Fourteen and fifteen are wonderful ages, if you have James Bond for company. You are horny like hell but still treated like a child. You take a peek at those naughty passages in Lady Chatterley's Lover, Fanny Hill, Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden among others, all wrapped in brown paper. (The Carpetbaggers was later.) Unfortunately you can't read them openly because they are all considered 'dirty' books. But James Bond you can. Nothing is explicit, only suggested, and you can let your imagination fly and think you are going to burst every time you come to those parts … But it was not just about the sex. There was the constant menacing danger (which the movie versions were never able to handle successfully, except of for the music, substituting it instead with action, gadgetry and special effects), the sudden violence, the delicious villains - Rosa Klebb, Pussy Galore, Auric Goldfinger, Dr M, Ernst Stravro Blofeld ... oh, so many. In Dr No a poisonous centipede (in the movie it was a tarantula - how predictable) crawls all over Bonds naked torso in bed (yes, he sleeps in the raw), you are beside yourself with fear on where it might bite or where it might nuzzle up, now it is crawling all over your own skin, 100 legs and a deadly venom (yikes, I still get the creeps when I think of it … if I can remember that scene from the book after 45 years, it must have been some scene yah?) Cheesy as the Bond series was, it was damn good story telling.
And the quotes (Goldfinger was a master at that):
JB: Do you expect me to talk?
AG: No Mr Bond, I expect you to die.
Or how about this one, probably the most famous quote of them all?
AG: "In Chicago, Mr Bond, they have a saying: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action.
(Makes you wonder what kind of kick fourteen-year-olds get out of Harry Potter these days, doesn't it?)
Anyway James Bond is back (again). But this time Sebastian Faulks will write it. I was not too excited by the previous efforts, but his one is something I am looking forward to. It should be good (as long as SF does not take himself too seriously.)
Sebastian Faulks has been commissioned by the Fleming estate to write this sequel to commemorate the centenary of Fleming's birth. Devil May Care, will be published May 2008.
[Others commissioned by Fleming's estate to resurrect Bond have been: Kingsley Amis (Colonel Sun), John Pearson, John Gardner and Raymond Benson (The Man with the Red Tattoo), all pretty forgettable efforts.]
More than 100m copies of Fleming's 14 original Bond novels have been sold since Casino Royale was published in 1954.
Full report: http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2123271,00.html
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