BOOK REVIEW: THE JAMES BOND SERIES (PLUS…) by Ian Fleming

BOOK REVIEW: THE JAMES BOND SERIES by Ian Fleming
PLUS: James Bond: The Authorised Biography by John Pearson
New South Books
October 2003
By Shane Pinnegar
Bond novel series: 90%
James Bond: The Authorised Biography: 85%

New South Books’ classy reissue of Ian Fleming’s fourteen Bond novels – all of which were originally published between 1953 and 1966 and all of which have since been adapted for film – look great with a flashy ‘007’ logo on the covers, each image embellished with elements of the story within.

The books themselves are still gripping and exciting, albeit not always politically correct for today’s times. James Bond was, after all, quite the swordsman and his treatment of women was much more of its rather misogynist time than conforming to today’s #metoo world.

Some of the stories are better than others, of course: some are completely absurd (we’re looking at you, Moonraker), whilst some decent books made appalling movies (the Timothy Dalton screen era especially fails to hold up well, for starters), but the saga remains a gripping and intoxicating one.

To look to what made Bond such a devastatingly magnetic lead character is to observe the old adage: “Every woman wanted to have him, every man wanted to be him.” Nowadays we could amend that to “Everyone wanted to be like him”, perhaps. A good looking, well educated, impeccably mannered global traveller, an international spy with seemingly unlimited money, style to spare, attractive paramours throwing themselves at him, and with a licence to kill on the side of good: what’s not to love in this fantasy of another time?

Best of all, we can read the novels and watch the films and not have anybody throwing silver morning stars or shooting bullets or letting tarantulas loose in our bedrooms!

Reading Fleming’s Bond now is like a trip back in time, and it’s in the context of those times we must leave his somewhat brusque treatment of women. We don’t have to approve of it and can certainly agree that it belongs back in the day, but his adventures are still worth immersing in and enjoying on their own level.

As a bonus volume, New South have also reissued John Pearson’s James Bond: The Authorised Biography, written parallel to his biography of Fleming himself. Pearson treats the fictional Bond as a real person, ‘interviewing’ him towards the end of his storied career with MI6, and dives deep into the (so called) real stories behind Fleming’s supposedly ‘exaggerated’ novels.

The premise here is that Fleming and M enlist Pearson to help convince the enemy that Bond was always a fictional character, to throw them off the scent as he continues to clean up messy international incidents. It’s deliciously convoluted and a delightfully meta piece of work, illuminating the possible back story of a character who was always considerably larger than life, and in part based upon Fleming’s own real-life adventures in Her Majesty’s secret service both in and after World War II.

First published in 1973, nine years after Fleming passed, the ambitious and intricate James Bond: The Authorised Biography is a grittier, darker Bond than in Fleming’s novels, but offers much exposition behind the more famous stories. Whether that exposition is fictional, or whether Pearson really was in on dark and shady secret real events which inspired Fleming’s Bond stories remains their secret, and probably always will do.

Category: Book Reviews