Fleming the treehugger?
caractacus potts
Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 4,108MI6 Agent
when I began my brave project of reading all 14 books in one extended sitting, I assumed Ian Fleming was going to be some crusty old reactionary
certainly hes infamous for his sexist and xenophobic attitudes, and if you take seriously some of the stuff that comes out of M's mouth maybe thats true
but, Ive started surprising myself with some of the progressive leftist logic he works into his books, he almost thinks like me and he was writing 50 years ago during the Eisenhower era
and heres where I really noticed it: in Dr No, where the world is in fact saved by the unwitting sacrifices of the Audobon Society
remember in Ms office, at the beginning, M refers to the murdered environmentalists as "Some bloody old womens group wasting the secret services time when weve got work to do fighting the Ruskies" or words to that effect, and Bond discretely takes the Audobon dossier from Tanner to avoid ****ing his boss off any further
then when Bond gets to Crab Key, the case is clinched by Honey Rider, thanks to her selftaught ecological knowledge, she knows where the birds in question were nesting, and page after page is devoted to her explaining the behaviour of all these wee critters living in Jamaican tidepools
thats when I first realised Fleming was really into ecology, he obviously knew all the animals native to Jamaica and goes on for pages about the subtletys of tropical climate
M's rant at the beginning is like a parody of a crusty old reactionary with no time for the environment, Honey Rider seems to be voicing opinions closer to Flemings own
so I asked myself: where would Ian Fleming stand on Global Warming for example if he were alive today? could Ian Fleming have been a treehugger?
then I notice theres stuff like this in every book that follows:
Goldfinger: the first chapter describes a naive doctors attempts to ease the pain of english heroin addicts by smuggling heroin into the country, to ease them off their habits - criminals hijack his operation, but his goal is described sympathetically
this is an issue ripped out of todays headlines: safe injection sites vs Methadone vs prison
For Your Eyes Only: twice, we see Flemings sympathies are with Castro - in The Hildebrandt Rarity, Bond says precisely this, but British trade treaties require him to blow up rebel supply ships, and the title story is predicated on the assumption that the Battista Regime was propped up by exNazis and Castros revolution will at least clean that lot out
Thunderball - all the clean living healthfood content of course, reminds me of the conversations I used to hear amongst vegetarians on the West Coast, Fleming must have done some personal research into that raw food diet to fill 40odd pages
The Spy Who Loved Me - Vivienne Michel tells Bond she thinks all this Cold War stuff makes no sense to her generation and why cant we just get along and we need more hep young leaders like Jack Kennedy - Bond says he in fact agrees but dont tell anybody or he'd be out of a job (course he might just be saying this to get into the hippychicks pants)
thats as far as Ive got, but think also in Live and Let Die: despite the frequent use of the N-bomb, the Harlem chapters are basically Leiter taking Bond on a tourist trip through the jazz clubs, and breathing in the marijuana in the air - it may read condescendingly to us today, with all the continued sensitivity to race relations in the US, but its just another travelogue along the lines of the Gypsy content in FRWL or all the Japanese bits in YOLT, and is one of Flemings more enjoyable travelogue sections - I want to hang in those clubs Leiter and Bond checked out that night!
on the other hand Fleming does insist things like "all women on some level want to be raped" (tSWLM)or giving women the vote led to homosexuality (Goldfinger)
cant really explain creepy stuff like that away
still he's hipper than I at first thought
certainly hes infamous for his sexist and xenophobic attitudes, and if you take seriously some of the stuff that comes out of M's mouth maybe thats true
but, Ive started surprising myself with some of the progressive leftist logic he works into his books, he almost thinks like me and he was writing 50 years ago during the Eisenhower era
and heres where I really noticed it: in Dr No, where the world is in fact saved by the unwitting sacrifices of the Audobon Society
remember in Ms office, at the beginning, M refers to the murdered environmentalists as "Some bloody old womens group wasting the secret services time when weve got work to do fighting the Ruskies" or words to that effect, and Bond discretely takes the Audobon dossier from Tanner to avoid ****ing his boss off any further
then when Bond gets to Crab Key, the case is clinched by Honey Rider, thanks to her selftaught ecological knowledge, she knows where the birds in question were nesting, and page after page is devoted to her explaining the behaviour of all these wee critters living in Jamaican tidepools
thats when I first realised Fleming was really into ecology, he obviously knew all the animals native to Jamaica and goes on for pages about the subtletys of tropical climate
M's rant at the beginning is like a parody of a crusty old reactionary with no time for the environment, Honey Rider seems to be voicing opinions closer to Flemings own
so I asked myself: where would Ian Fleming stand on Global Warming for example if he were alive today? could Ian Fleming have been a treehugger?
then I notice theres stuff like this in every book that follows:
Goldfinger: the first chapter describes a naive doctors attempts to ease the pain of english heroin addicts by smuggling heroin into the country, to ease them off their habits - criminals hijack his operation, but his goal is described sympathetically
this is an issue ripped out of todays headlines: safe injection sites vs Methadone vs prison
For Your Eyes Only: twice, we see Flemings sympathies are with Castro - in The Hildebrandt Rarity, Bond says precisely this, but British trade treaties require him to blow up rebel supply ships, and the title story is predicated on the assumption that the Battista Regime was propped up by exNazis and Castros revolution will at least clean that lot out
Thunderball - all the clean living healthfood content of course, reminds me of the conversations I used to hear amongst vegetarians on the West Coast, Fleming must have done some personal research into that raw food diet to fill 40odd pages
The Spy Who Loved Me - Vivienne Michel tells Bond she thinks all this Cold War stuff makes no sense to her generation and why cant we just get along and we need more hep young leaders like Jack Kennedy - Bond says he in fact agrees but dont tell anybody or he'd be out of a job (course he might just be saying this to get into the hippychicks pants)
thats as far as Ive got, but think also in Live and Let Die: despite the frequent use of the N-bomb, the Harlem chapters are basically Leiter taking Bond on a tourist trip through the jazz clubs, and breathing in the marijuana in the air - it may read condescendingly to us today, with all the continued sensitivity to race relations in the US, but its just another travelogue along the lines of the Gypsy content in FRWL or all the Japanese bits in YOLT, and is one of Flemings more enjoyable travelogue sections - I want to hang in those clubs Leiter and Bond checked out that night!
on the other hand Fleming does insist things like "all women on some level want to be raped" (tSWLM)or giving women the vote led to homosexuality (Goldfinger)
cant really explain creepy stuff like that away
still he's hipper than I at first thought
Comments
"thats when I first realised Fleming was really into ecology, he obviously knew all the animals native to Jamaica and goes on for pages about the subtletys of tropical climate..."
Well he knew a lot about Jamaica because he lived there
The old Fleming/sexist debate could go on forever. He seems to have a sexist attitude, and yet, more often than not women help save the day in the story. Then again, they are often portrayed as tag-along drag-downs. So it's hard to come to a conclusion there
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That was actually Quantum of Solace, but The Hildebrandt Rarity did showcase Bond's disgust at Krest's 'nuke the fish' approach toward capturing the the rare specimen. In fact, when Bond is underwater and Krest releases the poison into the water, the scene is depicted horrifically, as if it were describing a town of people being gassed in warfare. There's a sadness to the fact that the extremely rare fish is also counted among the dead.