John Gardner 'The whore with a pen'

Muston

While half way through my first Gardner novel, I've read the interview on his website with Raymond Benson from 1995. Now I don't know what others think, but if you're a writer and the Fleming people send you a letter asking if you'd like the Bond gig, well I know I wouldn't think twice about it. But Gardner comes over as very bitter about Bond. He claimed that he couldn't “get inside the characters head” and that he was simply “putting them through the motions!” This is an awful way to look at a writing project. I understand he had to tow the line as far as the way M or Bond might say or do something. But as a writer it was up to him what kind of bad guy he wrote, the plot was also his and his alone to dream up. He said he stayed away from watching the films but to be honest I think it may have helped him to have watched them. I can understand how awful it must have been for the books titles to have not all been his own, but writing a Bond book is akin to an acter playing Bond. Every author has a voice. Kingsley Amis proved it was possible to write a good Bond story while also 'being Bond' as much as one writer can. By the time this interview took place, it seems that Gardner had no love for what he was doing and simply hired himself out. Which begs the question, why do 14 books if he hated the format and couldn't get into the character?

Napoleon Plural

I think he was fairly ill later in life and that can make a man bitter. But yeah, I think he was contractually tied to do the books, I cannot figure why as he hardly set the world ablaze with his talents, so why did Gildrose keep him on? He was the John Glen of the books, worse really as I liked some of Glen's Bond films, whereas now they go for a cachet director or novelist like Faulks or the next guy, book out next year.

Even Faulks said at one point he couldn't figure the character's thoughts at a given time.

superado

"The whore with a pen?" She was merely updating my tab! )

Silhouette Man

I resent the 'Whore with a pen' analogy - I think you do John Gardner a very great disservice. He had a difficult task in restoring the literary James Bond in the Roger Moore era and in the interregnum between LTK in 1989 and GE in 1995. I don't think all that many other thriller writers would have stuck around for so long. As he said to me once, they were bloody lucky to get him! I have to say that I agree with that sentiment!

Muston

I can understand how hard the job must have been at the time. And Gardner was clearly a good author. But if he really was fighting a losing battle and he didn't enjoy the job, then after the 3 book deal was up, he could have walked away with his head held high knowing he gave it his best and moved on to something he really believed in. Like Sebastian Faulks did when he turned down the chance to write a second Bond after Devil May Care.

Silhouette Man

Muston wrote:

I can understand how hard the job must have been at the time. And Gardner was clearly a good author. But if he really was fighting a losing battle and he didn't enjoy the job, then after the 3 book deal was up, he could have walked away with his head held high knowing he gave it his best and moved on to something he really believed in. Like Sebastian Faulks did when he turned down the chance to write a second Bond after Devil May Care.

Yes, but he stayed about because he was the best ever, he added a lot of great stuff to Bond and I'm happy to defend his work against all comers!