Through the awards show I also started to take note of the "Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award". I was especially interested to discover that Jeffery Deaver had won this award back in 2004 for his novel "Garden of Beasts"( an historical thriller set against the backdrop of the 1936 Berlin Olympics). His acceptance speech apparently played a major part in Deaver being asked to pen the new James Bond novel. It's scheduled for release in Spring 2011 and I'll undoubtedly buy it.
I enjoy Deaver's novels and I was won back to the Bond books by "Devil May Care" the 36th. "official" novel as penned by Sebastian Faulks.
Around the age of 16 or 17 I was a mega fan of Fleming's original Bond novels. I read them all within a span of 5 or 6 months, including Kingsley Amis' pseudonymous "Colonel Sun" . Of course, the Bond films were huge at the time and influenced my reading of the books. I enjoyed both but the contrasts between the two media made me realise that not all books make good films. "You only live twice" is among the best of the novels and also one of my favourite films in the series (with a screenplay by Roald Dahl). The two have nothing in common other than the title. The novel wouldn't have made a good film although the content is among the finest writing produced by Fleming. He seemed to have made a major effort to absorb Japanese culture and the title, if memory serves, comes from haiku which Bond writes in preparing to confront Blofeld for the final time.
By the time the novels were being written by John Gardner and Roger Moore was starring in the films much of my fervour for all things Bond had evaporated. Re-reading some of the novels also made me aware of annoyances which I'd missed first time round. There are fairly frequent anti-semitic and racist references peppered through the books, most notably hints at Goldfinger's Jewish roots and Blofeld's mixed ethnicity.
I was particularly annoyed by a dialogue between Bond and "Tiger" Tanaka of the Japanese secret Service in "You only live twice". During their conversation Bond explains the inability of some of the American GIs to appreciate Japanese culture in general and saki in particular because their ancestry equipped them better for ploughing muddy fields in Ireland or Poland. My Uncle Tommy, God rest him, was evacuated from Dunkirk with the rest of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940 and was captured and imprisoned by the Japanese army while later serving in Burma. I don't think that rice wine appreciation or the history of the No play were ever included among the entertainments offered to British or American prisoners in the Far East.
And yet......well, years pass and you make allowances for people as you get older. It's possible to see them as a product of their times to a great extent. Even if, as many have written, Fleming was a snob I must admit that I was touched when I read about him apologising to the (NHS) ambulance men as they prepared to take him to hospital in the throes of his final, fatal heart attack ("Sorry to be such a bother..."). Clearly a gentleman of the old school. John Pearson's biography of Fleming also softened my opinion of him to a large extent.
Head and shoulders above the rest of the Bond novels for me is "Live and Let Die", despite its casual racism (Harlem and Jamaica form much of its backdrop). This opinion may have something to do with the fact that it was the Bond novel which I had most trouble buying. Most were readily available at second hand markets like "the Barras" but "LALD" eluded me until the film came out in 1973. (The copy residing in my attic has the original movie poster on its cover).
My theory about the novel is that it's great because it's a SECOND novel. There is a myth that second novels or albums are more difficult for authors or musicians to produce. The success of "Casino Royale" was apparently something of a surprise to Fleming. In turn this seems to have have had much the same effect on him that the Villiers supercharger had on the performance of Bond's beloved Bentley.
"LALD" seethes with creativity as if Fleming is throwing everything he can into an intoxicating cocktail of pirate treasure, Fu Manchu -inspired villainy, Caribbean colour and post-war American pulp fiction. Even though the Bond novels are notoriously lacking in humour Fleming even allows himself a (dark) joke. Felix Leiter is dumped in a motel room after being nibbled on by a shark when captured by "Mr. Big" ,the book's main villain. Pinned to Leiter's chest is a note : "He disagreed with something that ate him". The book also has a thrilling keel-hauling sequence which was eventually used (much less effectively) in one of the Timothy Dalton movies ("Licence to Kill"). Now, if you'll excuse me, I've written myself into the mood to go and look out my copy of "Diamonds are Forever" to see if it's improved over the years......
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