Hardyboy Classics--Recovered!
Hardyboy
Posts: 5,912Chief of Staff
Thanks to Darenhat, who discovered the online Wayback Machine, I was able to uncover two posts I made back in May 2002. These were the early days of the Lit forum, when it was hardly ever visited and when Si and the mods (I wasn't one at the time) were considering shutting it down. I was determined to write some interesting stuff in the Lit forum in effort to keep it going, and these are what I came up with. I don't know if I had much impact on the current success of the forum--I think Scaramanga1's intitiation of the fan fiction novels is what ensured the success of the Lit forum--but a couple of people have said they remember these posts and that they'd like to see them again. I thought they were gone forever, removed in a purge, so I'm pleased to rediscover them. So, for your enjoyment or scorn, I present two of my earliest AJB efforts:
*****
Moonraker--the novel that (pretty well) started it all
________________________________________
We all know that the first Bond novel was 1953's "Casino Royale," but in my opinion the novel that really established James Bond as a character and which made the series unique and distinctive is the third book in the series, "Moonraker" (1955). This isn't one of the most praised of the novels, but it usually gets some marks for rounding out the Bond character and for introducing Hugo Drax, who is easily one of Fleming's greatest villains; but I think the novel deserves more credit. Here's why:
The first two novels, "CR" and "Live and Let Die," are certainly important in that they introduced the major characters, set up the Bondian world, and established a more liberal attitude toward sex that in no small part helped usher in the sexual revolution of the '60s. But when you take the Soviets out of the novels, they could pretty well have been written in that period between World Wars I and II, when many British writers were predicting the second coming of the Germans and dreaming up awful schemes they could be executing. "Moonraker" is clearly a novel that could only have been written after World War II and during the Cold War. Once Fleming introduced a nuclear rocket and the fear that London would be bombed and irradiated, he moved Bond into the modern world--a world that is still in danger of nuclear perils. Fleming brilliantly melded the old--the traditional British hero--with the new, making the spy genre his own.
Also, "Moonraker" established what we think of as the archetypal Bond villain. Le Chiffre was really nothing more than an embezzler who doesn't want to get caught (and he gets bumped off halfway); and Mr. Big has his sights set on a pretty small market--becoming the "first great Negro criminal" (there are political implications to this I'll write about in another thread). Hugo Drax is the first Bondian megalomaniac, someone who puts his own wishes and desires above the wellbeing of the rest of the world. It's also interesting that Fleming made him a Nazi who strikes a deal with the Soviets, showing that evil may change political ideologies but it remains evil at the core. . .and Drax's multimillionaire status suggests that Britain is being corrupted by new-age capitalism, which always masquerades as something else.
Finally, "Moonraker" is the first of the "great scheme" novels. Fleming would dream up fantastic plots for the villains in later novels, mainly "Dr. No," "Goldfinger," "Thunderball" (credit to McClory), and "OHMSS;" and the "great scheme" would become the blueprint for most of the Bond films. All these important Bondian elements began with "Moonraker," and the book deserves its due. If you haven't read it, do so; it's well worth the time.
*****
Live and Let Die--Fear of a Black Planet?
________________________________________
I think that Fleming's second novel, Live and Let Die (1954), is in a lot of ways a big improvement over Casino Royale. . .the plot is more engaging, the pace is quicker, and the characterizations are a little deeper. It's also a real corker of an adventure, and it's a shame that so little of the story made it into the 1973 film. . .a mistake I think the producers realized, since they cannibalized the book in For Your Eyes Only and Licence to Kill.
Good as the book is, though, it's a little tough to read from the modern perspective. There's the Stepin Fetchit dialogue, the image of black people capable of being easily manipulated by one person, and the ages-old image of a beautiful white woman held prisoner by a brutal black man (something that DID make it into the '73 film--to some protest). I think some of the racial attitudes in the book were hard for American audiences to stomach even in 1954, since the title of chapter 6--"N****r Heaven" in the UK editions--was changed to "Table Z."
OK, I'm not going to turn this into some preachy, PC, hand-wringing liberal complaint. . .Ian Fleming was a man of his times and LALD reflects many attitudes that were commonplace at the time. I accept that. But what I find fascinating about the novel is how closely it mirrors some fears that were genuinely felt in America about racial uprisings. Specifically, J. Edgar Hoover kept dossiers on such civil rights leaders as Martin Luther King because Hoover believed that King was a communist, and that he was advocating for civil rights NOT for the sake of civil rights, but because he was trying to stir up trouble in the inner cities and convert African-Americans into subversive commie radicals. Isn't this what Fleming's Mr. Big is doing--using control over New York's black community in order to bring Soviet activities into America? It's enough to make you wonder if Fleming had connections with the CIA.
Again, Live and Let Die is an enjoyable book, but it's an even more fascinating look at an unpleasant part of racial history. Read it and see for yourself.
*****
Moonraker--the novel that (pretty well) started it all
________________________________________
We all know that the first Bond novel was 1953's "Casino Royale," but in my opinion the novel that really established James Bond as a character and which made the series unique and distinctive is the third book in the series, "Moonraker" (1955). This isn't one of the most praised of the novels, but it usually gets some marks for rounding out the Bond character and for introducing Hugo Drax, who is easily one of Fleming's greatest villains; but I think the novel deserves more credit. Here's why:
The first two novels, "CR" and "Live and Let Die," are certainly important in that they introduced the major characters, set up the Bondian world, and established a more liberal attitude toward sex that in no small part helped usher in the sexual revolution of the '60s. But when you take the Soviets out of the novels, they could pretty well have been written in that period between World Wars I and II, when many British writers were predicting the second coming of the Germans and dreaming up awful schemes they could be executing. "Moonraker" is clearly a novel that could only have been written after World War II and during the Cold War. Once Fleming introduced a nuclear rocket and the fear that London would be bombed and irradiated, he moved Bond into the modern world--a world that is still in danger of nuclear perils. Fleming brilliantly melded the old--the traditional British hero--with the new, making the spy genre his own.
Also, "Moonraker" established what we think of as the archetypal Bond villain. Le Chiffre was really nothing more than an embezzler who doesn't want to get caught (and he gets bumped off halfway); and Mr. Big has his sights set on a pretty small market--becoming the "first great Negro criminal" (there are political implications to this I'll write about in another thread). Hugo Drax is the first Bondian megalomaniac, someone who puts his own wishes and desires above the wellbeing of the rest of the world. It's also interesting that Fleming made him a Nazi who strikes a deal with the Soviets, showing that evil may change political ideologies but it remains evil at the core. . .and Drax's multimillionaire status suggests that Britain is being corrupted by new-age capitalism, which always masquerades as something else.
Finally, "Moonraker" is the first of the "great scheme" novels. Fleming would dream up fantastic plots for the villains in later novels, mainly "Dr. No," "Goldfinger," "Thunderball" (credit to McClory), and "OHMSS;" and the "great scheme" would become the blueprint for most of the Bond films. All these important Bondian elements began with "Moonraker," and the book deserves its due. If you haven't read it, do so; it's well worth the time.
*****
Live and Let Die--Fear of a Black Planet?
________________________________________
I think that Fleming's second novel, Live and Let Die (1954), is in a lot of ways a big improvement over Casino Royale. . .the plot is more engaging, the pace is quicker, and the characterizations are a little deeper. It's also a real corker of an adventure, and it's a shame that so little of the story made it into the 1973 film. . .a mistake I think the producers realized, since they cannibalized the book in For Your Eyes Only and Licence to Kill.
Good as the book is, though, it's a little tough to read from the modern perspective. There's the Stepin Fetchit dialogue, the image of black people capable of being easily manipulated by one person, and the ages-old image of a beautiful white woman held prisoner by a brutal black man (something that DID make it into the '73 film--to some protest). I think some of the racial attitudes in the book were hard for American audiences to stomach even in 1954, since the title of chapter 6--"N****r Heaven" in the UK editions--was changed to "Table Z."
OK, I'm not going to turn this into some preachy, PC, hand-wringing liberal complaint. . .Ian Fleming was a man of his times and LALD reflects many attitudes that were commonplace at the time. I accept that. But what I find fascinating about the novel is how closely it mirrors some fears that were genuinely felt in America about racial uprisings. Specifically, J. Edgar Hoover kept dossiers on such civil rights leaders as Martin Luther King because Hoover believed that King was a communist, and that he was advocating for civil rights NOT for the sake of civil rights, but because he was trying to stir up trouble in the inner cities and convert African-Americans into subversive commie radicals. Isn't this what Fleming's Mr. Big is doing--using control over New York's black community in order to bring Soviet activities into America? It's enough to make you wonder if Fleming had connections with the CIA.
Again, Live and Let Die is an enjoyable book, but it's an even more fascinating look at an unpleasant part of racial history. Read it and see for yourself.
Vox clamantis in deserto
Comments
Interesting to note, also, that even after the subsequent cannibalizations of LALD (as you noted, by FYEO and LTK) there remains a still-unmined nugget or two, waiting to be fully exploited. Your notes on the racial components of the piece are very canny, as well---as someone in the midst of a 'period' project, I can attest to the challenges such a thing entails.
All in all, I can clearly see that AJB was built on a rock-solid foundation---and 'Johnny-come-latelys' like myself face a very high bar, in terms of both quality and relevance.
{[]
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
As I recall, at the time the Moonraker and Live and Let Die essays first appeared,many members of our community told Hardy they should be shared with a wider audience-the readers of a James Bond fanzine,for example.Hey-with a little expansion here and few footnotes there,they'd be ready for appreciation by the outside world.As it is,they've definitely stood the test of time and remain as fresh today as when they originally appeared.
Well done,Hardy!
I'd argue, having read The Battle for Bond, that Thunderball is more apt, as it deals with hijacked hardware that would inspire so many Bonds like YOLT, TSWLM and the film version of MR, plus Spectre of course.
The V2 rocket or whatever it is, is indiginous and above board. There's another oddity about Hugo Drax, Fleming's villain. Can you spot what it is?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Just ONE more oddity about Drax? I can think of several!
Bond’s Beretta
The Handguns of Ian Fleming's James Bond
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Drax, Carver and Graves: all ostensibly respectable self-made millionaires with evil plans (but so are Zorin, Stromberg, etc). Is it that all three are initially thought to be English (not the usual with Fleming villains, very much the opposite in fact) but aren't really?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Guess again.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Is that right, NP? ?:)
Roger Moore 1927-2017
There's a lot of preamble in the novel, very much like the Moore Bond of the films, where M asks what 007 knows about Drax. And Drax is a national hero, he's got a serialisation in the newspapers, he's a real Richard Branson type figure. This is unlike most villains, and requires on our part a suspension of disbelief, as we (obviously) know that such a famous figure doesn't exist in real life. Whereas, for all we know, a No, Klebb, Largo figure could exist and we wouldn't know about it.
I think it's easier to do this in a novel than a film, a novel has more a 'Once upon a time...' feel to it.
Carver - well, maybe it's because I'm loosely in the media industry, but he's obviously a Murdoch figure, and we all know who Murdoch is, he's famous. And Graves, well he has the media following him around and he's getting a knighthood. Only here one could argue that it's occurred in a year only, far fetched but you could say that it's just one year in the future. The other characters require an adjustment on the part of the reader/viewer: it's either happening in a parallel universe, or it's not happening now but some time (a good few years) in the future.
Realistically I'd guess that Blofeld would have made headline news after YOLT (the film) and multi-millionare industrialists like Stromberg and Drax would be well-known, but it never seemed that way to me as a kid watching these films. Certainly any fame they might have had would be less central than that of Drax (the novel), Carver and Graves.
Cheers, barbel!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
It's odd, you can have Jack Ryan being introduced to the US President who clearly isn't Clinton or Bush, and it's still a realistic film, but I don't want that in a Bond flick.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Agreed. Have you read Clancy's books? Jack Ryan later BECOMES the US President!
Yup, it's exactly like that! I enjoyed Clancy up till The Bear And The Dragon, though that was good in parts (and being the length it was, that did leave a fair chunk of enjoyment). Red Rabbit wasn't bad, but The Teeth Of The Tiger stunk like fetid dingo's kidneys.
Making Ryan President was a bold move, and Debt Of Honour and Executive Orders were great stories.
(None of the above means that I agree with Clancy's politics!