Broken Bond? - Your views on Brokenclaw by John Gardner?

Silhouette Man

I'd love to hear your views on John Gardner's Brokenclaw (1990) - was it just too fantastic a departure for Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond to be involved with Red Indian rituals etc. The Rough Guide to James Bond says this one remains a fan favourite - with some even suggesting that it is the best non-Fleming Bond novel yet to be filmed?

Did the fact that Gardner was suffering from prostate cancer at the time detract from the novel? - he thought it one of his weakest entries along with Role of Honour and Cold/Cold Fall

It does, however, have a great villain with a great Flemingesque villain (lovingly descibed in detail for once) and a pleasingly bizarre torture sequence.

Raymond Benson once wrote that there was an overabundance of characters not being what they seemed as well as the book being too far-fetched for a Bond narrative - belongiong to another genre althogether.

Your considered views on this rather controversial James Bond novel are welcomed by this blogger and Gardner fan.

Sir Miles

Brokenclaw...?...it does get a little too fantastical towards the end...with the Red Indian rituals...but it does make it an entertaining read...and Brockenclaw Lee IS a villian in the tradition of the Fleming novels...maybe that's why it's a fans favourite..?...

Gardner's books are littered with characters 'not being what/whom they seem'...I think he overplayed this and the consequence was you spent half the book looking for this character...so the 'reveal' at the end lost it's impact...

I actually enjoy Role Of Honour...but I've never really found out why I do )

Silhouette Man

Currently reading this one for the purposes of a review on my blog - anyone else interested in this novel? It's said by some to be the best James Bond novel not yet turned into a film.

Le Samourai

I hated it, and consider it to be one of Gardner's worst efforts. A big objection was Bond willingly submitting to a Native American ritual for no real clear reason. It struck me as very out of character.

Plus, I found the book very dull. It just seemed to plod along.

That being said, Brokenclaw Lee was an interesting villain.

Barbel

One of Gardner's poorest. The villain was interesting enough, though it just doesn't feel like a Bond story- perhaps because Bond doesn't feel like Bond.

Silhouette Man

Any further interest on this one as regards Indian-American heritage (TWINE shades) obsession of Brokenclaw's. Interesting to note there is now a brokenclaw.net website out there now. Also, there are elements of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee there too, also Dances with Wolves. Is this environment felt to be too offbeat for a James Bond thriller? I view Brokenclaw as a very early experimental novel starting off that course by Gardner in the 1990s novels - what is the fan consensus on this one?

chrisno1

I'm not normally antagonistic, but:
Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is an emotional understanding of the native american indian. Their thoughts, their actions, their turmoil is quoted and paraphrased eloquontley and resolutely. It is a beautiful and shocking work that allows the reader to become absorbed in native american religion, society, mythology and true written and verbal history. It is a book which demonstrates the abilty of civilised man to evoke genocide and tries to explain how the victims reconciled themselves to mounting defeat, sometimes with never ending violence and death (Crazy Horse) other times with resignation and defeat and broken hearts (Joseph, the Nez Perce).
@ks has anything to do with BMHAWK is frankly abhorrent. Brokenclaw Lee is an effective villian but he is NOT REPRESENTATIVE of native american indians, not now or in 1990-whenever-it- was. It's telling that Gardner makes him only half Blackfoot. If he'd made this sexual predator, killer, Communist sympathiser completely wholey Blackfoot he'd have been criticised for the same racist overtones that Fleming was lambasted over LALD. By altering his villain's parentage, he escapes this, and I consider it a fudge. By the end of the novel, when Brokenclaw Lee inhabits the enviroment of the Plains Indian he becomes most obviously a caricature 'Red Indian' and in no way does he reflect the gracious and humble personas who inhabit Dee Brown's effortless work.
Suffice to say, there is more emotional depth and active suspence in a couple of chapters of Dee Brown's opus than there is in any of Gardner's Bond novels.
Comparing the two is a hopeless and pointless exercise.
I'd suggest you try to forget you mentioned it.

Silhouette Man

chrisno1 wrote:

I'm not normally antagonistic, but:
Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is an emotional understanding of the native american indian. Their thoughts, their actions, their turmoil is quoted and paraphrased eloquontley and resolutely. It is a beautiful and shocking work that allows the reader to become absorbed in native american religion, society, mythology and true written and verbal history. It is a book which demonstrates the abilty of civilised man to evoke genocide and tries to explain how the victims reconciled themselves to mounting defeat, sometimes with never ending violence and death (Crazy Horse) other times with resignation and defeat and broken hearts (Joseph, the Nez Perce).
@ks has anything to do with BMHAWK is frankly abhorrent. Brokenclaw Lee is an effective villian but he is NOT REPRESENTATIVE of native american indians, not now or in 1990-whenever-it- was. It's telling that Gardner makes him only half Blackfoot. If he'd made this sexual predator, killer, Communist sympathiser completely wholey Blackfoot he'd have been criticised for the same racist overtones that Fleming was lambasted over LALD. By altering his villain's parentage, he escapes this, and I consider it a fudge. By the end of the novel, when Brokenclaw Lee inhabits the enviroment of the Plains Indian he becomes most obviously a caricature 'Red Indian' and in no way does he reflect the gracious and humble personas who inhabit Dee Brown's effortless work.
Suffice to say, there is more emotional depth and active suspence in a couple of chapters of Dee Brown's opus than there is in any of Gardner's Bond novels.
Comparing the two is a hopeless and pointless exercise.
I'd suggest you try to forget you mentioned it.

I stand corrected then...sorry I ever mentioned it.

Any other views on this novel and how John Gardner started to experiment and move away from the formula writing which featured in the James Bond continuation novels of the 1980s which were more genre fiction?

Were these experiments from about 1990 onwards successful or did Gardner's attempts to spice things up only add to the anachronistic quality of his Bond novels that commentators attcked him for?

Would really love to hear from you...