows that none of these four would know and Bond did and could use – if only he could remember it? Little does this man know, Bond specializes in attacking people while heavily surrounded regardless of how smart it is. quote:Bond did not waste any of his attention on the countdown. Before it was over he had the solution to the first of his two problems. He had found something contradictory in what was proposed. There is no point in giving an already helpless man an injection designed to render him helpless. Why not maim him immediately, which as things stood would be quick, certain and without risk, and forget about the injection, which was already turning out to be troublesome? So they wanted him not merely helpless, but helpless and undamaged. The chances were high that the gun threat was just bluff. If it were not, if there were some extra factor Bond had failed to spot, the penalty would be dreadful. But there was no alternative. Bond is fighting two-on-one again, and both of his opponents are at least as strong and good at fighting as him. Bond is quickly disabled by an elbow to the stomach that opens him for a pressure point hold on the back of the neck, both men falling on top of him. quote:‘Jab.’ Bond twists and smashes the nose of one man with both feet, then flings himself off the ground and hurls himself shoulder-first through the windows. He makes a perfect vault over the balcony to the lawn and sprints into the trees. quote:Those first scattered pines seemed to move past him only slowly, run as hard as he might. Now there were more of them. And brambles and wild rhododendrons. Making the going difficult. Very important not to fall. Not to slow down either. Keep up speed. Why? Get away from them. Who? Men. Man with eyes like a hawk's. Man who has done terrible things to M. Must save M. Go back and save M. No. Go on. Save M by running away from him? Yes. Go on. Where? Far. Go on far. How far? Far … The four men begin following after Bond, but he's gotten too far. They get within about 60 yards of finding him, but their leader finally calls them back and they leave Bond to fall unconscious in the woods. quote:The room was small, but it was still not possible to decide what was in it or where it was, and there seemed no point in trying. Those men, two of them probably, or three, were talking again, first one, then another. Their voices were muffled by long tangled strips of grey stuff, vague and smoky at the edges, that hung in the air in front of them. The same grey strips made their faces hard to see. Or did they just make it hard to want to see their faces? What was really there? Did it matter? There was something, something like a book or a man or a secret or a telephone, that said it did matter, something a long time ago, round hundreds of corners, thousands of slow difficult paces back, that said there was no giving up, ever. Try. Want to try. Try to want to try. Want to try to … Not technically. quote:‘Possibly. I doubt it. We'll have to wait and see. How did you get hold of him?’ Bond awakens to find himself being monitored by a Dr. Allison, plus a Sergeant Hassett and Constable Wragg (because this book is very British). quote:James Bond looked up slowly. There was nothing left of the grey tangle that had obscured his vision and hearing. He saw a very English face with an inquisitive pointed nose and dependable dark eyes, eyes that at the moment were puzzled and concerned. In the background were two solid-looking men in dark-blue uniform, a battered desk with a telephone, filing cabinets, wall maps and charts, a poster announcing a Police Ball: recognizable, everyday, real. Tea? You fool! quote:Now take it slowly, word by word. ‘I want,’ said Bond in a thick voice, ‘I want a car. And four men. Armed. To come with me. As quickly as possible.’ Very convincing. quote:‘Mind wandering, poor chap,’ said the sergeant. Bond leaps to his feet as Hassett complains that he was just told the number for M is unobtainable. Of course it is. quote:‘Naturally,’ said Bond. ‘Give me that thing.’ When the police operator answered he said, unconsciously clenching his fist, ‘London Airport. Priority. I'll hang on.’
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Mar 25, 2020 14:54
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Rockopolis posted:Related - Humble Bundle has a bundle of James Bond Comics. I haven't read them, but I will get them!
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Mar 26, 2020 01:45
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I have shot a Luger once. After all I heard, I ended up thoroughly unimpressed compared to modern pistols.
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Mar 26, 2020 03:02
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What's got me going here is I actually like this book so far. While Amis has a very different style from Fleming, he's still a very competent writer who can set a scene (albeit with far more words to that purpose). The detail is on par or greater than Fleming's and pulls you hard into the narrative. You lack the distinct poetic and metaphorical nature of Fleming's writing, but I can't find fault with it.
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Mar 26, 2020 05:25
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Chapter 3: Aftermathquote:The body of the thin-faced man lay on its back in the hall at Quarterdeck. There was not much left of the face. Parts of it and what had been situated behind it could be seen here and there on walls and floor. The Luger bullet was half an inch deep in one of the panels. I feel like shooting your own man and leaving him at the scene of the crime is a mistake. quote:Ex-Chief Petty Officer Hammond had been shot twice, once in the chest and again, to take no chances, in the back of the neck. It was assumed that he had been disposed of immediately on answering the front door, and that the use of a small-calibre weapon in his case had been dictated by the necessity of not leaving any traces in the hall that would have alerted Bond on his arrival. The corpse had been dumped in a heap in the kitchen, where the third body was also found.  In case you've forgotten, Hammond was M's Chief Petty Officer on his ship. When M retired, he followed and became his butler along with his wife. The Hammonds appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service when Bond visited Quarterdeck for the first time. He was played in the film by John Gay, an actor with only 10 credits who I can't find anything else about. quote:Bond thought of this as he stood beside Tanner and the Inspector and looked down on what was left of the Hammonds. He found himself beset by the irrelevant wish that he had listened more appreciatively to Hammond's anecdotes about pre-war naval life at the Pacific Station, that he had had the time and the kindness to thank and encourage Mrs Hammond for her self-dedication to M during his illness. Bond made a muffled sound between a sob and a snarl. This act, this casual sweeping aside of two lives just to save trouble – there were half a dozen ways in which the Hammonds could have been neutralized with the minimum of violence and without risk to the enemy – was not to be endured. The men who had done it were going to die. Don't worry, another continuity will take care of Tanner! quote:Tanner nodded without speaking. Then the two turned away and left the bodies to the doctor and the police experts. Not that any of them was expected to add to what was already known or self-evident. The Hammonds' fate was an open book. There remained, of course, the question of the shooting of the thin-faced man. At least shoot him after you leave! quote:Before replying, Bond picked up his Scotch and soda from the silver tray that sat on a low table between the two men. He had to harden his heart to bring in the tray from the kitchen, where Hammond, as on previous Tuesdays, had had it ready for his arrival. Tanner theorizes that they may have just been rushing, killed their own man, and didn't have time to clean up. A police constable comes in and lets them know the Quarterdeck phone has been repaired and Spence is sending the info on the kidnapping to all the airports. quote:‘Thank you.’ When the man had gone, Bill Tanner put his glass of Scotch down with a slam. ‘It's all hopeless anyway,’ he said with a sudden violence. ‘Let's get moving, James. Every sort of important person has got to be collected and told about this, and fast. What are we hanging about here for?’ Tanner accurately predicts that these men have timed their operation down to the minute, so they're likely anywhere within a 4 hour distance assuming they got him on a plane and took off immediately. He figures their plane is over the sea or within 80 miles of touching down somewhere in Europe, or they may have even not left the country at all. He doesn't think it's the Soviets or East Germans, as this is a point where the Cold War has been relaxing and they're much less inclined to just kidnap major government figures from their homes at gunpoint. They have no leads. quote:The telephone rang noisily from its alcove in the hall (M would not have the hated instrument where he could see it). Tanner jumped up. ‘I'll take it. You relax.’ M and his kidnappers were identified getting aboard Aer Lingus Flight 147A to Shannon Airport in Ireland, then met a car and drove off. They could have gotten on anything from a boat to a seaplane. There's nothing much more to do but notify the Irish Coast Guard. quote:Inspector Crawford, a tall saturnine man in his forties whom Bond had immediately taken to, came up as they finished the last of three calls. He carried a large unsealed manila envelope. We're getting onto a proper detective novel here! quote:As they moved off, Bond glanced down at the corpse of the man whose death he had unwittingly brought about. It lay there waiting to be removed and disposed of according to routine, a piece of debris, totally insignificant. Bond hated and feared the half-unrevealed purpose that had brought the man to this house, but he could not repress a twinge of pity at the thought of the casual chance that had led to this summary removal. Was this how James Bond would end, shot in the head and flung aside like a heap of unwanted clothing to smooth out a kink in somebody's plan? "We need time alone." quote:‘Nonsense, I'm perfectly all right.’
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Mar 26, 2020 14:42
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Chapter 4: Love From Parisquote:Sir Ranald Rideout, the Minister concerned, was not best pleased at being abruptly summoned from the late stages of a dinner-party given by an Austrian princess whose circle he had been trying to infiltrate for years. The telephone message stressed the magnitude of the matter requiring his attention without revealing anything about what it was. The underling who spoke to him had rung off before Sir Ranald had had the chance to protest at the impropriety of his being allowed no say in the arrangements for this meeting or conference or whatever. So he was to present himself at the offices of the Transworld Consortium, i.e. the headquarters of the Secret Service, was he? That confounded old admiral, notorious for his obstinate resistance to political guidance, was in trouble, then. The fellow should have been given the push long ago. It was a more than mildly irritated Sir Ranald who, at the horrid hour of one twenty in the morning trotted up the steps of the big grey building that overlooks Regent's Park, an agile little figure of sixty in perfect condition, this as a result not of any self discipline but of that indifference to food and drink which so often accompanies interest in power. "Sir Ranald Rideout" is the name you give a character in a late 19th century British adventure novel. quote:The facts were baldly laid before him. He looked about with angry incredulity at the faces ranged round the battered oak table: the Permanent Under-Secretary to his Ministry, Assistant Commissioner Vallance from Scotland Yard, the man Tanner whose office this was and whose insignificance was shown clearly enough by the condition of its furnishings, the spy called Bond who seemed responsible for the mess, and some policeman or other from Windsor. Good to see Bond is already taking the blame for something he showed up late to! quote:‘Well, gentlemen, really.’ Sir Ranald inflated his cheeks and blew out long and noisily. ‘A pretty kettle of fish, I must say. This will have to go to the Prime Minister. I hope you realize that.’ Inspector Crawford, despite being the least senior and important person in the room, is the first to speak up to explain that his personal effects are mostly miscellaneous items without any indication of who the owner could be. He tries to explain the one item that's different, but Sir Ranald interrupts him. Fingerprints are still being gone over, but it's unknown if he'll even be in the files. Vallance thinks that if his body was left so carelessly by the kidnappers, they must not have been concerned about MI6 finding out his identity. quote:‘I agree with Vallance,’ said Tanner. ‘We're in the same position here exactly and I'm sure we shall get the same results, or lack of them. No, sir – this chap'll turn out to be one of a comparatively new type of international criminal who's been turning up in rather frighteningly large numbers in the sabotage game, terrorism and so on. They're people without a traceable history of any sort, probably white Africans with a grudge, various fringe Americans – but that's all supposition because they turn up out of thin air. The lads in Records here call them men from nowhere. drat silly twopenny-blood sort of name, but it does describe them. What I'm saying, sir, is that it's a waste of time trying to find who this fellow was, because in a sense he wasn't anybody.’ Was there a big problem with white South African terrorists in the 1960s? quote:‘You're guessing, aren't you, Tanner?’ said Sir Ranald, crinkling up his eyes as he spoke to show he wasn't being personally offensive yet. ‘Just guessing. Educated guess work no doubt you'd call it but that's a matter of taste. I'm afraid I was trained to observe carefully, impartially and thoroughly before venturing on any theorizing. Now … Bond,’ the Minister went on with a momentary expression of distaste, as if he found the name unaesthetic in some way, ‘you at any rate saw this man when he was alive. What could you say about him that might help?’ Because this is definitely the time to start bragging about how much smarter you are than everyone else in the room. quote:‘Almost nothing, sir, I'm afraid. He seemed completely ordinary apart from his skill in unarmed combat, and he could have learnt that anywhere in the world. So …’ I feel like this isn't exactly how Bond would talk. quote:At the other end of the table, Vallance went into a mild attack of coughing. Is this man trying to get killed? quote:The Under-Secretary turned away suddenly and stared into an empty corner of the room. Inspector Crawford, sitting opposite Bond, went red and shuffled his feet. ....is it? quote:Rubbing his hands briskly, as if he had won an important point, Sir Ranald hurried on. ‘Now just one matter that's been bothering me. There doesn't seem to have been any guard or watch on Sir Miles's residence. Was that normal, or had somebody slipped up?’ They begin theorizing on who the kidnappers could be and what they want. An enemy spy agency is the most obvious bet, but Tanner doesn't think it's a ransom job if they're taking the risk of getting M (and potentially Bond) out of the country. With so little information, it's hopeless. quote:‘Yes, yes. So we know nothing. It looks as if we have merely to wait until the other side makes a move. Thank you, all of you, for your help. I'm sure none of you could have done more than you have. I'm sorry if I may have seemed to suggest that you, Mr Bond, could have acted in any other way. I spoke without thinking. Your escape is the one redeeming feature of this whole affair.’ This guy could singlehandedly ruin any investigation through sheer rudeness. quote:‘It's this piece of paper with the names and numbers which we all had a look at earlier. We found it crumpled up in a corner of the man's wallet. I understand the cipher people are working on a copy of it still but are just about sure it's a waste of time, there being so little of it. I wondered whether we might perhaps take another look at it ourselves. Have we considered the possibility that these are telephone numbers?’ Inspector Crawford, our faithful lower-class servant with a common background, sees the obvious: they're all Greek names. The numbers could easily be phone numbers without the exchange included, making this probably a list of contacts. Tanner immediately heads to the phone to check. quote:Sir Ranald frowned. ‘But Paris is a man's name. I hardly –’ Tanner gets off his phone call with the British embassy in Greece. He's confirmed that not only is Crawford right about them being Greek names, but the numbers are plausible phone numbers in several cities there. quote:James Bond's head had been sunk in his hands since he had last spoken a quarter of an hour earlier. He had seemed half asleep. In fact he had been striving to keep his exhausted brain ceaselessly analysing and evaluating the course of the discussion. Now, as his voice sounded through the low-ceilinged, smoke-laden room, he sat up in his chair and gazed at Tanner.
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Mar 27, 2020 14:46
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quote:Back on the last day of 1953 Fleming had written to the Assistant Commissioner asking a small favour. He owned three guns and had suddenly realized that none of them was properly licensed. They were a twelve-bore shotgun which was kept permanently with Holland and Holland the gunsmiths, the Colt .38 given to him by General Donovan 'for certain services I rendered his Office of Strategic Studies [sic] during the war', and a Browning .25 'issued during the war to protect John Godfrey's life and my own. I take it with me each year to Jamaica,' Fleming added, echoing his mother, 'for defence against the Blackamoors.' He told his correspondent that he knew that theoretically he had been breaking the law by failing to get his guns properly licensed, but honestly it had always slipped his memory - could Ronnie Howe 'tidy up the situation, please'? Obligingly the Assistant Commissioner did so, and as a slight return and modest investment Fleming put Howe into his next book as Superintendent Ronnie Vallance. That would be Sir Ronald Martin Howe CVO MC, a World War I veteran who became a barrister and then a police officer in the 1920s. From 1933 until 1957 he was a police commissioner of some sort, and also served as the British representative to Interpol from 1954 to 1957. His final job after retiring as a cop was heading up the Group 4 private security company until fully retiring in 1976 and dying the next year.
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Mar 28, 2020 02:12
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Speleothing posted:Jumping back to the previous thread, which I just found in the Goldmine, I want to chime in and say that the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang movie is an abomination and a mockery and that every copy of it should be destroyed. The book was one of my favorites as a young child, and I was absolutely horrified at how they had mangled it when we borrowed the movie from the library. They didn't even get the color right. Yes, the originals were very difficult to find. The current Kindle copy is the new American edition which has new artwork by Joe Berger; I think only the first of three volumes with original artwork is on Kindle because I can't find the rest.
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Mar 29, 2020 15:54
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Chapter 5: Sun at Nightquote:The Island of Vrakonisi lies midway between the coasts of southern Greece and southern Turkey; more precisely, near the middle of the triangle formed by the three larger islands of Naxos, Ios and Paros. Like its more distant neighbours, Santorini, thirty miles to the southwest, Vrakonisi is volcanic in origin. It is what remains of the crater walls of an immense volcano extinct since pre-historic times. Ancient upheavals and subsidences have given it a ragged profile, with a misshapen semicircular backbone of hills rising in places to twelve hundred feet. From the air, Vrakonisi looks like the blade of a sickle drawn by a very drunk man. The tip of the blade has broken off, so that a hundred shallow yards of the Aegean lie between the main body of the island and a tiny unnamed islet off its northern end. The islet is inhabited, but apart from a couple of fishermen's cottages there is only a single house, a long low structure in brilliantly white-washed stone situated among palm and cactus at the farthest corner. The owner, a Piraeus yacht-builder, lets it to foreign visitors in the summer months.  While Vrakonisi is a fictional island, it's located between the real islands of Naxos, Ios, and Paros smack in the middle of the southern Aegean Sea. They're part of the Cyclades island group, which were historically an important destination for stopover during travel within sight of land; only 33 out of the thousands are inhabited and they were commonly fought over by the various warring powers in the region before being incorporated into the modern nation of Greece in 1832 under King Otto. During the Metaxas dictatorship of 1936-1940, over 1000 political undesirables were exiled to the islands and forced to make a living for themselves. The islands' population has a disconnect from the government centered in Athens, as they continued to drag their feet on modernizing the islands; at the time the book takes place, most roads are still dirt and electricity is limited. Tourists usually stick to visiting Delos, which was mythologically the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis and a major archaeological center today. quote:This particular summer month the house had been occupied by two men whose passports said they were French; morose, taciturn men, their complexion suggesting little acquaintance with life in the sun. Their behaviour suggested the same thing. Pallid and uncomfortable-looking in gaudy bathing shorts, they could sometimes be seen sprawled in canvas chairs above the little private anchorage empty throughout their stay so far or splashing grimly and very briefly across it. For long periods they were not to be seen at all. They had the air of men filling in the time until they could start to do whatever they had come all this way to do. Greece doesn't collect demographics on ethnicity, so I can't say how many people of Asian descent live there even today. I can say that 93% of the population has Greek citizenship, with the rest being classified as "foreign citizens", and most immigration is from neighboring countries so a Chinese person would probably stand out even now. quote:And nobody catching a glimpse of the colonel would have had to wonder about his origin. He was tall for a Chinese, nearly six foot, one of the northern types akin to the Khamba Tibetan, big-boned and long-headed. But the skin colour was the familiar flat light yellow, the hair blue-black and dead straight, the epicanthic eye-fold notably conspicuous. It was only when you looked Sun straight in the eyes that he seemed less than totally Chinese. The irises were of an unusual and very beautiful pewter-grey like the eyes of the newborn, the legacy perhaps of some medieval invader from Kirgiz or Naiman. But then not many people did look Sun straight in the eyes. Not twice, anyway.  For Die Another Day, the final Brosnan film, the studio almost used Sun as the villain. When the Fleming estate insisted that royalties be paid for it, they changed it to Colonel Tan-Sun Moon. quote:The colonel continued to sit on his hard wooden chair while darkness fell outside. Normally he was a voracious reader, but tonight he was attuning his mind and feelings for what lay ahead. Twice he smoked a cigarette, not inhaling, allowing it to burn away between his lips. They were British cigarettes, Benson & Hedges. Sun did not share his colleagues' often-expressed contempt – in some cases, he suspected, routine rather than sincere – for everything British. He was fond of many aspects of their culture and considered it regrettable in some ways that that culture had such a short time left. My God, it's a Brexit villain! quote:The men themselves (he had met none of their women) had often aroused his admiration. He had first encountered the British in September 1951, at a prisoner-of-war centre near Pyongyang in North Korea. There, as a twenty-one-year-old subaltern attached, in the capacity of Assistant Consultant on Interrogations, to Major Pak of the North Korean Army, he had had the opportunity of getting to know the British soldier intimately. After September 1953, when the last of them had been repatriated, his experience of Westerners had been confined almost entirely to Frenchmen, Australians, Americans: interesting types in many cases, but not up to the British – ‘his' British, as he mentally referred to them. He had to content himself with the odd spy captured inside China and the occasional US Army prisoner taken in South Vietnam who turned out to be a recent immigrant from the ‘Old Country’. Fortunately, his reputation as an expert on, and interrogator of, the British was well known to his Service superiors and had even reached the ears of the Central Committee, so it was rare indeed that any British captive was not passed over to him. But the last of these occasions had been nearly six months ago. The colonel could not repress a gentle thrill of anticipation at the thought of tonight's reunion with his British and of the seventy-two hours of uninterrupted contact which were to follow. In the darkness, the pewter-coloured eyes grew fixed. This villain is kinda weird, not gonna lie. quote:There was a tentative knock at the door. Sun called amiably in English, ‘Yes, please come in.’ Strong words coming from a guy who looked like a sculpture of a Hollywood actor made of pudding. quote:She wore a pair of serpent-green Thai-silk trousers, close-fitting and low-cut, with a plain turquoise jacket of the same material and Ferragamo slippers in embroidered leather. Nothing else: even within twenty yards of the open sea, fine September nights in these latitudes can be hot and humid. Although this outfit had been selected purely to do its part in proclaiming Doni to be one of a standard house-party of well-off cosmopolitan holiday-makers, it did more for her than that. I almost wish I had met this guy to see him try to analyze my racial background through every one of my facial features, and promptly get it completely wrong. quote:Anything more overt would certainly have been wasted. Sun Liang-tan was unmoved by women, though if challenged on the point he would have replied, rather mechanically, that he respected them as wives, mothers, and the bringers of comfort to men. He glanced somewhere in Doni's direction and said simply, ‘Yes?’ Is this dude a British English supremacist? quote:The colonel's English was correct enough – he had studied the language for two years at Hong Kong University – but his pronunciation would have been a joy to any phonetician. His quick ear and passionate desire to learn, allied to a total ignorance of the British dialect pattern, had issued in a kind of verbal salad of regional peculiarities. The tones of Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, Belfast, Newcastle, Cardiff and several sorts of London worked in successive syllables against those of the governing class. The result might have sounded merely bizarre, even ridiculous, from another mouth than Sun's, accompanied by a different kind of gaze. Imagine trying to get an actor to replicate this. quote:Doni looked to one side of him. ‘I'm sorry, Comrade Colonel,’ she said humbly. ‘I know my English not good.’ Since this book was inspired by Amis's trip to Greece, I wonder if he based the house on a place he stayed. quote:Sun stood for a moment by the doors, keeping well into the shadow, and gazed out. He had not seen the sea for fifteen years, and the sight still fascinated him. It was the British element, on which the men of those cold islands had ventured out, long ago, to bring a quarter of the world under their sway. A perfect setting, thought Sun with a full heart, then turned back to the room. We've got two girls already and we aren't even to the main Bond Girl yet! quote:It seemed that Sun did not notice. He said pleasantly, ‘What a lovely evening. And how very decorative you look, my dear.’ "What level bathing?" quote:‘Six in all. Two are reactionaries and needn't concern you. The other four are fighters for peace who have been on a dangerous mission. You must give them all the comfort in your power, both of you.’ The guy who's most suited for a fight scene, I see. quote:The colonel watched with a tolerant smile as Luisa was handed a vodka on the rocks and Doni a Fix beer, refused a drink himself, gestured genially for the Russian to take whatever he wanted.  Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire with European aid in 1829, but the assassination of Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias plunged the newly created Greek state into turmoil. Britain, France, and Russia convened at the London Conference of 1832 to establish a government and offered the crown to Prince Otto of Bavaria (the crowns were never joined, so Bavaria took no control over Greece). Many Bavarians emigrated to Greece to live under King Otto, including Johann Adam Fix. His son, Johann Georg, attempted to join him when he was 20 but found his father had been murdered by robbers on the way to pick him up. Without much else to do, he started importing European beer and eventually began homebrewing and selling locally in Athens. He founded the Fix Brewery in 1864, just in time for the Danish prince George Christian Wilhelm Glyxbourg to take over the crown from Otto (who had been deposed by the Greek National Assembly). Fix gained a royal warrant to supply beer to the court, which gave it a 100-year monopoly on beer in Greece, and they expanded into wine and soft drinks to corner those markets too. In 1965, the time this book takes place, the Greek government took steps to facilitate the entry of foreign brewers into the country to end the Fix monopoly. Lowering sales and controversy over Petros Garoufalias (the Defense Minister of the Greek military junta) marrying into the family and becoming president of the company rendered the brand bankrupt by the 1980s, and it's now owned by Carlsberg. quote:Hands in pockets, Sun turned away and strolled towards the open doors. Then he halted, stood quite still for a moment, and glanced at his watch, a steel-cased Longines W.D. pattern which he had had for nearly fifteen years. Its former owner, a captain in the Gloucestershire Regiment, had died under interrogation as bravely as anyone Sun had ever met. The watch was a precious possession, a memento, not a trophy. Sun called sharply over his shoulder, ‘Evgeny. The lights. All of them.’ Our new arrivals are the thugs who kidnapped M. They admit that Bond got away, but expect to have him within 24 hours. quote:‘HNC-16 only takes effect at once when administered intravenously,’ put in the second man. ‘He was struggling so much that I could only manage an intramuscular injection, which meant he could – ’ Sun is relatively fair, and doesn't seem inclined to punish them for their failure since they've taken so many steps to make it right. quote:‘But now you'll want to relax,’ he went on. ‘Full discussion in the morning. Help yourselves to a drink. Evgeny will prepare a meal to your requests. These girls are called Doni and Luisa. They've been instructed to please you in every way and at any time. Oh, and finally …’ Well there's no call for that kind of language! quote:‘The main reason for your presence here, Western filth, is not the answering of questions. But answer them you will when the time comes. Rest assured of that.’ But you haven't finished your drink! quote:Luisa glanced at Doni, who talked emphatic Albanian for almost half a minute. At the end of it, Luisa shrugged, then nodded. Doni fixed her eyes on De Graaf. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 15:27
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Chapter 6: The Shrine of Athenequote:James Bond sat in the bar of the Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens and waited for something to happen. I hope you burned that paper after writing it down! quote:Bond smiled thinly to himself. Station G was famous throughout the Service; its Head, a mild-looking Welshman called Stuart Thomas, had served long valiantly as 005 before an eye defect had begun to impair his ability with firearms, since when he had run the Athens unit with unsurpassed skill and imagination. But even Thomas could not be expected to produce the kind of supermen demanded by Bill Tanner's 3(a), which the enemy must have taken into account and would surely guard against. While as for 3(b) and (c) …  Amis's taste in gadgets trended toward the realistic. All of the stuff Bond is carrying is completely real, though the shoe here was actually made by the KGB stealing a target's shoes and installing a microphone and transmitter. quote:He had a look round the crowded, decorously noisy bar. Perhaps, merely for curiosity's sake, he would be able to pick out the local agents whose job it was to keep him under their eye. (Standard Service procedure, aimed at minimizing the possibility of betrayal under torture, dictates that no agent shall have any knowledge of his co-agents that is not absolutely necessary.) The place seemed full of conventional business and professional types and their women, Athenian bankers, ship-owners from the islands, politicians from Salonika, less readily classifiable visitors from Istanbul, Sofia, Bucharest – not forgetting the tourists – all with the appearance of solid respectability.  The Grande Bretagne was built as a mansion for Antonis Dimitriou, during the rule of King Otto, before being bought and turned into a hotel in 1874. It faces Syntagma Square, where you can see a little cafe that Bond is about to head to. quote:It was ten o'clock, the hour when fashionable Athens considers where it will dine. Bond was hungry. Arrival at the hot, crowded little airport under Mount Hymettus early that afternoon had found him too tired to eat. He had dropped his bags at the Grande Bretagne and gone straight to a pavement café in the square. A quick carafe of cheap wine in the sun had been an ideal prelude to seven hours of wallowing sleep in the comfortable bed of the room he always asked for, 706 on the top floor, far from quiet, but with a fine view of the Acropolis and a glimpse of the sea.  The square was constructed after King Otto moved the new Greek government to Athens. "Syntagma" means "Constitution" in Greek, and it's named after a revolt in 1843 only a month after Otto took the throne in which he was forced to ratify the first Constitution of Greece. quote:By now the enemy would have confirmed Bond's arrival, finalized his own plans and moved his units into position. Time to go. Bond signalled to the waiter. Almost simultaneously, a man sitting not far away, his back half-turned to Bond, made the same bill-summoning gesture. He looked the most comfortably bourgeois of all the bar's customers, and had been sitting chatting quietly with his companions, a replica of himself and two handsome but unglamorized women. Thomas's sort of people. No pairs of silent toughs in dark suits for him. It would be interesting to see whether … Bond has absolutely no reason to intervene, but he notices how incredibly out of place this scene is. With nothing to lose, he walks over and sits down next to the couple. quote:‘He's annoying me,’ said the girl with much resentment. ‘He says awful, obscene things to me. I beg you to get rid of him.’ This basically translates to "Get away from her, wanker." quote:This, though probably as obscene as anything the man had been saying to the girl, is a standard Greek insult. What made it effective was Bond's air of determination and his sudden grip on the man's nearer arm. There was a pause while the two men stared at each other and Bond tightened his grip, noticing half-consciously that the arm was distinctly harder than its owner's general corpulence would have suggested. Then the Turk quickly and quite calmly let go the girl, waited for his own arm to be released, rose to his feet, adjusted his jacket, and walked out of the bar. His departure did not go unnoticed by the two couples Bond had picked out earlier. I, too, remember Kerim Bey. quote:‘Thank you. Tzimas isn't a Turk. He just behaves like one. But he is obscene. My family have been pushing me at him – he has a good carpet-manufacturing business here. After this tonight my mother will talk to my father and there'll be no more pushing in that direction. Are you married?’ Finally, he's drinking it correctly! quote:‘You know ouzo?’ The girl looked at Bond consideringly. ‘You know Greece well?’  quote:‘Mine is Bond. James Bond. How did you know just now that I spoke English?’ Sir, you have just met this woman. quote:Ariadne Alexandrou returned Bond's gaze for a moment without reacting to it, then turned away to observe critically as the two small tumblers of cloudy drink – the cloudiness curling whitely outwards from the ice-cubes like liquid smoke – were set in front of them and as much again of water added. Bond watched her lovely profile, very Greek yet totally unlike the overrated, beaky, ‘classical’ look one associates with old coins, a carefully-finished sculpture overlaid with the softest tints of tan and white and olive and rose. The effect was set off by earrings in an ancient style, small thick hoops of beaten gold. To Bond's credit, after Vesper he's never once been fooled by a female agent. quote:The girl Ariadne had raised her glass and was looking at him with a kind of down-turning smile that might have been ugly on anyone else, but in her case only emphasized the marvellously delicate yet firm lines of her lips. "Please do not look at the man approaching you with the syringe in the restroom." quote:Despite himself, Bond smiled in his turn. He was beginning to enjoy the girl's tactic of wandering away from the point and then jumping back to it with a direct question. But the other half of his mind was cursing. Why hadn't he taken the simple, obvious precaution of getting something under his belt before allowing the enemy to make contact? He could visualize, as clearly as if it had happened, the deserted street where she would lead him, the men closing in, the car, the long drive to and across the Bulgarian frontier, and then … Bad enough on a full stomach, he though wryly. Was there another way? Like chloroform! quote:‘Yes.’ Perhaps he should come part-way into the open. ‘It's just that I should hate to be prevented from getting to grips with it. I've never liked being sent to bed without any supper.’ That was a very Amis turn of phrase, as he was a food writer as well. quote:Three minutes later they stood on the steps of the hotel between the Ionic columns. Constitution Square was ablaze with light: the B.E.A. offices, Olympic Airlines, T.W.A. on the far side beyond the rows of trees, American Express to the right, the gentler illumination of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to the left. What Ariadne Alexandrou had said about the decreasing Greekness of Greece came to Bond's mind. In thirty years, he reflected, perhaps sooner, there would be one vast undifferentiated culture, one complex of super-highways, hot-dog stands and neon, interrupted only by the Atlantic, stretching from Los Angeles to Jerusalem; possibly, by then, as far as Calcutta, three-quarters of the way round the world. Where there had been Americans and British and French and Italians and Greeks and the rest, there would be only citizens of the West, uniformly affluent, uniformly ridden by guilt and neurosis, uniformly alcoholic and suicidal, uniformly everything. But was that prospect so hopelessly bad? Bond asked himself. Even at the worst, not as bad as all that was offered by the East, where conformity did not simply arise as if by accident, but was consciously imposed to the hilt by the unopposed power of the State. There were still two sides: a doubtfully, conditionally right and an unconditionally, unchangeably wrong. While it seems like a silly sentiment today, in the 1960s there was a rapid modernization around the world that often came with Westernization. You could see it in Japan, with their expanding cities and the efforts by the US occupation to stamp out the remnants of Imperial Japan, but the world seemed to be shrinking like crazy after the war. It turned out that history was far more deeply embedded than expected, however, and instead the world took what it wanted from American culture and just applied it over their own. quote:The grey-uniformed commissionaire blew his whistle and a taxi, to all appearance innocently cruising, swung in to the kerb. Bond laid his fingers on Ariadne's upper arms and walked her over. The flesh was firm and the skin deliciously cool. She spoke briefly to the driver, an elderly, paunchy type who, again, looked the soul of innocence, and they were away. Amis is repeating what Fleming did in From Russia With Love. We're immediately told that Ariadne is an enemy agent and Bond has seen through her, so we see each person's reactions as they try to outmaneuver one another. Ariadne is on the verge of "terminally horny" though. quote:Paying the man off, Bond resolved quite coolly to behave as if this were what it appeared to be, an encounter between an English visitor and a beautiful Greek girl anxious to entertain him in any way he wished. As they walked towards a narrow flight of steps that led up the incline, their shoulders touched for a moment. Bond laid his arm around Ariadne's waist and murmured, ‘We're going to enjoy our dinner tonight. Nobody can stop that.’ Now you're just leaning into it too much, Bond. quote:She half-turned towards him, her back arching in what might have been either nervousness or desire, so that the swell of one firm breast brushed his arm. There was light enough for him to see an expression of defiant determination animate her lips and eyes. Her hand grasped his in an oddly warm, confiding gesture. Ah, our patron god! quote:From the top of the steps they looked over at the platform of the Acropolis, an enormous flat-topped chunk of rock adorned with temples of Athens' golden age, the lights of the theatre of Herodes Atticus showing near its base. Dominating everything was the moonlit length of the Parthenon, the temple which Bond had heard called the most beautiful building in the world. He could see it was beautiful, but was half distracted by the tiny teasing incident of a minute before. Ariadne Alexandrou had chopped off what she was saying exactly in the manner of somebody just not quite blurting out an important secret. But what could be either important or secret about which mythical exploit a legendary hero undertook after a former mythical exploit? Amis fully embraces the lowbrow spy novel tropes.  This is actually a real restaurant, Dionysos Zonars, which is still open. From what I understand, very little has changed since the 60s. quote:They began their meal with tender young crayfish, moist in the mouth and well set off by freshly-made mayonnaise. Bond savoured the scents of exotic foods, the pure warm East Mediterranean air, the surrounding atmosphere of relaxed, respectable enjoyment, the calm permanence of the ancient buildings in the middle distance, above all the girl opposite him, eating unfussily and with enjoyment. And the English are wrong. quote:‘Not here, not any more. It's French fries for years now. But you don't seem very English. Not English at all. I'm told it was the same with your Lord Byron.’ Bond, you drink your weight in vodka every day. quote:Ariadne's mouth had set in a stern line, she spoke now in an even, measured tone, reasonable and yet forceful, the kind of tone which (Bond guessed) had been considered proper for ideological discussion in whatever political indoctrination centre had trained her. But her femininity triumphed over the propounders of Marx and Lenin, turning what might have been a schoolmarmy earnestness into a young and touching solemnity. Bond did not often find himself wishing so hard that the game was only a game. Is it possible for this woman to be more communist? quote:‘But his support of the Greek cause with money and influence was …’ Ariadne faltered, as if she had momentarily lost her place in the script, and went on with something much nearer her normal warm eagerness, ‘Well, no Greek can ever forget it, that's all. Whether he deserved it or not, he's a national hero, and you ought to be proud of him.’ We talked in the previous thread about how the Greek government fled the Nazi occupation, and returned to find a civil war on their hands as everyone fought for control of the state. Britain and the US provided financial backing for the government forces to defeat the communist KKE party; as soon as NATO was formed in 1949, it immediately jumped into the war and provided American napalm to bomb the last communist stronghold on Gramos. quote:A faint flicker of hope, the first in this whole affair, arose in Bond's mind. However determined the enemy in general might be, this particular enemy was not whole-hearted. He had found someone who, given a massive dose of luck, could conceivably be turned into an ally. Retsina is a wine I've been looking for. It's an ancient method, with its flavor coming originally from sealing amphorae with pine resin. The flavor stuck around after it no longer became necessary and is a national drink of Greece today; it's now made by infusing the resin into the wine during fermentation. quote:Then the reality returned in short order. As they sipped the delicious, smoky-tasting Turkish coffee, Ariadne said quickly, ‘James. I want to ask you something. It's eleven thirty. Tonight it's full moon and the Acropolis stays open late. If we leave now we can go and have a look at it. You must see it like this. It's incredible. And I've a wish to see it again myself. With you. Will you take me? Afterwards … we can do anything you want.’
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Mar 31, 2020 14:34
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HqzEjdn4yQ This is a really good video for seeing the city as Bond and Ariadne are.
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Mar 31, 2020 15:48
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Runcible Cat posted:I love that the crazy deliberately-obvious villain plan is "get a greasy foreigner to hit obnoxiously on a hot girl and Bond will leap in to save her". It's saying something when even James Bond, the ultimate himbo, can't believe this poo poo.
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Mar 31, 2020 16:07
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Chapter 7: Not-So-Safe-Housequote:There is something to be said for the view that the Parthenon is best seen from a distance. Certainly the place was badly knocked about in an otherwise forgotten war of the seventeenth century. The restoration work, such as it is, is mainly incompetent, far less competent than could be expected from Germans, say, or Americans, who would have produced a reconstruction faultlessly in accord with the theories of the most respectable historians – and faultlessly dead. But by moonlight, with the bad joinery hidden and the outside world at a proper distance, those tall columns can seem much more than rows of battered antique marble. A dead world lives in them. Amis seems to infuse his work with his own opinions and voice even more than Fleming!  Athena was the patron goddess of Athens (hence the name) and the Parthenon was the temple built for her from 447 to 432 BC; it also served as the city treasury, because why waste space? It later became a Christian church, then a mosque when Greece was conquered by the Ottomans, then a fortified ammunition dump. I think you can see why it's in the state it's in now. In 1687 during an invasion by Venice, a mortar round hit the Parthenon. The majority of the building was destroyed, 300 people were killed instantly, and fires spread through the city. Ironically, the image of the ruined Parthenon would soon become a striking sign of the decline of the once-great Greece, commonly depicted in artwork during the growing interest in Greek and Roman culture, and a cultural touchstone for advocates of Greek independence. When independence was achieved, the mosque elements and other medieval additions to the building were torn down. quote:Even James Bond was not untouched by such feelings as he paced the southern aisle at Ariadne's side and waited for what must happen. The rocky, windy hilltop was thinly scattered with figures in ones and twos, late visitors, tourists or lovers, catching the final few minutes before the gates of the site were closed. Among them, of course, must be a party who were neither tourists nor lovers. Bond wasted no energy in trying to pick them out. They would come when it was time. Does she know that he knows how obvious she is? Is she just trying to speed this along? quote:He took her in his arms and her body strained against him and her firm dry lips opened under his. When they drew apart she looked into his eyes. Ah. Now things are complicated. quote:She stopped, moved laughing towards the plump man, cracked her knee into his crotch and drove her stiffened fingers at his eyes. He squealed thinly. Without conscious thought Bond went for the other man, who had involuntarily half-turned, and chopped him cruelly at the side of the neck. The plump man was doubled up with his hands over his face. Bond brought his joined fists down on the base of the squat skull, grabbed Ariadne and ran. Bond and Ariadne scramble down the Acropolis, the Greek thugs firing silenced pistols behind them. They drop onto the roof of a hut built into the hillside, then climb a fence and disappear into the crowd of tourists. quote:At Bond's side, Ariadne laughed shakily. ‘Theatre of Herodes Atticus. Performance ending. In all senses, hope.’  The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a theatre at the bottom of the Acropolis built in 161 AD while Greece was part of the Roman Empire. It was restored in the 1950s and continues to hold performances. quote:Bond's glance was full of admiration. Whatever her motives might be, the girl had shown herself to be speedy, resourceful and determined: a valuable ally indeed. He said easily, ‘It was clever of you to know about that alternative exit.’ Not difficult for him at all! quote:The next few minutes were a hell of struggling and shoving. Bond felt the sweat running down his chest and back. The departing audience were cheerful, talkative, in no hurry, not in a mood to resent being jostled, not heeding it much either. Twice the two of them were separated, but at last reached the street together. There was a brief scuffle by a taxi, Ariadne keeping up a stream of indignant Greek about the airport and her husband's sick father, and they were in and driving off. Bond tells her that he caught on to her role as a decoy to get him kidnapped pretty early on. She admits to it, reluctantly, and then explains that she realized the two men weren't her own agents when they missed a necessary signal. Her talking to them in Greek was her pretending to ask about two men who didn't actually exist, which confirmed that they weren't on her side. quote:Bond gave her a Xanthi, the pungent Macedonian blend he always smoked in Greece, lit one himself and inhaled deeply. He felt charged-up, almost exhilarated. Whatever lay immediately ahead the expected gloomy pattern of abduction and captivity had been broken. He was still free and the initiative was not all on the other side – or sides. Imagine if this was really just an overly elaborate plot and she was still kidnapping him. quote:‘I don't understand that. Like most things about this.’ Ariadne turned and gripped his hands. ‘But I do have one reason for feeling happy. Oh, not happy, but less miserable than a quarter of an hour ago, when I thought I'd never see you again. We're still together. Sure, you've no reason to trust me on anything else, but you do believe me about this, don't you, James? That I want us to go on being together?’ You met this morning, guys. Chill. quote:It was a narrow street on the outskirts of the city towards the port of Piraeus, with a small bar in which a solitary old man dozed, a grocer's shop, a long building that might have been a school, a few houses of variegated shapes but all uniformly whitewashed. One was set a few yards back from the street behind rusty railings. Ariadne opened the gate, which squeaked painfully, and they crossed a tiny paved courtyard overgrown with vine and laurel. An underfed tabby cat rushed past them, squeezed through the railings and vanished. At the front door, Ariadne gave a complicated knock, reached out and gripped Bond's hand. The Russian takes Bond's gun, as a standard precaution, and offers him a drink. quote:The Russian signed to Tzimas. ‘We have only ouzo, I'm sorry. It is known that you prefer whisky, but our budget wouldn't allow this. You call that cheese-paring?’ The thin mouth twitched upwards. Tzimas seems cool. Let's hope he doesn't have a sex slave chained under his desk. quote:‘Now, Mr Bond.’ The Russian waved Tzimas away with a frown and leant back against the edge of the table. ‘My name is Gordienko and my associate here is named Markos. We may have very little time, so I must request you to be intelligent and answer my questions. As you have gathered, it was arranged for you to be captured tonight and brought here. You are not captured but you come here just the same. Why?’ The Russians weren't the ones who kidnapped M. Ariadne really was just that bad at her job. quote:‘Now who's being unintelligent? Another one, then. What do you want with me? You've got me here at your mercy. Surely you can let me know that much.’ Well, that was fast! quote:‘Agreed.’ Some of the tension left Gordienko's lined face. He signed again to Tzimas. ‘Let us pool information. Some information, at least. My side is conducting an important, um, event in this region. I must assure you that it's not aimed against your side. It's designed to give strength to my side, naturally, but not so much at the expense of yours. Efkharistó.’ Gordienko has been assigned to prevent any interference in this "event", which is why he was supposed to capture and interrogate Bond after learning that he was in the region. He's sort of notorious for interfering with things. quote:Markos had finished his telephoning. He came and faced Gordienko, shaking slightly and sweating a great deal. Now he burst into a torrent of Greek. Bond made out only scraps, but they sounded to him disconcerting scraps. To judge by their faces, Gordienko and Ariadne agreed with him. This is what Ann Fleming was afraid of! quote:‘The official who planned your capture is clearly suspect.’ Gordienko resumed his awkward leaning posture at the table. ‘But two persons I can at once eliminate from suspicion. Both are with us now. Markos is in my company continuously since your arrival has been reported. Miss Alexandrou was not informed of the details of your capture. Tzimas I can't logically eliminate. But I trust him. They hear the squeak of the gate, followed by the coded knock Ariadne had used before. Tzimas heads to the door to see who it is. He abruptly shuts it and unsteadily walks back. quote:When Tzimas reached the waiting group he stared at Gordienko with his left eye. Where his right eye had been there was a red hole edged with black and purple. Finally his body seemed to lose all character, all substance, as if his flesh had turned to sand, and he fell at Gordienko's feet.
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Apr 1, 2020 15:30
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Chapter 8: Council of Warquote:There was no time for doubts now. Bond snatched his Walther automatic when Gordienko threw it. Markos dived for the light-switch and the room went as dark as the bed of the sea. Somebody – Gordienko – began blundering towards the window. ‘No,’ said Bond urgently – ‘they'll be expecting that. It must be the front.’ Barely a few steps out, Markos is hit and dropped. Bond provides a few shots of covering fire as Ariadne and Gordienko separate, bullets whizzing through the air between them. Watching for the muzzle flash in an alley, Bond fires a quick aimed shot that drops an attacker not 4 feet in front of Gordienko. quote:Uncomfortably conscious that he was not in shadow, Bond leaned out and peered to his right, towards the shop-front. A flash came at once; a bullet hit the wall a couple of yards away and buzzed across his front. Instinctively he drew back – but it had been a parting shot. When he looked out again his man was fifty yards away and running hard. Bond did not waste a shot at such a target. Unfortunately, Bond finds that Gordienko was also shot when he rejoins the party. He makes one effort at a gesture that seems to be telling Bond and Ariadne to work together, then expires. quote:Ariadne was crying. ‘We must do as Mr Gordienko told us to do.’  The Bell's distillery opened in 1798 and is currently the best selling whiskey in the UK. Obviously, this means it must be owned by Diageo. quote:It was a pleasant little bedroom with gay hand-painted furniture and brocade curtains, but Bond had eyes only for the girl who sprang up off the bed when he appeared. Guys it's been less than 24 hours since you met. quote:‘No. And before we sleep …’ Well, at least that'll relieve some tension. quote:They left the flat early and made their necessary preliminary moves: coffee and rolls and splendid thin Hymettus honey at the busy little kafenion round the corner, a lurching but speedy journey to Constitution Square in one of the big yellow six-wheeled trolley-buses, a whirlwind shopping expedition along Stadíou to equip Ariadne (her apartment in Loukianou would certainly be watched), and straight into the Grande Bretagne, keeping with the crowds all the way. The hotel too was no doubt being watched, but here they would be safe until nightfall at any rate, and long before then they would be gone. They sit down and go over their plans. If there's really a traitor among the Soviets, Ariadne can't risk contacting them for anything but a brief update on what happened to Gordienko. Bond calls Stuart Thomas at the foreign language bookstore that he uses as a cover, but is told that the line is "unobtainable." quote:The situation turned out to be quite simple, and quite final. The firemen had done their work and left; the police were in possession. In charge of them was a stocky young lieutenant in smart light-grey uniform, courteous, probably efficient, and anxious to show off his English to Bond, who represented himself as an old customer of Thomas's drawn by curiosity and concern. There was plenty to arouse that: great blackened fragments of glass on the pavement, jumbled heaps of charred and saturated paperbacks, atlases, dictionaries, guidebooks, capsized cases and stands, a strong smell of burnt cardboard and glue. Some of the stock had escaped damage, and the fire in the shop itself had not spread to the adjoining furrier's and travel agency. The inner apartments had suffered worse, being more or less gutted in parts. One corner was open to the sky, and the rooms at the back of the travel agency were in almost as bad a state. It had been a remarkably fierce blaze. The fire was started in the back of the shop, where Thomas kept all of his records and other information that could help Bond. More than just an assassination, it's completely dismantled the MI6 apparatus in Greece. He won't risk trying to get in touch with Thomas's assistant, as he may be watched if he's not dead. quote:‘Yes, and so we must deal with it together.’ Ariadne came over and sat beside Bond on the couch. She spoke with great determination and force. ‘I too have been thinking. We must move immediately. We've a long way to travel and it's only … sixty hours exactly until the event Mr Gordienko mentioned. Probably less than that, because –’
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Apr 2, 2020 14:12
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Chapter 9: The Altair https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HHszKElVdk quote:‘Litsas was in General Papagos's army which fought the Italians when they invaded Greece in 1940. You remember how the Greeks threw them way back into Albania? Well, Litsas was with the infantry that took Koritsa. His platoon had used up their ammunition and he killed twelve Italians with his bayonet. They made him a sergeant for that. He was eighteen then.’ And I thought Fleming showed off with his French! quote:The man took them to the doorway and pointed diagonally across the road towards the quays. There followed one of the animated discussions that, in Greece, accompany even the most elementary piece of business. Finally, with that ripple of the shoulders that does duty for a shrug hereabouts, the café-owner left them, seeming to imply that he took no responsibility for what use might be made of his information. They moved off in the direction he had pointed. Ariadne, of course, was only 7 when this war ended. All she knows of it is what she's studied and what her father has told her of his time fighting in the Hellenic Army. quote:‘Please, James, it was no joke to me. Father became very reactionary. He joined what was known as the National Army. Most of them were Fascists, terrorists, no-good people. Litsas joined it too. He was a liaison officer with the British for a time, but he transferred because he wanted to be in the fighting.’  Amazingly, the Pasalimani looks almost identical today. quote:‘From what you've been saying, this man sounds exactly the opposite of someone who'd help your side.’ You should probably stop making those judgement calls, considering your track record. quote:After an instant's pause, strong white teeth showed in an unreservedly warm and welcoming smile. ‘Ariadne, khrisi mou.’ Niko reminds me somewhat of a Greek Mathis. quote:Apart from a few falterings (no doubt from lack of practice) this was said in a manner approaching that of a middle-class Englishman – above all, with less of the difficulty with ‘ch’ ‘sh’ and ‘j’ than most Greeks experience. Litsas now moved back to his workmen. Despite his gay, friendly tone, his brown eyes had not for a moment ceased their discreet but careful appraisal of Bond. Must have noticed Bond calling his mouth "sensual." quote:The boat under discussion was a twenty-footer with an unusual pointed stern, broad in the beam, a fishing-boat or perhaps lifeboat part-way converted into a pocket-size cabin-cruiser. Two bunks had been completed, also the skeleton of the superstructure in slender pine beams. Bond guessed that the final result would look grotesque to a yachtsman's eye, but fetchingly ‘quaint’ to the French or German tourist interested in a not-too-expensive hire. Just laying it all out there, huh? quote:‘I don't care what you sound, Mr Bond.’ Litsas had stopped dead on the pavement opposite the café. His eyes and voice were full of hostility. ‘I've finished with politics altogether, and in any case I would never help the … faction you represent. Now you must excuse me.’ A common saying in the Soviet government, I believe. quote:Ariadne intervened, ‘Niko, I promise you that if my father came here and knew what we know he'd ask you to do all you could to help us.’ Because that's worth a lot. quote:‘You do, yes?’ Some of the fire left Litsas's manner. ‘That doesn't mean as much as it has done, to most people. To me … well, I'm sentimental, I suppose. Very good, Englishman, I agree to hear your story. I promise nothing more.’ Amis is going to start a war by calling the coffee that! Turkish coffee (a strong, unfiltered coffee made by pouring boiling water over very fine grounds) has been euphemistically called "Greek coffee" in Greece due to political tensions with Turkey, starting with pogroms in Istanbul against the Greek minority in 1955 and continuing into the Greek coup of Cyprus and subsequent invasion by Turkey in 1974. quote:‘So it comes to this. You and Ariadne want me to take you to some island of which the name she won't say. There, something she calls an event’ – the deep voice grew contemptuous – ‘will take place, if it isn't prevented by some enemies. A British chief of Security has been kidnapped by the same enemies and may be made use to damage British interests. When you get there you may think what to do next. At the moment it's clear that you have no plan. And not a very good story either. I'm sorry – I can introduce you to a dozen people who will charter to you a yacht and crew to go to the islands. If you're so fussy. There are public steamers which –’ Litsas is the only clever guy here. quote:Bond interrupted brusquely. He had settled in his mind on a force of three as an absolute minimum for the task in hand and he felt sure that this man was the best available for making up the number. That's a very sudden revelation! quote:‘So? He's in Greece. Nothing strange in that. Those German bastards are coming back here always, to enjoy in peace the beautiful country they began to love while they were burning our villages and shooting our men and sometimes also our women and children. He was on his way to Kapoudzona to enjoy his pleasant memories.’ Bond, maybe you should ask who this Von Richter is? quote:‘Soon. We'll take the Altair. She's a fifty-footer with a Diesel. Strong. Not easy to be noticed. Do you know anything of boats, James?’ The Altair was the yacht Amis had rented for his Greek holiday. quote:‘Doubtful. In what we stood up in and just carrying a shopping bag we stood a fair chance of not being assumed to be leaving. Our most vulnerable moment was when we stopped for me to wire London and Ariadne to warn her people. But we had to take that risk.’  This is a 1940 57-foot Nautilus, which could provide a decent idea of what the Altair looks like. quote:With her face against his neck, she murmured, ‘So I have you for a little longer. It seems like it was days and days before I thought I'd have you at all. I don't care what happens tomorrow. Now. I know I'll care if you're taken away from me. So let's use every moment we have. How lonely were you, Ariadne? quote:There on the hard unluxurious bunk Bond made long love to her, both of them taking their pleasure easily, slowly, searchingly, with none of the near-hysterical frenzy of the early hours of that day. The buzz of activity all around them, the shouted orders, the rattle of anchor-chains, the fluctuating hum and roar of engines, lost all meaning and vanished. At last, exhausted, they drew apart and slept. "hosed the living daylights out of her." quote:The big man looked directly at Bond with eyes that were sad and pleading now, not watchful. ‘You'll be good to her, won't you, James? The way you think, it isn't my business, but her father's my best friend and that means very much in Greece. If you treat her bad, drop her suddenly, make untrue promises to her and so on, then I shall come for you and neither of us would like that. Especially you. You understand me?’ This brings into question exactly how much experience Ariadne has as an agent. She's only 23 assuming this is set in 1965 and even Litsas is surprised to find out that she's in the field. quote:‘Now. Fuel and water. Full up. Food. That can wait. Drink. That can wait too, but not so long. Weapons. You'd better look at them now. Here.’ We have a smorgasbord of arms here!  The Beretta M1934 in .380 ACP was the standard service pistol of Italy, designed as a direct competitor for military contracts to the Walther PP. Its lineage to the famous Beretta 92 can be clearly seen in the open-top slide and protruding muzzle, but it's a standard single-action pistol with a heel magazine release. This would have been an excellent alternative to Bond's Beretta 418 that he used to have, if he was looking for something with greater firepower (I carry a .380 myself), though the PPK is likely a superior weapon.  Those grenades are No. 36 Mills bombs, which were the first hand grenades to have the distinctive oblong shape and grooved "pineapple" body. The first pattern entered usage in 1915 and they remained the standard British grenade until 1972; they continued production in Pakistan and India into the 1980s and still occasionally crop up in third-world conflicts.  The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield, or SMLE, is one of the finest bolt-action rifles of both world wars. It has a 10-round magazine of .303 cartridges (nominally detachable, though soldiers were not issued more than one) and distinctively cocks the striker when the bolt is closed, using a naturally stronger motion of the hand that allows for a slightly easier cycling of the weapon and thus a higher rate of fire. quote:‘Oh, it was easy. This is my private store. I've had all this stuff for over twenty years. The British gave me the Lee Enfield in 1944. It seemed perhaps not such an expensive gift, since it was made in 1916. Anyway, I made very good results with it, and kept it when they made me an officer. I picked up the other stuff in the same sort of way.’  The Thompson is a submachine gun with a storied history. The first prototypes were developed during World War I, though they never saw service. The first production version, the M1921, was finely finished like a sporting weapon and became infamous for its usage by both police and criminals during the Roaring 20s, earning it the nickname "Chicago Typewriter" or "Chopper". The M1928 was a version with a slower rate of fire and lesser finish intended for military service, but they weren't nearly as common as the wartime M1A1. This model removed the ability of the gun to use drums (which were heavy, unreliable, and noisy to carry), installed a simple fixed rear sight, moved the charging handle to the right side, and eliminated the Blish Lock from the operating system that worked on a pseudoscientific principle regarding dissimilar metals creating more friction than they naturally did when rubbed together at high speed. This is one of the guns in this series I've actually shot! The Thompson is quite heavy for a submachine gun, which helps tame the .45 ACP recoil to an easily manageable level for accurate shooting in close quarters. Assuming you don't have any issues carrying a gun that weighs 10 pounds empty, it'll work just fine for you. quote:‘A present from the USA. It lives on board. Stacks of ammunition. I hope you think now our fire-power is enough?’ "He literally just got here, Ariadne." quote:‘We're ready, my dear. But only you know where we must move. Isn't it time you trusted us?’ "We've had unprotected sex twice in 48 hours." quote:‘Not until I have to.’ Ariadne, at her most strict, avoided Bond's eye. Her tenacity in holding on to this information struck him as about equally absurd and admirable. She blinked, came to a decision. ‘Go toward the Cyclades group. I'll tell you which island when we're sailing.’ chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Apr 6, 2020 |
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Apr 6, 2020 03:29
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RIP to the greatest Pussy in film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym2nCyF0Lec
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Apr 6, 2020 21:07
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Chapter 10: Dragon Islandquote:‘That's where we're going.’ Ariadne's finger came down on the map. ‘Vrakonisi.’ Sailing in Greece hasn't changed a whole lot in 2000 years. quote:‘It's usually calm here,’ said Litsas, ‘but wait till we get past Cape Sounion and leave the shelter of Attica before you be sure. Out there you can meet a norther and it's often quite bloody. Right. We make over here towards Kea, run south past Kithnos and Seriphos, round Siphnos and sail due east. That part may not be good either, but if it's rough, we'll get some shelter from Antiparos and Paros for the last miles. Right. I'll just go and speak with Yanni.’ Yeah, it's almost like people in a lovely situation without many options get into the idea of socialism! quote:Bond picked up the map and found the sickle-shaped island. A memory clicked in his mind. Theseus is the mythical founder of Athens, with nobody fully proving if he was a real person or just a legend. Among his many feats he entered King Minos's labyrinth on Crete to kill the Minotaur inside. Ariadne was the king's daughter who fell in love with Theseus and provided him a sword and a ball of string that he could use to track his path through the labyrinth. While they eloped, Theseus abandoned her for some reason (like most ancient legends and myths, the versions differ). A generally accepted one is that he abandoned her on the island of Naxos where Dionysus claimed her as his bride. quote:‘I thought you didn't notice,’ said Ariadne, smiling and biting her lower lip like an embarrassed schoolgirl. ‘That was a silly mistake of mine.’ And now there's a Chinese dragon! quote:Litsas reappeared at that moment and the words caught in his ear. He checked in his stride. Statements about the veracity of "unwritten rules" in the Cold War aside, this book was written after the Sino-Soviet Split was complete. Disputes over their interpretation of Marxism and Mao's much more aggressively anti-West stance (in addition to regular conflicts of national interest) led to the two communist powers drifting apart over the 50s and 60s. In 1966, after this book is set but before it was published, Mao began the infamous Cultural Revolution to purge all remnants of pre-Mao China and convert the country to Maoism at the cost of mass deaths, torture, and economic destruction. quote:‘All right. This is it.’ Ariadne drew her legs up on to the bench and clasped her knees. This book is way more political than Fleming's works. Even the villain's plot has to do with international meetings and diplomacy. The later books by Gardner will pull away from that into some more elaborate and honestly wacky poo poo. quote:‘So,’ the girl went on, ‘an island seemed just ideal – out of the way, but enough tourists and people around so that a lot of visitors suddenly coming wouldn't be noticeable. Vrakonisi was chosen because at one end of it there's a big house on a kind of rock that you can only get to by water.’ I'm down! quote:From a tall wicker-covered flagon he poured three stiff drinks on to chunks of ice and handed them out. So basically From Russia With Love with more explosives. quote:‘One moment, James,’ Ariadne leaned forward earnestly. ‘I agree with all this, but I still don't see why you're so sure that the Chinese must be responsible. The Americans are quite capable of this sort of thing. Consider their behaviour about Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam; they don't hesitate to –’ That last line needs to be framed somewhere in a museum of the 60s. quote:‘And,’ said Bond, ‘if they're still telling you there that the United States is world enemy number one they need to catch up on their studies. The Kremlin knows perfectly well that the main threat isn't the West any more, but the East. Surely that's not news to you?’ At the time the book takes place, the first major escalation in sending troops to Vietnam is occurring, moving from simple aid and covert operations to actual invasion and bombing of North Vietnam. quote:Bond chuckled. Litsas roared with laughter and slapped Ariadne on the thigh. The three shared a moment of total understanding and pure uplifting gaiety. It was gone in a flash. Bond sipped ouzo and took up his exposition. Dastardly Chinese penetration of virgin nations! quote:Nobody spoke. The Altair moved peacefully and purposefully on its way. Litsas fetched fresh drinks. Litsas! Language! quote:‘Air I rather …’ Bond shook his head. ‘They'd have to crash the aircraft somewhere near by, and crashes are tricky things to rig. There's the question of getting the pilot away – oh, they wouldn't think twice about his being killed, but he would. If they put the machine down on land they risk burning everything beyond recognition. In the water you're in even greater danger of losing the lot. I suppose you could try a duplication, one aeroplane for the assault and a twin for the crash, but that way you'd more than double your risks. No, for the time being I think we can rule out the air. Now, land. How well do you know the place, Niko?’ Amis is actually somewhat correct. At this time the most common handheld anti-tank rocket launchers would be the RPG-7 and M20 Super Bazooka (or its Chinese copy, the Type 51). Their warheads are generally intended for armor penetration rather than fragmentation, and I don't believe any new warheads existed for the RPG yet. Your best bet would be to hit the wall and hope that the ensuing fragmentation on the other side kills everyone. quote:Bond's voice and manner had turned suddenly cold, so much so that Ariadne glanced at him in concern. In fact he had gone cold inside at the mental picture, hideously clear, of a thirty-knot cabin cruiser with a stolen tactical atomic device on board slipping round the corner of the island, throwing its insanely destructive punch and making off at full speed for the horizon and a rendezvous. God, that would rock the world all right! Litsas plans out their schedule for the day and heads down to prepare dinner. He expects them to arrive at their destination around 6:00 AM. quote:When they were alone on the narrow strip of deck, Ariadne turned and clung to Bond. Her lips tasted faintly of salt. At this point I'd expect them to climb aboard dressed as porpoises. quote:The three of them accordingly made what defensive plans appeared most flexible, and the necessary preparations. Then they ate a meal of black olives, fresh bread, delicious plum-shaped tomatoes, sliced raw onion and manouri cheese, followed by peaches and tiny sweet seedless grapes. They drank the light Mamos retsina and rounded off with Votris, which Litsas declared was the only drinkable Greek brandy. Two small glasses of it were enough for Bond. It carried the hint of treacliness which he could never stand in a drink. But he made the necessary polite noises.  Amis showing off his greater expertise in international cuisine than Fleming here. I believe the "Votris" brandy is Botrys, which ended production in 1986. quote:At ten o'clock Litsas got up and stretched. ‘Good night, you two. I'm going to bed down here for a few hours. I hope I won't be seeing you before the morning. But if I do, remember: keep quiet and keep low.’
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Apr 7, 2020 17:24
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Epicurius posted:I wonder how much Amis's personal history comes into play here. He had been a diehard Stalinist until Kruschev's denunciation of Stalin, and then became a really strong anti-Communist. So I wonder to what extent the young, idealistic Ariadne, who's basically a good person but who's been duped into believing in Communism is almost a stand in for the young Kingsley Amis. Almost assuredly all of it.
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Apr 7, 2020 23:02
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Chapter 11: Death by Waterquote:The deck was in darkness, apart from the glow aft, where Litsas would be at the wheel. Elsewhere there seemed to be no light at all. Cloud covered the moon and stars. The wind had abated a good deal, to Beaufort 2 or 3. Keeping below the gunwale, Bond crawled aft and round the corner of the deck-housing. ‘Dead ahead,’ said Litsas quietly. ‘Stay close to the mast and have a look.’ In the Beaufort Wind Scale, a 2 or 3 would be 4-10 knots. A relatively light breeze with some mild waves. quote:Bond raised himself with caution. He narrowed his eyes. A shadowy bulk, showing its starboard green and a light in a pilot-house amidships, lay almost broadside across their bow perhaps six hundred yards distant. It appeared not to have way on. Bond caught a glimpse of a swept-back stub mast above the cabin top, a movement in the pilot-house. Not much else. That might actually be the filthiest word in Bond canon so far that wasn't a racial slur. quote:Neither spoke while the distance between the two craft lessened. Bond found that he could make out an intenser patch of darkness to his left that must be Paros. On the starboard bow was an even vaguer shape; he guessed it to be the smaller island of Ios. Ahead, beyond the gradually expanding profile of the other boat, there lay something above and around which an almost indefinable change was taking place, as if an infinitely thin sheet of water were being lowered on to a pool of black ink: Vrakonisi, and the first hint of dawn. Bond has a choice to make between trusting them or believing they're an enemy boat. He decides to take the approach of looking like a normal person and offers the tow. quote:Within twenty seconds Bond had tied the string of small plastic-wrapped packages round his waist and donned the only two useful items of equipment that chance had stowed in the Altair's odds-and-ends locker: a pair of flippers and a hunting-knife for underwater fishing. In similar adventures in the past Bond had had a luxurious armoury of devices to choose from. This time, he realized without dismay, it had been and was going to go on being a matter of improvisation, guts and what physical skills he could command. At the time this book was published, the latest Bond film was You Only Live Twice. Amis received a positive reception for the low level of gadgetry and greater focus on realistic improvisation and spycraft, apparently expecting him not to keep along Fleming's path. quote:He was ready. Litsas turned from the wheel and spoke low and urgently. Bond pushes away from his yacht and swims in a wide circle toward the approaching craft, staying far enough away that he avoids being spotted. As the two ships get close enough for a tow rope to be exchanged, Bond climbs aboard and notes five men: four in suits, one in a sailor's shirt and slacks. quote:Bond moved to a point just aft of the open door of the pilot-house. There was one more detail which with luck could be settled now. He edged forward for a risky look. Yes. In the flooring by the pilot's seat was a brass-edged trapdoor with a countersunk ring at its centre. Bond settled back and waited, a mere couple of strides from the fifth man's back, knife in hand. The argument continues between the men who boarded the Altair and Litsas, who insists that he had already dropped Bond off at another island. quote:Complete silence, except for the faint creakings in the cruiser's superstructure. Then a man's laugh, shockingly out of key with the atmosphere of strain. Then the lunatic metallic chattering of the Thompson, sounding flat and echoless across the water. A loud moan, Bond had a glimpse of Litsas grabbing for the place on the roof of the deckhouse where the Beretta lay hidden under a folded tarpaulin. The man near Bond moved at the same moment, flung himself into the pilot's seat and pressed a stud on the panel. Two powerful engines came instantly to life below decks. This is a swerve from Fleming's Bond! He doesn't even know if this guy is a villain or just a hired sailor, but he takes no chances and kills him in an incredibly brutal fashion. I can't recall any instance in Fleming's books in which Bond actually killed someone who wasn't attacking him without knowing if he was an enemy, except for his few ordered assassinations. Also, this is one of the most gruesome kills Bond has made yet. He strangled Goldfinger and Blofeld to death, but now he's soaking himself in blood slowly stabbing a man to death. quote:There were yells and shots from the Altair, but Bond had no time to spare for them. He darted one glance for'ard. The enemy there was crouched behind the gunwale, pistol in hand, evidently trying for a shot at Litsas. Bond dropped to his knees, shoved out of the way the legs of the man he had stabbed, got his finger through the brass ring of the trapdoor and heaved it aside. The roar of well-tuned machinery and an engine-room smell came up at him. He moved to the deck immediately outside the doorway and there, swiftly and methodically drew from the pouches at his waist the four Mills grenades. Each was surrounded by a half-inch-thick protective coating of heavy-duty grease from the Altair's stores. Again he made no delay, but with quick deft movements grasped one grenade after another in his right hand, drew out the safety-pin with his left index finger, and tossed all four down the hatchway before the seven-second fuse of the first had had time to release the firing-pin. The enemy cruiser is burning amidships, and another muffled explosion blows out of the deck aft. Pushing the thought of his killings out of his mind, he swims back to his own yacht as dawn approaches. quote:‘I think two of them went off,’ said Litsas, ‘but it was hard to tell. The fuel was exploding too. Anyway, it was enough.’ There's Bond dissociating from violence again. He fakes coldness to disguise his own traumas. quote:‘Oh, they asked very many questions and I was the stupid peasant – perhaps you saw some of that. Then one bloke stayed with me and the other two went for'ard to look at my daughter sleeping on the cabin-top and to make sure the dangerous criminal James Bond wasn't hiding in the fo'c'sle. Then … but I must let Ariadne tell the next part.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UbAgtI7CCI Amis served in the Royal Corps of Signals for 3 years, but I don't know exactly what he did or what weapons he qualified in. It's not unexpected that he may have been trained on the Thompson, as Britain was badly short on submachine guns in 1941 and relied mainly on Lend Lease guns and the Lanchester (a copy of the MP 28) until the Sten could be put into production. One thing he did do was get investigated by MI5 as a communist! quote:She took Bond's glass with both hands. They were shaking. He put his arm round her shoulders as she drank. ‘That was where young Yanni turned up,’ Litsas put in. ‘He said he didn't want to be sent to bed like a child before the trouble had even started. He wanted to help. So he went to his bunk and got out his knife and stood on the little ladder that comes up from the fo'c'sle. When the first bad man was knocked over, the second bad man was getting ready to shoot at Despinís Ariadne. But unluckily for him his back was to Yanni. The distance isn't more than about a yard and Yanni can walk like a cat. He came up from the fo'c'sle and shoved four inches of the best Sheffield steel under our friend's left shoulder. He gave no trouble after that. Bond may have just accidentally recruited the most badass crew he's ever had. quote:Bond shuddered. He had had to get used to the idea of involving innocent outsiders in the kind of savage, unpredictable violence he traded in, but to have brought about the initiation of an adolescent into the ways of killing was something new to him. He hoped desperately that the relative unsophistication of Greek youth would protect Yanni from the progressive intoxication with lethal weapons that, in an urban British lad of his age, could so easily result from such an episode. The alternative was not to be thought of. He asked with assumed eagerness, ‘What happened at your end, Niko?’ The Authorized Biography of 007 will give this passage a little more meaning... quote:‘Oh, that was nothing at all. My chap had had the common sense to get his revolver out, but when the Thompson started up the poor devil couldn't help moving his eyes off me for a second. I kicked his gun half out of his hand then shot him on the face. Child's play.’
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Apr 8, 2020 18:13
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T3aOMqPF6Y
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Apr 9, 2020 01:21
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Chapter 12: General Incompetencequote:It was a beautiful morning. Out at sea the rising meltémi was blowing the tops off the waves, but off the southern shore of Vrakonisi it did no more than impart a pleasing sense of motion to the slightly flawed surface of the water, as if a giant mirror of liquid blue stone were perpetually moving south and perpetually renewing itself from the edge of the land. And on the land, in the house on the islet, all that could be felt was a mild breeze, gusting a little at times and fluttering the natural-coloured linen curtains, raising the corners of the papers on the long pale Swedish desk by the window, but cool and delicious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y22tPP6Hhs0 Greece is regarded as one of the most beautiful and relaxing countries in the world, which is quite funny for something that wasn't "a country" for a long time. The cradle of western civilization was actually a mixed group of warring states that got annexed by several empires from Alexander the Great to the Ottomans. In addition to the mainland there are over 200 inhabited islands, which all developed their own cultures over the centuries. It says a lot that Homer considered it realistic for a journey from what's now Turkey to the western end of Greece to take 10 years. quote:Sitting at the desk with a glass of tea before him, Colonel-General Igor Arenski felt comfortably relaxed. This was his first undercover assignment outside the Soviet Union, though as a high official of the KGB (Committee of State Security) he had naturally made frequent trips to foreign countries in the guise of trade delegate, manager of cultural mission and the like, and had worked for over five years as a counsellor at the Russian embassy in Washington. Arenski was originally part of the MGB under Beria, making sure to work as inauspiciously and anonymously as he possibly could to avoid getting any sort of attention as a potential enemy. Ironically, one aspect of him helped: he's a homosexual. This was considered enough of a vulnerability that nobody expected him to risk a grab for power. Now Beria is dead and the old guard toppled, and the unqualified nobody is the safe choice for any job. quote:At last, bored with the play of sunlight on the most beautiful water to be found off any European coast, Arenski sighed and glanced at the file that lay open in front of him. It was necessary to go through the motions of work in order to preserve good habits. His small blue eyes moved idly over the topmost sheet, although he knew its contents by heart. The closing lines ran: Amis makes an unusual formatting choice to reflect translated foreign language. quote:The general had quickly mastered his irritation and spoke amiably. It was a rule of his never to antagonize anybody, not even a worthless peasant like Mily who ought to be doling out bowls of soup at a labour camp. We finally found someone who disapproves of Greeks more than the protagonists! quote:Mily flushed and said humbly, – I'm sorry, Comrade General, I didn't think. Arenski heads down to the shore where one of his Greek staff is watching the white dinghy row in. They've been ignoring his orders to turn back, so Arenski listens to her. She's shouting that she's a friend of General Gordienko. quote:Arenski fingered his pendulous lower lip. What was happening was inexcusably irregular, but he recognized with some weariness that he could not afford to send this person away. And there was another consideration. He said with fair cheerfulness, ‘Tell them we don't know any Mr Gordienko, but the girl and her … her escort are very welcome to come ashore for a chat.’ Sir, he is 16. quote:The girl faced him. ‘Do you speak English?’ Yanni will shiv this guy. quote:Arenski swallowed and drew himself up. By a tremendous effort he managed to smile at the girl, introduce himself, and say, ‘Let's sit down in the cool, shall we?’ The GRU hasn't really been covered in Bond, which left the general Soviet intelligence apparatus (be it SMERSH, the MGB, or the KGB) or SPECTRE as the enemy. The Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye, or Main Intelligence Directorate, is the military intelligence agency. While the FSB and others answer directly to the Russian president (and the KGB at this time answered to the Council of Ministers), the GRU is under the military command chain. In addition to foreign intelligence work, the GRU also established the first Spetsnaz special forces group in the Soviet Union; their first publicly known mission would be at the time of publication in 1968 when they captured the Prague Airport during a mass uprising. The organization still exists as the GU, though Putin really wants to put back its old name. Does it surprise you? quote:‘Yes.’ Arenski still stared out of the window. I see Arenski is firmly in the Revolutionary era. quote:When this drew no reply, the general swivelled his chair round again and studied her impersonally. Eventually he drew in his breath and said in what he meant to be a kindly tone, ‘You know, Miss Alexandrou, you're not the sort of person one expects to find working for peace in a primitive country like this one. What can be your experience of the class struggle? Where are your roots in the workers' movement? You know what you are? You're a romantic. Drawn to Communism by sentimental pity for the oppressed and to Intelligence work by false notions of glamour. And this means –’ Amis is definitely sounding biographical here. He described his youthful flirtation with communism as a “callow Marxist phase that seemed almost compulsory in Oxford” and completely renounced it in 1956 after the brutal crushing of the Hungarian Revolution that has led to the term "tankie" for diehard Stalinists. By 1967 he had done a complete 180 and was now even supporting American intervention in Vietnam. quote:The girl cut in sharply. ‘General Arenski, I came here to discuss something much more important than why I became a Communist. There's a terrible threat against your country and against what we both believe in. I'm awaiting your instructions.’ Arenski is completely in disbelief at the story. Despite the Sino-Soviet split, he considers it "decidedly un-Marxist" to assume that China could let their pride and envy attack a Soviet conference. He's well aware of Bond as an international terrorist who recently committed two murders for personal revenge in Japan. As far as he's concerned, this is a personal spat between him and some rival gang and he's completely invented the story of Chinese spies to hook her along; remember at this point that they've only theorized that a Chinese agent is responsible because of the nature of the conflict and who would stand to gain from attacking the conference. They have no actual evidence of Colonel Sun. quote:‘May I ask a question, Comrade General?’ For the first time, the girl spoke with proper respect. Arenski dismisses it as a common mistake by some dumb local who didn't understand Ariadne's coded messages. There are too many alternative explanations for what's going on for him to consider the Chinese theory anything but a fantasy. What he wants is for Ariadne to bring him Bond so he can be interrogated and kept away from harming their operation. quote:‘Anything I can do, Comrade General …’ With this guy, it sounds like "unmolested" is a tall order. quote:‘Perfectly clear Comrade General,’ said the girl, getting up. ‘I'll bring him here as soon as I can, but you must give me a little time.’ Yanni knifes him, or Ariadne machine guns him. Either way. quote:Left alone, he paced the floor for a time, frowning. It crossed his mind that the notion of a Chinese attempt to sabotage the conference was not entirely fanciful. According to report, Mao Tse-tung had been in some odd moods recently, as his retirement approached. And the behaviour of the Red Guards, the new hostility to foreigners … Then the general's brow cleared. Fantasy must be catching. Overt violence on the scale required was unthinkable in peacetime, even granted the uttermost in neo-Stalinist irresponsibility among the Chinese leaders. Nevertheless, one or two points must be cleared up at once. This book is generally accepted to take place a year before the Cultural Revolution officially began in 1966, but it was written afterward so Amis had the benefit of hindsight when writing. Mao had already been purging insufficiently loyal officials, though the formation of the Red Guards actually had not occurred at the time of the book. quote:He went to the desk and rang a small brass hand-bell. Mily came in. All of the answers to Arenski's questions about Gordienko's assassination are predictable: the transmitter in Athens was defective and it took too long to repair it, which is why absolutely nothing about it or Bond's arrival had been reported. He thinks it's just like Gordienko to fail to keep his equipment in good repair and get himself killed in a fight between two bands of Western thugs. quote:Bond … Arenski was looking forward to the encounter. And not only that. It would be satisfying as well as advantageous to him to be able to tell the Minister, ‘I have a prisoner who may interest you. A Western gangster called Bond. No, oddly enough I found him quite easy to capture.’ Then, when the conference was over, Bond would snatch a gun and the general would have to shoot him in self-defence. Perfect.
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Apr 9, 2020 19:04
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Lemony posted:This man has far too little paranoia to be head of the KGB. No wonder he hadn't risen farther earlier in his career. Per the passage I summarized, he decided that the best way to survive in the Stalin and Beria era was to be the most boring nobody in the entire intelligence apparatus. Make no enemies or friends so nobody ever considers you a potential threat to be purged or a resource to be taken advantage of. When he's confronted with this fanciful tale of Britain's most dangerous agent teaming up with a GRU operative to stop a Chinese plot against both sides, he's inclined to instead take advantage of it to gain his first moment of fame: kill James Bond.
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Apr 9, 2020 23:06
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Rockopolis posted:Putin wanting to rename the GU back to the GRU surprises me a little - KGB and the GRU were rivals, weren't they? I'm surprised he doesn't name them the Unintelligence Directorate. If you're nostalgic for the Cold War period when you got to be a tough KGB officer, it makes sense to want back as much as possible.
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Apr 10, 2020 03:00
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Chapter 13: The Small Windowquote:‘Here they come.’ Amis is getting serious when he even namedrops the binocular brand. Amis likely has familiarity with the brand because they were based out of London and had some military contracts. quote:‘Go on, Niko,’ said Bond from his canvas chair on the tiny foredeck. ‘By the way, where is Kapoudzona?’ That's one thing Amis matches from Fleming's books: a nasty ex-Nazi doing war crimes. quote:‘Promise me you'll let me have him, James. I must kill myself. You understand that.’ The injured man just so happens to be that sole survivor from the attack on the Altair. Badly burned and with a broken arm, but still alive. He's suffering from shock, rambling his story to Sun. quote:Sun was tolerant about this. Hands on knees, he sat on an olive-wood stool in an upright posture that would have put a crick in any Western back in five minutes, and gazed almost benignly at the unimpressive-looking small-time crook from the Piraeus waterfront who had endured all this for two hundred American dollars. Between them Doni Madan lounged on foam-rubber cushions wearing a black-and-green check bikini, an incongruous get-up for an interpreter. Now and then she sucked noisily at the straws of a tall pale drink. Aris speaks again, with Doni's translation left unknown to the reader. quote:After listening in grave silence to Doni's rendering, Sun turned thoughtful. ‘How these people worship words. They have no concept of the relation of words to action. If I had to take a serious view of this fellow's actions, he could not be saved by words in any language. How can he not know such a simple thing? He is divorced from reality.’ That $50 would be about $414 today. Wouldn't be much of a bonus for a professional American hitman, but in Greece that dollar will go far. This is also a great subversion of the typical Bond villain seen in film at this time. Fleming's Blofeld was originally an honorable and fair terrorist before going insane, even returning part of a ransom if he found out the conditions were not met by his henchmen, but it had become common for the villains in the film series to execute anyone who failed them. Kronsteen, Helga Brandt, and Mr. Osato were prominent examples of Blofeld executing his own underlings for not succeeding even if they could theoretically be put to use again. It's been such a common occurrence as to become a notable trope with villainous masterminds like this, making Sun unusual for actually paying his hired assassins when they face trying situations that keep them from succeeding. quote:Still keeping in the shadow, he moved to the corner of the stone balustrade at the outer edge of the terrace. There, perfectly impassive, he waited, his half-shut eyes flickering over the wild and glaring but motionless scene before him. They took in nothing. The rattling chirrup of the cicadas beat at his ears without penetrating them. Even if his mind had been unpreoccupied, he would still have had no attention to spare for this irrelevant alien landscape. What was important was action, not its setting. History was a matter of deeds and their doers. If people had to ask where a thing happened, it was a scientific certainty that the thing itself was not unique. And within a short time, a good deal less than forty-eight hours, he, Sun Liang-tan, was going to have accomplished something unique. In surprisingly good spirits, Sun bounds back into the house and into M's room. quote:‘Good morning, my dear Admiral. Or rather,’ – Sun consulted the black dial of the Longines at his wrist – ‘since I know you sailors are meticulous about times of day, good afternoon. How are you? I hope you have everything you want?’ M, please contain yourself from these slurs! quote:‘No abuse, please, sir. It causes hot blood and obstacles to thinking on both sides. In answer to your question, of course it matters to me whether you have what you want, or at least your fair share of what's available here. Your strength must be kept up for your part in the experiences which lie ahead of us – which I venture to assure you, will be far in advance of anything we've so far undertaken together. And to keep you short of food, deny you access to the lavatory and so on, is no part of my plan. I will not have you subjected to any petty privations during your last days.’ He's probably not even surprised that Bond has somehow managed to get caught up in this. quote:‘Our habit of working in separate units, each answerable to the top, has had the curious result that while Athens was seeking to neutralize Bond at any cost I have been preparing to receive him undamaged. It will turn out my way. I'm sure we can both trust the resourceful 007 to find his way to this house. When he does so, some time tomorrow, perhaps, if not today, he'll be taken prisoner. In himself he's formidable enough, I grant, but he has no allies of any substance – merely a local whore who has done some messenger work for the Russians and a Greek Fascist cut-throat from the dockside taverns. Whereas very shortly I shall have five experienced men here to deal with him. The outcome is not in doubt.’ Sun's created a plan that only works because Bond is so lethal that you don't even need to instruct your henchmen to leave him alive, because he's leaving a trail of bodies in his wake anyway. quote:‘To adopt your own hideous jargon, it would be unwise of you to set too much store by your superiority in numbers.’ M managed a grin. ‘Bond has successfully taken on far worse odds in the past. Organized by much more dangerous intelligences than a sadistic Chinese infant living in a world of fantasy. Say your prayers, Sun, or burn a joss-stick or whatever you do.’ That would be a stick of incense burned as a religious offering. quote:The colonel showed his inward-pointing teeth. ‘Burning is a topic you should have the tact to avoid, Admiral. How is the skin on your chest?’
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Apr 10, 2020 05:11
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Chapter 14: The Butcher of Kapoudzonaquote:‘The general was very worried by what I had to tell him,’ said Ariadne. ‘He wants you to go see him and have a talk. I think he proposes to join forces with you. He said he needs your help. After the interview, of course, you're free to go if you want to.’ No need to worry about Ariadne! This is an interesting group for a Bond book. While Bond has had allies before, he hasn't really had this sort of dynamic where he has two or three with him virtually the entire time. It was always more like Leiter or Quarrel accompanying him for a few scenes before they separate, then the Bond girl gets involved for most of it. quote:‘That chap seems to be raving mad.’ Litsas was pouring ouzo for the three of them. ‘What was he thinking? You told him the whole story, I suppose?’ At least Amis seems to be keeping up Fleming's goal of depicting women as equally competent to men. quote:‘Oh, he's …’ – Litsas gestured – ‘one of the boys, is he?’ The number of spy agencies the USSR had (and the name changes and shake-ups they went through) could fill multiple books on its own. The right hand actively trying to dismember the left. quote:‘Rivalry!’ said Ariadne with a snort. ‘Jealousy and hate. A private cold war. You remember Oleg Penkovski, the GRU colonel who spied for the West with that English businessman Greville Wynne, and committed suicide in prison in 1965. ‘Yes,’ she went on as Bond looked up quickly, ‘the official story is that he was shot in ’63, but really they were keeping him in the hope of using him in a conspiracy against the Americans. Then by poisoning himself he escaped them after all. Anyway, everybody in the capitalist countries wondered why he became a spy – it wasn't money, you see. All of us in the GRU know that Penkovski was having revenge on the KGB, getting back at them the only way he could for what they'd done to him and his friends and …’ Oleg Penkovsky was briefly mentioned in the previous thread during From Russia With Love. He was the protege of Ivan Serov, the infamous torturer in the NKVD who betrayed Beria and led to his execution. Serov was the head of the KGB and GRU at differing times, but Penkovsky betrayed the USSR by providing the UK and US with information on the Soviet missiles in Cuba. British businessman Greville Wynne was asked to be a spy for MI6 and aided Penkovsky in smuggling information to the British government. Both of them were arrested in 1962; Penkovsky was sentenced to death, though it's still unconfirmed to this day if he was executed or committed suicide in prison. Wynne was released after a year in prison in a prisoner exchange and survived until 1990. Serov was stripped of his party membership and fired from the GRU. quote:‘Well, no help from the general,’ he said. ‘In fact we must keep out of his way. We've learnt that much.’ That one sentence was already more of a lecture I need. quote:Ariadne nestled against him. Bond grinned to himself. Not the least oddity of this adventure was finding himself promising a Soviet agent that Soviet interests would be safeguarded. If ever M heard about that, he would – I think M will be too busy ranting about the Chinese to care. quote:The main harbour of Vrakonisi, though comparatively small, is one of the best in the southern Aegean, safe and comfortable in any weather except a southerly gale, which is uncommon in these waters. Most volcanic islands rise too steeply out of the sea to afford decent anchorages – the bay of Santorini, for instance, is over a thousand feet deep, and you must tie up to the shore or to a communal buoy – but a primeval disturbance of the sea-bed has tilted part of Vrakonisi northward, reducing the angle of its cliffs and providing a shallow strip up to eighty yards or so from the shore. This area is bounded by two short moles, the western one visibly dating back to Venetian times. Here, after refuelling the Altair moored. Bond's Greek adventure seems more like Amis's reflections on his Greek holiday than Bond's actual thoughts sometimes. quote:They had a late lunch of fish soup made with plenty of lemon-juice, and half a dozen each of the admirable little quail-sized birds that fall to the gun all over Greece at this time of the year, accompanied by a sensible modicum of retsina. Litsas refused coffee and took himself off, explaining he must visit the harbourmaster's office, not merely to stay within the law by presenting Altair's papers there, but to keep his ears open and drop a few carefully-framed questions in that centre of island gossip. And there's our disfigured villain! quote:‘I'm prepared to go along with it, yes.’ Although he spoke coolly, Bond felt a surge of excitement. All day his restlessness at the lack of action had been sharpened by the fear that the right way to action might never be found, that the three of them might be ignominiously and hopelessly reduced to spending the crucial night in the offing of the islet, ready to pit the Altair and a rifle and tommy-gun against whatever mass-assassination weapon the Chinese had in store. Now at any rate they had a meaningful next step. But there was something else first. ‘What was the second point?’ Ariadne suggests overwatch on the house from the yacht, but it'll be too difficult to avoid being spotted under the full moonlight. Suddenly, Bond remembers: the man hobbling down the hillside path must be the survivor of the boat attack. That would put the enemy hideout on the northern shore, where there's no overwatch on the Russian meeting. quote:Litsas's expression changed and his body grew rigid. His hand on Bond's forearm felt like heavy metal. He said in a strangled undertone, ‘He's here. Herr Hauptmann Ludwig von Richter. To your right James. Coming out of the grocer's. You can look at him. They still stare at the foreigners in these parts.’ "A chemical reagent turning everyone into human time bombs!" quote:Another thoughtful nod, but one that suggested a private train of reasoning being pursued. ‘There are millions of ex-army men. This one's an atrocity expert. That's what's so special about him. But why must they have one? And that gun still bothers me. How could you get anything big enough up that slope? And how was it brought here? Perhaps there's a sort of gun that –’ "Biggish dinghy thing." Very eloquent, Litsas. I see why you were hired. quote:‘There's a matter we can settle in those five minutes,’ said Bond. ‘Yanni.’ Bond knows what it's like to lose family. quote:Astern were the gay variegated tints of the harbour, sails, awnings, flags of a dozen nations and freshly-painted hulls showing among a dense thicket of masts, and above all this the natural colours of Vrakonisi itself, no less diverse, but grim and ancient, giant washes and scribblings on a raw pile of rock with a life-span measured in millions of years. To Bond's right Litsas was at the wheel, dark eyes narrowed, brown hands easing the bows round to starboard; to the left Ariadne stood poised like a statue, clothed marble, fine tendrils of tawny hair blowing forward above her ears in the evening breeze. And ahead, the sun going down like a fat incandescent orange and a hint of lead entering the steely brightness of the enormous sea.
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Apr 11, 2020 03:43
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Chapter 15: 'Walk, Mister Bond'quote:Bond sat on the moonlit hillside two hundred feet above water-level and longed for a cigarette. He had found a lump of granite the size of a golf-hut which gave him shadow and something to lean his back against. It was not a perfect observation post but it was the best that could have been hoped for after a hurried visual reconnaissance from the deck of the Altair just before the daylight went. Stationed at a roughly central point above and behind the five scattered houses marked down earlier as possible headquarters of the enemy, he had a direct view of two, could see a third by moving fifty yards to his left, and had a clear enough grasp of the positions of the fourth and fifth to make it impossible for von Richter's boat, even if it approached unlit, to put people ashore without giving away their destination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yse8qJOvNys While the bouzouki (a sort of lute) is now a major part of Greek music and similar stringed instruments date back to ancient times, this particular one is actually a Turkish import from the early 20th century. quote:Bond peered at the luminous dial of the Rolex Oyster Chronometer on his wrist. Three ten. He had no doubt that his basic reasoning was correct and that von Richter would come. When he would come was another question. First light was favourable, but arrival at some other time could not be ruled out, even possibly well on into the following morning with everything out in the open, von Richter and his companion welcomed as house guests. That would almost certainly put paid to any reasonable hopes of effective counter-measures. Typically, Bond did not allow himself to pursue this train of thought, but he was coldly aware that this operation was becoming more and more of a slippery slope, on which not merely a false step, but miscalculation of any detail of the lay-out, could be fatal. Bond hurries back down the rocky hillside. Finding similarity between the grass and the golf course turf, he realizes it's been only slightly more than 3 days since he was at Sunningdale. He finally reaches a gully that leads in the general direction of the target house. quote:Cover first. He glided into the protective shadow of a slab shaped like the gable end of a farmhouse that lay across the lip of the gully as if it had fallen there yesterday, though it must have reached its present position before Vrakonisi was on any map. The nearest angle of the house was less than thirty yards away, its flat roof on a level with where he crouched; that could wait. A little farther off at about ninety degrees, von Richter was just stepping on to a miniature stone quay. Bond caught the shiny, hairless patch of skin above the left ear. A short heavy man with a round head, who had been making fast at the bow of the boat, now moved amidships and, with the help of von Richter's blond assistant, heaved ashore what looked like a large sports-bag. Bond craned forward. The bag bulged oddly and was clearly awkward and heavy. There followed perhaps a dozen boxes about eight inches square, of dark-painted metal as far as could be made out in the illumination of the one light on the boat and another, not much stronger, on a bracket at the corner of the house. The boxes too seemed heavy for their size. Then, incongruously, came two smart tartan-panelled, plastic-covered suitcases. So far, the unloading had proceeded more or less in silence. Now a voice spoke. Bond is denied his first chance at a view of Colonel Sun, as Von Richter moves forward and follows him into the house. The assistants continue going back and forth from the boat, bringing in a parade of crates and suitcases past Bond's hiding spot, before turning the outside light off. Bond is surprised at the seemingly small size of the assassination weapon judging from the crates brought in. quote:He hung on for another twenty minutes. No change. He moved. Bond aims his gun at Von Richter's chest as he approaches the slope. He gets to within barely five yards, then abruptly turns and disappears. Finally, Colonel Sun comes out to give Bond a good look. quote:He stared hard at the tall spare figure as it approached, the shoulders and hips loosely jointed, rolling easily, the yellow face set in a faint smile, presumably in the direction of von Richter, but not altering its basic impassivity. Movements and expression gave an air of vast careless power. This was a man who would do anything. Bond was considerably impressed, but he grinned savagely to himself at this confirmation of another guess. All the way from China, by God! As Bond's eyes adjust, he can see the sky slowly turning blue as dawn approaches. quote:Infuriatingly, neither spoke for several minutes. Then the German said, ‘There! You see him?’ Someone should do a series of Bond fanfics where it's just every point in the book where Bond decides to just shoot the bad guy when he first gets the urge, and it progresses on from there. quote:‘Well, I think we've seen enough for now,’ said von Richter. ‘Willi and I will line up after breakfast.’ Himmler himself, Hitler's right-hand man for much of the war, would commit suicide while in British custody in May 1945. quote:There was more, but Bond stopped listening. The voices were retreating in the direction of the anchorage. He brought his gun up and waited. Perversely, the two did not cross diagonally from where they had been standing, but evidently walked straight to the water's edge. When they finally came into sight they were between seventy and eighty feet away. Bond dismissed it at once as not worth trying: the light was still poor and the chances of an effective left-and-right negligible. Unless they turned back … But no; awkwardly bunched from his point of view, they strolled past the upper-works of the boat and disappeared behind the front of the house. So much for that. Bond takes well over half an hour climbing down to the huge jumble of rocks on the edge of the cliff. There's a small rock platform at the end, which will lead down to the beach. As he climbs onto the platform, a man stands up on the far side and aims a revolver at him. quote:He was a tall man in a cheap dark suit, now crumpled and torn. Binoculars in a green plastic case were slung across his shoulder. He said in a thick Russian accent, ‘Good morning, Mister Shems Bond,’ and sniggered. Bond's only hope is to go on with the plan and hope he can find cover to dive away during the climb. He acquiesces and is forced to drop his gun. quote:‘Friend of you’ – a gesture towards the beach – ‘no good, eh? Now … walk, Mister Bond. Slow slow.’ This is why you go with partners! quote:‘He did,’ said Bond in a hard voice, remembering the look on the man's face.
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Apr 13, 2020 20:58
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 Getting ahead of myself in food and drink testing. From the Spy Who Loved Me novelization, Noilly Prat vermouth and tonic with a dash of lime juice. Try it! I did 3 to 1.5 on tonic to vermouth.
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Apr 13, 2020 22:35
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Chapter 16: The Temporary Captain quote:At noon that day the Altair was five miles due south of the port of Vrakonisi, running north-westwards. Visibility was excellent, promising fair weather to come, but the sea had again got up a little since the early morning, and the caique, moving diagonally across the direction of the waves, lurched clumsily from time to time. More clumsily in fact, than an experienced hand at the wheel would have permitted. Litsas approached George and his 14-year-old cousin/cabin boy at the harbor and offered him 3000 drachmas (half now, half later) to exchange boats for 36 hours. Litsas gave him strict instructions to head south to Ios and stay there until he returned later that day, but George is not a particularly responsible man. As soon as our intrepid protagonists were out of sight, he headed northwest with a plan to relax a bit in Paros before taking off just in time to reach Ios for the rendezvous. quote:Obeying instructions to help himself to whatever he fancied he poured a glass of kitró and settled down on one of the benches. He sipped luxuriously at the delicious drink – native to Naxos and obtainable only there, on Ios and on Vrakonisi – and reflected that it was perhaps a little early, but he was on holiday. The deceptively weak-tasting liquor, bland and viscous, with the bitter tang of the lemon rind in it as well as the sugared-down sharpness of the flesh, relaxed him. The drink is commonly called kitron, a citron liqueur. quote:Lighting a cigarette, he glanced idly out of the window. They were passing, at a distance of about a hundred yards, the islet at the south-western tip and, on it, the grand house where a very rich foreigner was known to be staying and amusing himself with the local boyhood. These people seemed to think they could do as they liked in the islands! George made a spitting grimace. Then he noticed somebody in a dark suit, perhaps the foreigner himself standing on the terrace of the house and apparently looking straight at him. As George watched, screwing up his eyes against the glare, the man hurried indoors, returning after a quarter of a minute with another. The new arrival examined the Altair for a longer period through binoculars which he then passed to his companion. More examination. A third man now came bustling out and joined the first two. All three seemed very interested in the passing boat. George could not imagine why. He got up, strolled out to the rail and gave a friendly wave. The three men, confused, give a wave that seems to grow in enthusiasm like they're faking it. Half an hour later, they're on their way to Paros; his fiancee Maria lives there, and he wants to show her parents that he really is a worthwhile husband by letting them all aboard and wining and dining them. quote:By way of immediate return for these efforts, George would be entitled to talk to Maria, to hold her hand and above all to look at her. He would not, of course, expect to spend much time with her alone. That had always been part of the system, the way life was arranged. George was tall and well built and dark-eyed, and working in the tourist trade brought him plenty of sexual opportunities. He took them. Nobody minded that, but a great many people would have minded a great deal if he had started trying to treat his affianced bride in public like a German or English office-girl on holiday. He knew that some of the younger people made a mock of the system, but it suited him well enough. (It had never occurred to George to wonder what Maria thought of the system.) It'll be a big fat Greek wedding! quote:However, at times when he was picturing Maria in his mind, as now, he would find himself trying to imagine in detail what lay beneath her spotless white dress, what that swelling bosom would be like to see and touch, what she would do when he … George pulled himself together. Such thoughts were useless as well as disturbing – if he had been backward and provincial, instead of modern and sophisticated, he would have called them sinful. The men hail to him in Greek, and George truthfully gives his and his cousin's identities as temporary captain of the Altair. The foreigners give a very shaky bluff about being part of a nonexistent Royal Hellenic Coast Guard and come aboard. George correctly figures they're looking for someone, and even if these guys aren't legit Coast Guard they're probably not wise to cross. quote:A little later, the three men completed their fruitless search of the Altair and confronted George on the afterdeck. Two of the party were foreigners, disagreeable-looking fellows with tight mouths; the third was fat and soft and looked like the worst sort of Greek, perhaps a Salonikan. One of the foreigners spoke in a language that sounded to George like a form of Bulgarian. The fat man translated. One of the men loses his temper and grabs George, screaming in his face in a language he doesn't understand. George is much stronger and simply shoves him off, demanding they get off his boat. quote:This was a much more serious mistake. The words were hardly out of his mouth before, slammed in the belly and pistol-whipped behind the ear, George was grovelling half-conscious on the deck. He heard his cousin cry out in protest, then in pain. The fat man spoke. If these guys are the Russians, they're not really living up to the claim that only the Chinese engage in crude "gangsterism." quote:– Now. Where is Bond?
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Apr 14, 2020 17:14
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Chapter 17: In The Drinkquote:George Ionides had been right in his impression that Bond and his companions had moved off east after parting company with him, but his questioners would not have found it helpful to follow this up. As pre-arranged, no sooner had the Altair disappeared to the south than Litsas had made a U-turn and headed straight back to Vrakonisi. By three o'clock the Cynthia was anchored in a small bay on the southern coast of the island and almost at its eastern tip, a full eight miles by sea from the islet. A dozen small craft lay near by and there were groups of figures on the shore.  This 1960 Carver is a good example of what the Cynthia probably looks like. quote:With a gesture of finality, Litsas let down the tattered side-awning, screening the three of them from view as well as from the sun. I'll take it! quote:Ariadne, sitting on the deck with her knees drawn up and her gaze lowered, shook her head. Bond also declined. He had had enough of the thin soapy local brew. I have done this with the edge of a table. Works just fine if you're not a coward. quote:‘Now,’ he said, wiping his mouth, ‘again the battleplan, James, if you please. We can't have it too many times.’ The plan is to moor the boat at the small beach, then climb up the cliff that Bond had descended and take cover in the rocky gully that leads down to the house. Litsas and Bond will go uphill to cover the rear of the house, then make a team assault. Ariadne goes down the gully to the rock slab (where the Russian was shot by Litsas) and slowly approaches the house from there, shooting anyone who tries to escape down the hill, then cover the side door. If she doesn't hear shooting for too long after it starts, she's to assume they were both taken out and head down to the Cynthia to escape. Bond will give her a letter to take to the British embassy in Athens. quote:Bond's sleep, by Ariadne's side on an improvised bed of seat-cushions, was fitful and haunted. A formless being, a shape too fantastic to be identified, pursued him through his dreams. He fled from it across a perfectly smooth plain of marble. At the far side of this were geometrical rows of trees, all identical, all of formalized shape, like representations in an architect's drawing. As he ran between them, one after another exploded silently into a puff of flame, leaving nothing behind. When he looked back to see what was doing this, he found himself face to face with a brick wall constructed in a strange way, such that the bands of mortar were as broad as the bricks themselves. A distant humming roar became audible and the wall began to tilt towards him. Before it could collapse, Bond had forced himself out of sleep, but the steady humming continued. With a strong sense, even in his half-awakened state, of the illogic of the action, Bond got up, twitched aside a corner of the awning and peered out. Upon waking, none the wiser as to what occurred, Bond and Ariadne decide to go skinny dipping while Litsas sleeps. quote:‘This is rather daring of you isn't it?’ he asked. ‘I thought Greek girls would die rather than be seen naked in public.’ Ariadne can definitely join the ranks of good Bond Girls. She's even got a body count! quote:As she talked, she had been moving away from the boat and now took off towards the open sea, using a steady and unexpectedly powerful breast-stroke that looked properly economical of energy. Bond was impressed. At every turn this girl showed herself to be fine material. He followed her in the same style and found, not to his surprise, that he had to exert himself to catch up. When they were level he kept to her speed and they swam out side by side for perhaps a hundred yards. The water slid like silk along their bodies and limbs. Beneath, it was dark and dense; Bond guessed that they were already at a great depth. As they paused, he felt on his cheek a tiny breath of chilly air, a first reminder that the summer which coloured everything around them was not endless after all. "On a neighborhood watch list?" quote:‘That's it. Avuncular is how I'm not feeling. You're a lucky chap, James. Now Ariadne, you must dry and dress quickly. I want to show you the Thompson again before the light has gone. These bike-lamps of Ionides' are perfectly bloody hopeless.’ The Cynthia makes a long run under the moonlight, occasionally passing a small island or boat, before Litsas suddenly notices that they're being followed 600-700 yards behind. Bond says to point the bow at Vrakonisi and put the throttle to max, hoping to cross the remaining 2 miles and do any fighting they need ashore. As Bond takes the wheel, Litsas heads below and removes the engine governor to give them extra speed. quote:The sound of the engine rose abruptly to a shuddering whine and the Cynthia seemed to lean forward into the water. Litsas doused the deck lights and made his way aft. A few seconds later, there's the familiar sound of a machine gun burst and bullets splash into the water ahead of the runabout. They think it's Arenski's men, as Von Richter wouldn't be so daring as to attack them in the open. Because it looks like they're trying to capture them alive rather than just blow them up, Bond proposes that they fight as long as they can and then dive over the side to swim for it. quote:‘I'll stall them,’ said Bond. He hung on as long as he dared then called, ‘Very well. I am ready to surrender to you. But on condition that you release the girl who is with me. She has no part in this affair.’ Litsas hands Bond some brandy to swig as they race toward Vrakonisi. A mile out from the shore, they spot the enemy boat faltering and cutting their engine. Bond tucks his espadrilles into his waistband and is the first into the water, swimming as fast as possible before Ariadne can dive in after him. Litsas will be keeping the boat going until they're both out. The enemy boat suddenly crosses in front of them, firing. quote:After twenty minutes he was approaching the edge of the shadow of Vrakonisi cast by the moon, and thought he saw a swimmer almost dead ahead cross into it. Here anybody in the water would be practically invisible, even if the motor-boat passed within yards. He paused and looked westward, but could see nothing. On again, into the shadow, the beach coming into view only a little to the left, a change of course, the last hundred yards. But no sign of Ariadne. She must have found the beach unassisted and be lying down to rest. A few yards of shallows; Bond swam as near the water's edge as he could to avoid sea-urchins. He pulled himself upright; he was ashore. Ariadne was nowhere to be seen. He whirled round.
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Apr 16, 2020 04:34
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Chapter 18: The Dragon's Clawsquote:‘Excellent. Excellent. Mr Bond is with us at last.’ And now the real fun begins. quote:Bond spoke sharply. ‘Where's the girl who was with me?’ At least it's better than Amis saying "Chinaman" or "Yellow Devil". quote:‘Bad luck has been a marked feature of this whole affair,’ he said in his curious accent. ‘You've certainly had your full share of it tonight, Mr Bond. Not even you could have predicted that our mutual friends the Russians would have advertised your approach so spectacularly – a real son et lumière effort, so to speak.’ Sun chuckled briefly at his own wit. ‘And then again you were unfortunate in being forced to swim ashore and thus allowing me ample time to get my little boatload of men along to your only possible landing-point. But then, that's life, isn't it? Since the Soviet attack boat had made such a ruckus, Evgeny was waiting on the beach to club Bond in the back of the head when he got out of the water. They stripped him of his weapons, but even took the time to dry his clothes off for him. quote:‘You've been most thoughtful,’ said Bond easily. ‘I've no complaints. I would like a little whisky if you have it.’ I think this is actually the first time Bond has ever drank his whiskey neat. quote:Sun nodded at Evgeny, taking his eyes from Bond for the first time. They soon returned to him. ‘Then apart from some minor discomfort and fatigue your present physical state is satisfactory, it seems.’ As expected, Bond does his "I'll never talk" routine. Unfortunately for him, Colonel Sun has no intent of gleaning information from him. quote:‘Quite soon you'll be taken to the cellar that lies beneath the kitchen of this house. There, using the most sophisticated of the interrogation techniques I've been privileged to be able to develop, I shall torture you to the point of death. But you must realize that this won't be an interrogation in the more common sense of the word, i.e., no questions will be asked of you and whatever information you may volunteer, whatever promises you may make, anything of that kind will have no effect at all on the inexorable progress of the interrogation. Is that clear, Mr Bond.' Bond has the startling realization that, for all intents and purposes, Sun is not insane. He has a perfectly clear, clinical interest in causing pain and agony. quote:Was there the thinnest, most fanciful hope that any of the others present might be feeling a stir of revolt at the idea of torture for its own sake, so much as a flicker of sympathy? He glanced stealthily at the two girls. The slim dark one had turned her head away, out of indifference, probably, rather than disgust. Her heavy-breasted companion was looking at him with blank dark-brown eyes; a frenzied performer in bed, he guessed, but as sluggish as a cow outside it. The Greek was openly bored, the Russian quite indifferent. By the doors to the terrace, the man called De Graaf stood watching Sun with a grin on his face, half contemptuous, half admiring. Only the doctor, who was sweating and biting his lip, showed signs of disquiet, and his support would be worthless. Bond considers his usual effort to engage in some violence at Sun, but has his arms seized before he can even finish measuring the distance. They lead Bond through the house and into another room. quote:M stood stiffly with his hands behind his back. He was pale and gaunt and looked as if he had neither eaten nor slept during his four days in enemy hands. But he held himself as upright as ever, and his eyes, puffed and bloodshot as they were, had never been steadier. He smiled faintly, frostily. Bond makes an attempt at kicking at De Graaf's shin, but his espadrilles don't do much. He does notice Sun checking his watch and frowning as he leaves, which suggests he's been thrown off his operation's timetable. quote:The door shut and the bolts slammed home. Bond turned to M. Bond fills M in on what they've learned about Sun's plan to attack the Soviet conference and leave their bodies at the scene. They're going to stop it, even if M demands that Bond leave him to die instead of slowing himself down. quote:‘I'm sorry, sir,’ said Bond at once, ‘but in that event I should have to disobey you. You and I leave here together or not at all. And, to be quite frank there's somebody else I've got to take care of too. A girl.’ Sun returns. They've knocked out and captured Litsas and Von Richter is going to explain the exact nature of their plan to Bond, because why not I guess? quote:The ex-SS man leaned back in his chair with an intent expression, as if conscientiously marshalling his thoughts. The scar tissue at the side of his head glistened in the strong light. He spoke without hurry in his curiously attractive drawl.  The Stokes was replaced before WW2 and would be rather obsolete by the 1960s, but it was the first modern infantry mortar. It's an extremely simple design: a smoothbore metal tube with a fixed firing pin at the bottom, with a bipod and baseplate for adjusting the angle of the barrel. You just drop a round down the tube and it automatically fires when it hits the bottom. The design was excellent enough to be widely copied and has served as the pattern for most infantry mortars to this day. quote:‘There is the question of accuracy. Here practice is important. I have accustomed myself to our example of the mortar during ten days in Albania recently. I understand now its peculiarities. You will realize that, when the firer cannot see his target, as in our case, he must employ an observer. This is the job of Willi here. The Albanian government kindly placed at our disposal a piece of ground very similar to this terrain. Willi and I have worked out our procedure. He will climb to the hillcrest, to the point we have established as being on a straight line between our firing-point and the target. Just below the crest he will install a light. This will be my aiming mark and will give me direction. I already have a precise knowledge of the range. Almost no wind is expected at the chosen time. We have practised a code of signals so that I shall be guided on to the target. Our proficiency has become so that within a minute three bombs out of four will hit the house or the area immediately surrounding it. This will prove sufficient. In 1965, Albania had abandoned the Soviets and had a strong political alliance with China. It was notorious for its violent dictatorship, including the banning of religion in 1967 that resulted in the closure of all churches and violent suppression of anyone practicing faith or even naming their children with names taken from religious texts. quote:Bond's mind had become preoccupied with the thought that Ariadne had again asked a highly relevant question: what there was about this project that required a man with experience of atrocities. The answer was plain enough now. Its implications were horrible. But what's the explanation for why the elderly head of MI6 is personally firing a mortar at the scene? quote:Bond said, ‘How did your people find out about this conference in such detail?’
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Apr 16, 2020 23:25
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Chapter 19: The Theory and Practice of Torturequote:The cellar was small, not more than ten feet by twelve feet by six and a half feet high. The floor bulged and sloped, and an irregular column of living rock leaned across one corner. Whatever had been left here by previous occupants was here no longer; the place was bare, swept and scrubbed. A stout wooden ladder led to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Along one wall lay a schoolroom bench; by another a small collapsible table and a kitchen chair had been placed. An unshaded but rather murky bulb burned in a bracket on a third wall. The question is: will this get more kinky than Fleming's torture? quote:Left alone for the moment, Bond sat and waited for Sun. More than anything, he longed for a cigarette. A jumble of images circled in his brain: the delicate moulding and coloration of Ariadne's face – M's firm handclasp of ten minutes earlier – the wordless plea Gordienko had made in his last seconds – the blood on Litsas's head – the game of golf with Bill Tanner, half a century ago – the terrible bewilderment on the face of the Russian as the rifle-bullet struck him – von Richter's amusement as he remembered his ‘experiments’ in Albania – the sprawled bodies of the Hammonds in the kitchen at Quarterdeck – Ariadne again. Then the figure of Sun, the loose powerful movements, the metal-coloured eyes, the sloping teeth, the dark lips. The man who was going to start him on an agonizing road to death. Bond found he was sweating with fear. Well, it's certainly got more variety. quote:After a dreadful minute of utter silence, Sun arrived. He smiled and nodded at Bond, like somebody greeting a favourite acquaintance, and sat quietly down next to the table. Bond at least gets him to promise that he'll kill her with a bullet to the back of the head, without her even knowing what happened. quote:‘It seems, Mr Bond,’ said Sun judicially, ‘that your ideas on the nature of sadism are in an unformed state. You said –’ Woof. quote:‘There's nothing I can do about it, is there?’ Is this Amis calling out Fleming's obvious insertion of kink into his books? quote:‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Sun sounded genuinely distressed. ‘I knew you were on the wrong track there. True sadism has nothing whatever to do with sex. The intimacy I was referring to is moral and spiritual, the union of two souls in a rather mystical way. In the divine Marquis de Sade's great work Justine there's a character who says to his victim: “Heaven has decreed that it is your part to endure these sufferings, just as it is my part to inflict them.” That's the kind of relationship you and I are entering into, James.’ Amis got his personal doctor, Dr. Allison (the one who appeared after Bond was drugged at Quarterdeck), to create this concept of a torture scene for him. quote:‘You must understand that I'm not the slightest bit interested in studying resistance to pain or any such pseudo-scientific claptrap. I just want to torture people. But – this is the point – not for any selfish reason, unless you call a saint or a martyr selfish. As de Sade explains in The Philosopher in the Boudoir, through cruelty one rises to heights of superhuman awareness, of sensitivity to new modes of being, that can't be attained by any other method. And the victim – you too, James, will be spiritually illuminated in the way so many Christian authorities describe as uplifting to the soul: through suffering. Side by side you and I will explore the heights.’ In one paragraph, Amis has described sadomasochism in a way orders of magnitude better than William Control does in an entire book. quote:As if flushed with excitement or some deeper emotion, Sun's cheeks seemed to have turned a darker yellow. His broad chest rose and fell under the white tee-shirt. Reversing an earlier judgement, Bond said critically, ‘You're boring me, Sun. Because of your mental condition. There's nothing more totally uninteresting than a mad-man.’ Just gonna call out Le Chiffre right here? In front of my salad? quote:A pause. The blood thudded in Bond's ears. From his slacks Sun brought out a tin of Benson & Hedges and offered them. You were fine with Kissy Suzuki just a few years before! quote:‘As you wish.’ Sun operated a leather-bound Ronson and puffed out smoke. ‘So then. Where? Where does a man live? Where's the inmost part of a man, his soul, his being, his identity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpgbmy7w9pA This is the scene that got turned into Spectre's infamous torture chair. So much of the dialogue was lifted straight from Amis that his estate actually got credited in the film. quote:Crushing out his cigarette beneath his heel, Sun gazed over at Bond with a sort of compassion. ‘Just one more thing, James. This cellar is well on the way to being sound-proof, down here in the rock. And blankets and rugs have been laid on the floor overhead to seal it even further. Our tests showed that virtually nothing can be heard at a hundred yards. So you may scream all you wish.’ Can we exhume Kingsley Amis to get him to rewrite Revelator? quote:Then, with the brisk stride of a man anxious not to be late for an important engagement, Colonel Sun came over to the chair, with ferocious efficiency he seized Bond's head in a clamp formed by his powerful left arm and his chest. Bond strained away with all his strength, but to no purpose. In a couple of seconds he felt the tip of the skewer probing delicately at the orifice of his left ear. Teeth clenched, he waited. This horrifying sequence is interrupted by Lohmann, Von Richter, and Willi coming down. Colonel Sun wants Lohman to be of greater service to his movement, so he's been brought down to observe the torture and have his inhibitions lowered. quote:‘Well, what have you in store for us, Sun?’ Von Richter drawled the question. ‘We expect great things of you, you know. Everybody tells me that Peking leads the world in this field.’ This scene is terrible but also wonderful. quote:It was much later and he was back. There were thoughts again. Or rather one big thought that filled everything and was everything. It weighed down on him like an impossibly thick blanket, it came oozing up round him like the cold slime of the sea-bed. Bond had never experienced it before, but he knew quite soon what it was. It was despair, the terminal state of life, the foretaste of death. In comparison, the blood in his nose and mouth, the ferociously throbbing ache within his head – all this was nothing. So what has Sun called this girl down for? quote:Sun had spoken entirely without conviction. He paused awkwardly, as if turning over a page in his mind. Then the dried-up voice toiled on. ‘James Bond must be in the proper spiritual state to meet the death I shall give him. The deepest pitch of hopelessness and grief and misery a man can attain.’ He fell silent. The girl stared at him. ‘What you wish, sir?’ Ah. Now it's weird. quote:‘Will not!’ Working for Sun seems to be pretty miserable! quote:‘I have good idea. First I will kiss him some. Then strip.’ chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Aug 5, 2020 |
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Apr 17, 2020 18:53
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Chapter 20: 'Goodbye, James'quote:‘Something wrong here, sir. I think this man … dead.’ gently caress. That was fast. quote:The girl was sobbing, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth, her body bent at the waist. Lohmann, trembling all over, had got to his feet. Lohmann tells Bond he has half an hour before Von Richter and Willi start launching mortar shells. Bond is unsure about trusting him, but Lohmann is only doing it because he knows Sun was going to probably have him killed anyway. He gives Bond a stimulant injection; he'll have one hour of energy, then the crash will knock him out. He tells Bond where to find everyone. quote:‘What about the sedative?’ That's certainly an offer! quote:Bond had the knife in his hand. He glanced down at it and shuddered. I hope there's no consequences to that decision! quote:There was nothing friendly to be said to the man who, until five minutes ago, had played an indispensable part in Sun's monstrous conspiracy, so Bond said nothing. But, short of time though he was, he could not pass by the girl who had saved his life at such dreadful risk. He put a hand on the slumped shoulder and she looked up, her face still dull with shock, but no longer weeping. Bond narrowly dodges past Evgeny and returns to the stairwell. He silently slides the bolt and puts his hand on the unconscious Niko's mouth. quote:There had been a jerk and a grunt and a momentary struggle, then relaxation. Bond cautiously withdrew his hand an inch. Litsas is going to put in a note for M to have Bond given better medical training back at HQ. quote:‘He's expecting to be called soon. I'll knock. When he comes out, as I hope to God he does, your job is to see he doesn't call out; if he does, we're cooked. Then I'll deal with him.’ I just want to reassure everyone that when we get to Ariadne, she's going to be reacting exactly as you would expect. quote:‘All right,’ said Litsas shortly. ‘Has that stuff made any difference yet?’ This book is pretty loving brutal compared to Fleming's, and it's going to get even more violent this chapter. quote:Ariadne, under a thin coverlet on the floor, jerked to a sitting position and stared at him, but Bond's attention was all on the swarthy blonde in the bed. She too had sat up, showing herself to be naked to the waist at least. Bond hardly saw. He gazed into her bewildered dark eyes and brought his bloodstained knife forward as he approached. There's the Craig Bond. quote:Bond stood near her at the head of the bed. Ariadne, wearing brassière and panties, got up and came over to him. Their hands touched, then gripped. Litsas dumps De Graaf's body in the corner, taking a Smith & Wesson Centennial Airweight from his belt. They hear footsteps approaching. quote:As he stood for a moment irresolute, Ariadne sprang into action. She swung her fist and cracked Doni Madan hard under the jaw. Doni's head jerked back and hit the headboard of the bed. Within five seconds Ariadne was under the coverlet again, Litsas had put himself out of view beside a battered wardrobe and Bond had slipped behind the door. I like this girl. quote:Evgeny had no chance at all. He crossed the threshold, caught sight of De Graaf's body, exclaimed, began to move forward and took the knife under the fifth rib, his mouth muffled by Bond's left forearm. Bond is just on a stabbing spree in this book! Is this his highest body count yet? quote:‘Great – but too quick and clean,’ said Ariadne, looking down at the bodies. ‘Anyway, I hope it hurt like hell for both of them – the bastards!’ Bond fills Litsas in on the mortar plan. A window on the landing gives them a view of the mortar in the early morning light. Bond tells Niko to head to the rear terrace while he heads in from the sea, both flanking him from opposite sides. quote:‘Be careful. I'll have to be close with this bloody sawn-off barrel, or I might hit you. Has he got a gun?’ Von Richter's mortar is set up about 20 yards away on a natural platform in the rocks, across broken ground that won't provide any cover. Bond waits a minute for him to turn away from his sorting of ammo to look out toward the sky, and he begins running. quote:Before he had covered more than a third of the distance to the corner of the cliff his foot struck a loose chip of stone and immediately the German wheeled and saw him. Bond changed direction and made straight for the firing-point. With his feet stumbling and slipping on the smooth hummocks of rock, he expected a bullet at any moment. What he had not expected were the immense shuddering explosions from the mortar, driving into his ears: one – two – three … Then von Richter turned and waited for him, arms extended, with all the advantages of a higher and more secure foothold. But Bond caught him out of position by going for the mortar, not the man. He flung himself forward and brought barrel and base-plate and all toppling sideways, ruining any immediate prospect of further aimed shots. The pain lunged at him. He was halfway to his feet when his head seemed to dissolve and everything stopped. It takes surprisingly little time to find Von Richter, aboard the dinghy trying to sale away. Bond and Litsas simply drop from the quay onto the boat. quote:‘The major and I will have a little sail, James. We're in not much hurry now. There's the major's boy-friend to deal with, but he's got some way to travel. I'll be back to help you dispose of him.’  quote:The boat began to move away. Abstractedly, Bond watched it receding for a couple of minutes, then sauntered back into the house. He had reached the hall before he noticed the blood-spots. This is why you double-tap. quote:‘He forgot,’ he said. ‘He forgot that morphia can do a lot for a man with holes in his guts. It never occurred to him.’ "He's.....Chinese." quote:‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ asked Bond with unwilling compassion. The Nazis produced large numbers of organophosphate-based nerve agents, such as Sarin and Tabun, but never deployed them. The British developed an even nastier one, VX, in the 1950s; while it has rarely been deployed in wartime, it's most infamously been used for several murders, including Kim Jong-nam. Willi is taking a bad way out. quote:Bond said nothing. Awkwardly, he laid his hand on Lohmann's shoulder for a moment and hurried away up the ladder. Amis later found out that he actually got this one wrong. For obvious safety reasons, mortar shells must be armed by their high-velocity spiraling through the air. quote:‘What do you want, Sun?’ Bond was calculating distances in feet and split seconds, trying to visualize the shape of the corner behind him, estimating the possibility of leaping the lower wall to his left. He's got a point. quote:Sun's stained teeth showed. ‘I insist! I order you to –’ Then the eyes flickered and blood pulsed from the mouth and Bond vaulted the seaward wall of the gully, dropped on all fours into a bowl of scrubby grass only five feet below, scrambled to a stump of rock like an eroded tombstone, swung himself to the far side of it. The rumbling in his ears pulsated on. Sun's voice, feeble now, came through from above and half right. Pathetic, broken, and fully aware of his failure. Bond never gives Sun the benefit of a reply. With one final curse, he angrily throws the bomb into the gully. quote:Sun had slipped to his knees against the wall of the gully. The extraordinary eyes were open. They fixed on the knife Bond still grasped and their expression became one of appeal.
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Apr 18, 2020 23:12
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Trin Tragula posted:I dunno, given that he's just wussed out on making sure of Sun at that point, I read that as a bluff to stop her from making trouble. Can you see any other Bond staggering into the room, waving a bloody knife and threatening to stab the girl?
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Apr 19, 2020 00:21
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Trin Tragula posted:What, this smug toe-rag? I think there's just a different feel here. Bond is coming fresh from an extreme torture session, skewers through his skull into the brain, having stabbed two men (one right in the doorway). Even Ariadne comments on how weird his voice sounds when he gets in there. Roger Moore is still smooth and suave even when threatening to break your arm. Amis's Bond is probably wild-eyed, soaked in blood, holding a bloody weapon out in front of him. He's trying to keep his patterns of speech slow and cautious, but he's clearly gone through poo poo and in some form of mental trauma and barely hanging on.
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Apr 19, 2020 03:26
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Chapter 21: A Man from Moscowquote:‘I had a devil of a job this morning, squaring things with the local authorities,’ said Sir Ranald Rideout fretfully. ‘Sticklers for form and their own dignity, as always. A lot of talk about the honour of Greece and of the Athens police department. Mind you, I can see their point in a way. A gun-fight in the streets, four dead, two of them foreigners and one of those a diplomat of sorts. No evidence at all, but the Commissioner fellow I saw had his guesses all right. Ah, thank you.’ Doesn't even drink! quote:‘Then this business on Sunday. Half a dozen corpses, two German tourists missing, mysterious explosions, goodness knows what else, and who have they got in the way of witnesses and/or suspects? A half-witted Albanian girl who won't or can't talk, and a Greek thug with a lot of burns who says he doesn't know anything about it either, except that a man called James Bond killed one of his friends and tried to kill him and blew up his boat. I must say, Bond – speaking quite off the record, you understand – I can't altogether see why you didn't square things off by getting rid of that fellow too while you were about it – he was only small fry, wasn't he? After all, according to your report you'd put paid to three of the opposition already that morning. Surely one more wouldn't have –’ Sir Ranald is not fond of the killers in his government, regardless of the necessity. He sees Bond as such a thug that he should be expected to go on a killing spree even when unnecessary. quote:M broke in. ‘What happened finally, sir?’ M confirms that Stuart Thomas, the head of Station G, was found dead. He questions why Bond didn't bother to let the plot go on, seeing as the Russians meeting down there were enemies in the first place, but approves of it for favorably tilting the balance of power in the world by painting the British as heroes. quote:An elegant young Russian with high Tartar cheekbones had made his way over. ‘Excuse me, Admiral, sir. Our Mr Yermolov from Moscow would like to have a talk with you, Mr Bond. Would you come, please?’ Alexei Kosygin was the Premiere of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980, after Khrushchev was removed from power. While he was the most powerful man in the USSR at this time, the Prague Spring of 1968 (when Czechoslovakia enacted liberal reforms and the USSR responded by sending in troops and occupying the country like normal people do) and other policy blunders led to Leonid Brezhnev (one of the other men in the government troika) coming out ahead in the power struggle and becoming the real power in the country. With his health failing and power effectively gone, Kosygin resigned and died 2 months later. quote:‘Besides our gratitude, it's also suitable that we offer your apologies. For certain specific failures of judgment on our part. I have to admit to you that our security apparatus in this area had been allowed to fall into disrepair. This was not the fault of the late Major Gordienko, a capable enough officer who –’  Bond has mostly been connected with Smirnoff since the very first movie, but he would get into Stoli in the 1980s with A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights with some very prominent product placement. Stolichnaya's exact start of production is unknown due to poor records, with a time between 1938 and 1948 being all that's certain. Stoli was one of the only Russian vodka brands exported to the West during Fleming's lifetime; while Smirnoff was started by a Russian, it's been produced in foreign countries for almost its entire life and was being made in the United States at the time of this book (not sure when the British distillery opened). For his part, Amis's writings on drinks in the 1970s suggest that you should stick to the cheaper American or British-made stuff instead of premium Russian vodkas when you can because they'll be identical to a taste test anyway. quote:He snapped his fingers at the high-cheekboned young man and went on talking. As for Arenski, he's still alive. When Bond attacked Von Richter at the mortar, his hasty shelling had completely missed the conference and instead landed in the water. He tried to accuse Bond of being the terrorist, but the Soviet government has been distributing information on the Chinese involvement and Arenski is going to find himself seeing re-education in Siberia. quote:Yermolov chewed at his lips. The noise of the party swelled in the background. Bond caught sight of Ariadne, beautiful and magnificently groomed in a lilac-coloured linen dress, the centre of a group of admiring Russians. The first really profound sense of relief swept through him. It was over. They had won. And more than that …  The Order of the Red Banner is given to those who demonstrate extraordinary heroism, dedication, and courage on the battlefield. As an example of what an individual would have to do to get it for battlefield actions, Vasily Zaytsev was awarded it for his time killing over 200 soldiers as a sniper in Stalingrad. quote:‘I see.’ Yermolov nodded sadly. ‘I rather expected you to say that. I told Comrade Kosygin so. Well, there it is. It was an honest offer, expressing honest feeling. But, uh, you might not have found membership of the Order all that much of a distinction. Or an advantage. It wouldn't do you any good at all if you happened to come up against our counter-espionage forces in the future, as you've so often done in the past. As a matter of fact,’ – here Yermolov leant forward confidentially – ‘even Russian nationals who've been given it haven't noticed that it protected them very well – against anything. But, please, you must allow an old man his cynicism. Speaking naturally tends to go to one's head.’ That high-pitched whine you hear is the sound of Ian Fleming spinning in his grave like a jet turbine. quote:Ariadne had extricated herself from the Russian circle and was now talking to Litsas. Always a convenient loophole! quote:‘That's true. I must think of that.’ Now, with obvious effort, Litsas grinned. ‘Well, you've recovered in a good way. The glamorous secret agent again. I suppose that suit is full of little radios and concealed cameras and things.’ I had completely forgotten he had all that! I guess Amis really had a message he wanted to send: it's not the gadgets that make Bond, it's Bond. quote:Litsas had swallowed his drink. ‘I must go. I will let you know about Ionides. I've asked everybody I know to keep a look-out for him. He must have sold the Altair in Egypt or somewhere and decided to hide for a bit. But it's funny. I could have sworn he was honest.’ Oh, whoops. quote:‘Oh well … You're leaving in the morning? Come to Greece again, James. When the Chinese and the Russians aren't chasing you. There are many places I'd like you to see.’ It probably helped that she got to clock one of them in the face. quote:‘Very. Where shall we go?’ The exact opposite of Tatiana Romanova. Not scared of her work, but proud of it. quote:‘If that's how you feel, obviously you must stay with it.’ And that's it for Kingsley Amis's only trip into the Bond canon. I actually liked it! His writing style is very different, but he's a competent writer who crafted some good action scenes and a marvelously gruesome torture sequence even if he hasn't shaken his "old British man" biases. Unfortunately, I don't believe Litsas or Ariadne factor into any later author's stories. Tomorrow, we move on to perhaps the oddest Bond book: one that is presented as the biography of James Bond, the real superspy and friend of Ian Fleming.
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Apr 19, 2020 22:40
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 James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007, published in 1973, is the strangest book in Bond canon. To understand where it came from, one must understand the author.  Unlike several of our other authors, John Pearson is still alive despite being less than a month from 90. Born in Epsom, Surrey, Pearson graduated with a Double First in History from Peterhouse, Cambridge and worked in newspapers and BBC scriptwriting. Ian Fleming noticed him and offered him a job as an assistant for his Atticus column. When he was 32, he gave up journalism to become an author. Two years later, Ian Fleming died. In 1966, Pearson had already published the first biography of Ian Fleming via interviews with over 150 people and extensive study of Fleming's private papers. Pearson served as an extensive non-fiction writer in addition to his novels, especially enjoying true crime writing. He first began interviewing infamous British criminals Ronnie and Reggie Kray in 1967 for their biography and kept up correspondence while they were in prison; after their deaths, he controversially revealed in his last book on them that they had maintained an incestuous homosexual relationships. His most famous work is likely the biography of J. Paul Getty and his heirs, turned by Ridley Scott into All the Money in the World. There were three especially unusual books that Pearson wrote, all with the same conceit. Along with his Bond book, he also wrote The Bellamys of Eaton Place as an Upstairs, Downstairs tie-in and Biggles: The Authorised Biography. All three of them take the same conceit: what if these fictional people are actually real and we're merely reading a fictionalized depiction of their lives? So The Authorized Biography of 007 is not an ordinary Bond novel by any means. While it's certainly fiction and mostly takes the form of Bond talking about his childhood and other missions he went on (a few of which got minor references in later films), it's written by Fleming's actual biographer and has him personally meeting Bond and various other characters from Fleming's novels. It takes the conceit (as Fleming hinted at in You Only Live Twice in Bond's obituary) that Fleming was hired by the Secret Service to write fictionalized versions of Bond's adventures in the hopes of disguising rumors of his existence as mere pulp novel fantasy. The goal with reading this book is to discover if it hurts or helps our perception of Bond. Because Pearson is writing as if the Bond novels are fictionalized exploits with creative liberties taken, he makes some changes to Bond's personality and fleshes out some of his backstory in ways that may not necessarily be good directions. Do we take the revelations as canon going forward, or do we abandon them?
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Apr 20, 2020 17:28
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