The increased level of violence as a key factor in Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun (1968)?
Silhouette Man
The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
What are your thoughts on the (to some) uncharacteristically violent nature of Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis as a James Bond novel?
Did Kingsley Amis go too far in the Casino Royale and Live and Let Die direction, do you think?
This level of violence - rape/skewering/stabbing/burning/head torture etc. - was it a step too far for a James Bond novel or do you think it fitted in with the works of Ian Fleming?
There are characters brutally stabbed to death, skewered with wooden skewers, almost burnt alive and raped. Colonel Sun himself is stabbed by Bond twice in the back and then partially blown up by his own mortar bomb and finally given the coup de grace by a knife slid into his heart by Bond. This was after he had apologised to Bond for the head torture that he had just inflicted upon him and that he was crazy to quote Justine by the Marquis de Sade (whose name the word "sadism" is taken from) etc. I think the violence in this Bond novel is certainly more graphic than those by Ian Fleming. It's also quite a different death scene for a villain here, with Sun calling Bond "James", rather like Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. This is indeed appropriate as Colonel Sun sits very much with the more brutal and violent early Fleming James Bond novels like Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Diamonds Are Forever and Dr. No.
Did Kingsley Amis go too far in the Casino Royale and Live and Let Die direction, do you think?
This level of violence - rape/skewering/stabbing/burning/head torture etc. - was it a step too far for a James Bond novel or do you think it fitted in with the works of Ian Fleming?
There are characters brutally stabbed to death, skewered with wooden skewers, almost burnt alive and raped. Colonel Sun himself is stabbed by Bond twice in the back and then partially blown up by his own mortar bomb and finally given the coup de grace by a knife slid into his heart by Bond. This was after he had apologised to Bond for the head torture that he had just inflicted upon him and that he was crazy to quote Justine by the Marquis de Sade (whose name the word "sadism" is taken from) etc. I think the violence in this Bond novel is certainly more graphic than those by Ian Fleming. It's also quite a different death scene for a villain here, with Sun calling Bond "James", rather like Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. This is indeed appropriate as Colonel Sun sits very much with the more brutal and violent early Fleming James Bond novels like Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Diamonds Are Forever and Dr. No.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Comments
Responds by then.
And the " torture " scene is gruesome. Although I don't remember the rest as
Being overly violent ( this could be that I'm an exceptionally violent man, just
Waiting for someone to disagree so I can unleash HELL !!
I've forgotten the juicy bits. I do recall a Russian General looking lustfully at a
Young fisherman.
All in all I do think it's the best of the continuing novels. Not Fleming of course,
Missing the famous " sweep" that he put in his adventures.
using just a knife to do his work. Showing despite the
nice clothes and cars. Bond's job is Brutal !
Yes, the Bond of CS was much more like the Bond of Dr. No or LALD, wasn't it?
And mine - he actually read the books!
the boat was put ashore, so he wouldn't be involved
in the assault.
That wonderful artwork is from Playboy I believe where Col. Sun was serialised.
There are more on the 007wiki Page for Colonel Sun -{
Oh, come now...
Also, consider, Amis was writing at the height of Bondmania and would have been aware of the increasingly stylise, less realistic violent tones of the movies. Bare in mind, Amis was writing right between Connery and Shaw beating lumps out of each other and Lazenby punching his way through OHMSS: Amis was not a fan of movie Bond and here again he could simply be reminding audiences that the "real" James Bond was his lit one.
And, finally, consider the increasingly "left" social politics and attitudes to war and violence. Le Carre, one of Fleming's greatestes critics, was writing of a spy world where problems were solved by upper middle class depressives betraying something of other (usually to Mother Russia) with an Oxbridge wave. Yet here was Amis reminding readers that spying was a violent, horrible affair, fought on the frontline, not in stuffy university rooms. Amis. was after all, one of Fleming's greatest admirers, and defenders.
Just a few thought thoughts as to "why". Sadly, by concentrating on these, and perhaps because a Bond novel wasn't his normal territory, CS lacks pace and direction; the head of MI^ is kidnapped, full of secrets - James Bond goes for a cruise round the Agean.
I really need to too in order to write a planned series of articles!
The simplicity of the dental torture scenes reminded me of Colonel Sun torturing Bond.
Is this the nearest Amis' novel has come to being filmed (in part)?
Are there any other spy films that come to mind with similar torture scenes to Colonel Sun?
I'd love to hear from you!
It certainly got a lot of critical attention being the first continuation Bond and it had the big literary name of Kingsley Amis attached to it too of course. It sold moderately well but not all critics were kind to it so I think Glidrose may have been burned a tad by the experience.
He certainly was. I typed out his reviews a while back in a thread here in the Literary section in fact. Amis' Collected Letters are worth a read in this regard too. -{
Apparently it didn't sell fantastically though. I'd love to see a record of the sales figures as that's an area I've always been very interested in.
That would be a great idea. I really need to get back to writing myself.