Flemings main weakness as a writer

Maherj1

Just reading Dr. No at the moment and it struck me that Fleming is'nt very good at writing his villains.

Now usually the bond books follow a pretty tight structure.....London, briefing, travel to exotic location, meet girl, get trapped by evil madman, hear evil madmans spiel, endure some form of torture, save the day.

Now thats fine. I have no problem with the novels (or the movies) being formulaic but I find the bond novels really drag when they get to the "hear evil madmans story" bit. I love everything else but I always find my interest waning at this point.

The way the bad guys speak just never seems believable to me and it seems like Fleming just goes on and on.


Now dont get me wrong. I love the books and think Fleming is a great thriller writer, I just noticed that he seems to be really weak at writing the villains.

I know its a minor point but anybody else feel the same about this?

Alex

Can't say I have, sorry.

I love when Fleming gets to describe his ugly foreign-villain - Through Bond's first impression of them we are treated. Those are some of my favorite parts. (DN especiallly!)

But that's what makes us all different. :007)

0013

Maherj1 wrote:

Now dont get me wrong. I love the books and think Fleming is a great thriller writer, I just noticed that he seems to be really weak at writing the villains.

They aren't meant to be, It's pure escapisim. Fantasy.

Have to agree with Alex. The villians are painted as loathsome creatures from Bond's perspective.

Ask Dr No

Maherj1 wrote:

Just reading Dr. No at the moment and it struck me that Fleming is'nt very good at writing his villains.

Now usually the bond books follow a pretty tight structure.....London, briefing, travel to exotic location, meet girl, get trapped by evil madman, hear evil madmans spiel, endure some form of torture, save the day.

Now thats fine. I have no problem with the novels (or the movies) being formulaic but I find the bond novels really drag when they get to the "hear evil madmans story" bit. I love everything else but I always find my interest waning at this point.

The way the bad guys speak just never seems believable to me and it seems like Fleming just goes on and on.


Now dont get me wrong. I love the books and think Fleming is a great thriller writer, I just noticed that he seems to be really weak at writing the villains.

I know its a minor point but anybody else feel the same about this?

I disagree with all of that. No offence to your opinion though. I find it is interesting about what happens with the villians. And to Dr No it is great because it is the first time we meet Dr No.

jetsetwilly

I disagree that the villains are a failing; in fact, I would say they're one of the most successful elements of the Bond novels. While some (the Spang brothers, Scaramanga) are disappointing, the likes of Hugo Drax, Le Chiffre and Goldfinger are magnificent monsters. They are egotistical, self-obsessed madmen, in love with their own villainy and persona, and so, yes, they start making elaborate and lengthy speeches. I understand what you mean about "people don't talk like that", but given that Dr No is a man with claws for hands who lives in an underground base where he disrupts American missile shots and kills ornithologists, the fact that he feels the need to lecture 007 about his childhood is hardly the most unrealistic element.

If we're going to talk about Fleming's failings, I would look at the characterisation of some of his female characters rather than the villains. While the films are (often inaccurately) pilloried for having weak women as the lead, the novels routinely present paper thin Bond Girls, who exist as tits and teeth and little else. For all her importance to the novel, Vesper is an infuriatingly drab character, and it's hard to see what 007 sees in this neurotic shrew; Gala Brand is one of the bravest girls, but she has little personality beyond "policewoman"; and all three girls in Goldfinger are unbelievably weak, being respectively, damsel in distress (Jill), frigid lesbo (Tilly), and mixed up dyke in need of a good seeing to to sort her out (Pussy). The most successful female character in the series in Vivienne Michel, because we actually see inside her head, and even then she's another damsel in distress who loves being "semi-raped". There are good, interesting female characters - Honey, Solitaire, Tiffany - but I'd say the best written, best characterised, and most memorable woman in the whole series is Rosa Klebb - who's barely a woman at all.

chrisno1

Maherj1,
While I understand your point, I don't agree it is Fleming's main weakness. There are plenty of others. jetsetwilly has pointed out the lack of really credible females and there are usually at least two big plot holes in every book. But since you mention the villains, and I did read all the novels recently back to back, I think it is worth remembering that the explanation of the villain's plan is not just a device to explain what is happening (a lot of the time we know already) it is Fleming's device to explain WHY the villain is how he is, what makes his mind tick and motivates his lusts.
In that respect, he is almost trying to perform a minor psychoanalyisis.
Most of the bad guys are not even on the pages for very long.
The ones who are are often the least interesting.

In my summary, I suggested only 3 villains were great examples, GF, DN and the 4 baddies in FRWL.
To explain:

FRWL features General G, Kronsteen, Klebb and Grant. All these are introduced individually and given a credible back story and a believable persona. They feel like real characters, and are cold and calculating, unlike the genial Kerim, the seductive Tatiana and the conservative M & 007. The contrats are what makes them such a success.

DN meanwhile is only in the novel for 3 chapters and during this time Fleming explains how a clearly deranged mind has come to abandon the world. Like Stromberg in the films, he despises real life and has chosen to examin it. He's a little like a Nazi scientist experimenting on Jews and Romas. The toppling of missiles is a mere afterthought. He is also spectacularly memorable with his movements like a giant venomous worm and his eyes like revolver barrels.

GF is the most genial of the lot; he owes much to Fleming's earlier creation Drax, and its his vanity and greed that ultimately (3 times in fact) is his undoing with Bond. GF, even more so than Drax, is Fleming's attack on New Money, on the Nouveau Riche who were beginning to take over the establishments he held so dear. That GF has Bond's measure early on does not prevent him from keeping him alive. He recognises that it is better to have your enemies closer. Bond's foiling of the Fort Knox robbery is highly fortuitous.

Of the other bad guys, I agree not all are a success, Drax, the Spangs, Largo and Scaramanga are all under developed. They come across as spoilt children or bullies and they don't cut the mustard.

In CR, Le Chiffre, as his name suggests, says very little and does less. His torture of Bond is the novel's highlight, but Fleming isn't so interested in Le Chiffre's story as he is in Bond's pain.

Equally, while Mr Big appears early in LALD, and his shadow hangs over the novel, he poses a demonic threat rather than an overtly physical one. Unlike the other bad guys, Mr Big doesn't ever really explain himself, perhaps because he doesn't feel he has to. Interestingly, these two villains (and the later Scaramanga) are all revealed to us via M's dossiers. A rather obtuse way of developing your adversary.

Blofeld is also an slightly underwritten character, but not without his strengths. Fleming is regurgetating ideas here. In TB Blofeld is the General G of SPECTRE, while in OHMSS and YOLT he is a pseudo-DrNo, choosing to hide himself away. By YOLT he has become obsessed with watching people die. That in itself is macarbe and horrific; very Edgar Allen Poe I thought.

Well, I don't know if that clears anything up, or muddies the water more. I juat wanted to add my several tuppences to the table of debate.

Napoleon Plural

I do think some of the final reel showdowns of the movies go on and on to be fair, on repeat viewing.

Bond Collectors' Weekends

Can understand why Dr No is underwritten. Recall that Fleming wanted to kill off Bond in the previous novel. But in the rest of series--ho-ho! The antagonists make the protagonist the hero that he is!

Bond Collectors' Weekends

chrisno1 wrote:

**Equally, while Mr Big appears early in LALD, and his shadow hangs over the novel, he poses a demonic threat rather than an overtly physical one. Unlike the other bad guys, Mr Big doesn't ever really explain himself, perhaps because he doesn't feel he has to. Interestingly, these two villains (and the later Scaramanga) are all revealed to us via M's dossiers. A rather obtuse way of developing your adversary.**

Mr Big's motivation is very briefly explained in LALD - ennui. An exciting and tremendously innovative review of the Bond villains is in Ian Fleming's Seven Deadlier Sins - great book:

http://www.amazon.com/Flemings-Seven-Deadlier-Moral-Compass/dp/1934879118

UltimateTruth

Fleming's description of Rosa Klebb still makes me curl my lip in disgust. Brilliant portrait of a truly disgusting character.

Number24

The worst side of Fleming is to me his interest in sexualized violence towards women. When Bond talks about "spanking" women it`s just embarrasing. When Fleming writes about rape as a positive or Kerim Bey`s story about the woman under the table, I have to force myself to keep reading. This is also the only reason I hesitate to recomend Fleming to my friends. Because I DO think Fleming is a great thriller writer. I even like many of his female characters, such as Honey Ryder, Vesper and Tracy.

Sir Miles

Number24 wrote:

The worst side of Fleming is to me his interest in sexualized violence towards women. When Bond talks about "spanking" women it`s just embarrasing.

Maybe...but Fleming was very interested in that area...VERY interested

CmdrAtticus

That's one of the dark sides of Fleming's personality. Apparently, over time the secret leaked out that he and his wife Anne (and perhaps some of the other women he knew) were into the spanking, tieing up - playing at rape games. It obviously influenced some his writing and his attitudes towards his female characters. I think some did not have a lot of depth or were weakly written because Fleming himself had a very difficult time understanding women outside of being objects of physical desire or just for having fun with. It was one of the reasons he married so late in his life and why it even terrified him.

As far as his villains also being somewhat of a cardboard variety, I think that was his intention. Though he gave them terrifying attributes of the kind he was all too familiar with having gone through WWII and the Nazis, he wanted to make them over the top enough so readers were always aware they were just reading thriller fiction. Dr. No was just another version of Fu Manchu. As Fleming himself stated, his stories were aimed at the just below the solar plexus and not at the head.

Number24

I knew Fleming was into that sort of thing. I think there are a couple of hints at this in the earlier movies. I seem to remember some mention of spanking, "she found your tecnique too voilent" and of cource the way Sanchez mistreats his mistress in LTK. That was lifted from The Hildebrand Rarity. Bond threatens a woman with strangling her with her own bra in DAD, but I can`t remember if that scene is from Fleming. In later years the scriptwriters have wisely omited any hint that Bond has tendensies of that kind.

Napoleon Plural

Well, actually I think 'spanking' was just a kinky thing of the 50s, sort of lighthearted banter. I mean, let's be fair, modern day sexual mores would shock anyone in the 50s.

Kerim Bey's monologue is a bit horrible. But then you have respected writer and journalist Victoria Coren explaining in her sex tips for GQ this year that women like to be treated like a hunk of meat in bed... plus you get 50 Shades of Grey, a soft porn book highly popular with women in which the lead has a ball gag in her mouth and so on...

Of course, it these intances the women are happy participants, the consenter.

For me, there's no getting away from the fact that Fleming wrote in a macho age, where it's mainly the male point of view. You don't seem to get that thing any more, or where you have it with Jeff Dyer or Martin Amis, there's a wiff of something worse than Fleming, a kind of hollow caddishness.

Nash

i could never think of Fleming as a great writer. I enjoyed his books when I read them as a teen, but they seem pretty lightweight and linear to me now when I read them. I still enjoy them, but he is no great writer. And frankly, I think they should develop Bond's dark side more in the movies.....whether it be kinky bondage (yes, yes, intended) or perhaps some other sort of personal failing that could draw him too close to the flame.....a slight weakness for opium, or rather than always ruling the craps table, paint him as crap at the table....then his gambling debts could be used as leverage over him to get him into compromising positions from which to extricate himself.

FelixLeiter ♀

It's been some years since I read the books and I can't really remember much about what I felt about Fleming's writing. I was only 11 so didn't really dissect writers then.

But to pick up on this point about how Fleming wrote women, I've been planning to re-read the book and it's something that I have thought about quite a bit. I wasn't sure how I would take his writing of women as I couldn't remember it, but from what has been said by others I can probably guess.
I have to give him leeway in that direction to some extent because of the few writers from that period that I've read, all men seem to write females badly. It annoys me because it produces some truly dull characters who I don't care about at all. Yet it was the norm at the time and we should try to consider it in context, and perhaps a 1950's mindset.

Blood_Stone

I disagree about Le Chiffre. The long, hopeless speech he gives Bond before torturing him still gives me goosebumps.

Napoleon Plural

Nash wrote:

i could never think of Fleming as a great writer. I enjoyed his books when I read them as a teen, but they seem pretty lightweight and linear to me now when I read them. I still enjoy them, but he is no great writer. And frankly, I think they should develop Bond's dark side more in the movies.....whether it be kinky bondage (yes, yes, intended) or perhaps some other sort of personal failing that could draw him too close to the flame.....a slight weakness for opium, or rather than always ruling the craps table, paint him as crap at the table....then his gambling debts could be used as leverage over him to get him into compromising positions from which to extricate himself.

I do think they could have used it in CR. You know, he fluffs his big chance to catch a crim by being hooked on an internet poker game at the time, or rather he's fingered by his weasley co-agent as being the one to blame. However, being an expert on the game, he gets a shot at redemption with his poker game against Le Chiffre, so he gets back in the 00 game.
Otherwise it's a bit contrived; oh, there's a poker game and you're the best player in the service. Like, how many can there be?

Agent 272

The EON producers one golden rule regarding Bond's character is that he is absolutely incorruptible so I think it's highly unlikely that this sort of scenario would ever be used. As for Fleming's weakness I disagree about the villains, I think they were probably the most interesting and colorful protagonists of the 50's era of thriller novels, personally I love reading Flemings prose regarding them as so often his own rather bizarre xenophobic and imperialist attitudes are revealed (Bulgarians are stupid, too many Chinese, the Turkish are furtive, stunted little men, the Hun were always at your feet or throat...). I do agree that Fleming's writing regarding women is woefully inept and shows a deep lack of understanding of the feminine mind (The Spy Who Loved Me being the prime example), and the regular justifications for sexual abuse ( 'The sweet tang of rape') are nowadays particularly distasteful. But it has to be remembered Fleming wrote for his times, he wrote for "hot blooded male", his women and girls are not meant to be a realistic example of how the gentler sex really viewed the world of the 50's, but rather what the heterosexual men of the era wanted their women to be like. Even Ian Fleming didn't want his Bond novels to be regarded as serious fiction, they are marvelous fantasy works, almost a time capsule of the wish fulfillment of the mid 20th century male.
If Fleming does have a weakness I would argue that it is that he just runs out of steam too often before the end of the novels leaving hurried and unsatisfactory last chapters, take Goldfinger for example the actual raid on Fort Knox takes only a couple of pages compared to a whole chapter on Bond trailing Goldfinger through France.