Whatever Happened to the Literary James Bond in the 1970s?
Silhouette Man
The last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,865MI6 Agent
This is a topic I have long wondered about. It formed the basis of an early James Bond article I penned way back in 2005 and then posted it on the CBn and AJB boards. I can recall the member superado commenting on it but I have not been able to find that old thread as it is from too long ago. The article later became a Main Page CBn Article when it was re-discovered on the boards by the moderator Qwerty there in March 2008. Sadly this CBn article no longer exists, but as luck would have it I did save a copy of this early article of mine on my The Bondologist Blog:
http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-literary-james-bond-in-1970s.html
I am currently re-writing this article to change and update it with all of the developments in the literary Bond world since it was originally written in 2005 and indeed there have been many as we here all are aware. I wanted to expand the article and eventually replace it with a new 2014 version but as this appears to be the only real article written on the lack of appearances that the literary James Bond put in in the decade of the 1970s I thought that I would throw the floor open to any suggestions members here would have as to what became of the literary James Bond in the 1970s. We all know what became of the cinematic James Bond of the 1970s and how decadent that decade was for him withy hardly any focus on then major issues of the 1970s and a more fantasy-laden spectacle replacing the character construct of Ian Fleming's James Bond in those films but it seems to me at least that we know so little about the literary Bond in the 1970s.
Please read my article linked above as a starting point (I will remove it when I get the new reworked version finished and posted to the blog) to this discussion which I hope is something a bit different for us to discuss in the run-up to a new Young Bond novel and a new Bond film in 2015.
http://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-literary-james-bond-in-1970s.html
I am currently re-writing this article to change and update it with all of the developments in the literary Bond world since it was originally written in 2005 and indeed there have been many as we here all are aware. I wanted to expand the article and eventually replace it with a new 2014 version but as this appears to be the only real article written on the lack of appearances that the literary James Bond put in in the decade of the 1970s I thought that I would throw the floor open to any suggestions members here would have as to what became of the literary James Bond in the 1970s. We all know what became of the cinematic James Bond of the 1970s and how decadent that decade was for him withy hardly any focus on then major issues of the 1970s and a more fantasy-laden spectacle replacing the character construct of Ian Fleming's James Bond in those films but it seems to me at least that we know so little about the literary Bond in the 1970s.
Please read my article linked above as a starting point (I will remove it when I get the new reworked version finished and posted to the blog) to this discussion which I hope is something a bit different for us to discuss in the run-up to a new Young Bond novel and a new Bond film in 2015.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Comments
Generally speaking, I think spy novels had played themselves out by the 70s (sort like vampires in 2014). The genre needed a rest.
You're right in that the straight spy thriller (or even spy film) had become played out by the advent of the 1970s but the likes of Frederick Forsyth with The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File and Jack Higgins with The Eagle has Landed. This was the rise of the "docu-thriller" that The Times said (of The Day of the Jackal) that it "easily beats Ian Fleming on his own ground."
I also started this thread as I was interested in hearing from our members what they thought happened to the literary James Bond in the 1970s apart from what is reported in the excellent Christopher Wood novelisations of the late 1970s.
those stories can be told.
I seem to remember the 70s as a big time for horror novels
with the rise of James Herbert and S King. As with music the 70s
may have been too close to when Bond was written so they
seemed old fashioned, not cool. Then in about another 10 years
suddenly they're cool again and everyone wants Spy stories again !
Also, as mentioned, regarding Forsythe, Higgins, Ludlum and even Deighton, the world of espionage had changed so much and those authors came to "own" it and it was much deserved; it was no longer Fleming's world and what the Bond character on film had become was so alien to all of that. This might be the reason why a continuation Bond series at the time wasn't seriously considered or even "unthinkable."
Didn't allow any more stories. Gardner was only hired after
Her death ?
Yes, I think that that must be right - Peter Fleming got her on board for Amis' continuation but she was much aghast by all reports at the choice of Amis as author as she saw him as a raving socialist/communist (which he of course was at one point) but by the late 1950s he was merely anti-Conservative and he later voted Tory from about the mid-1960s onwards, ending up as an arch-Thatcherite of course by the 1980s having turned the complete other direction politically! So I think that her accusations of Amis turning in a "red brick Bond" who disobeys M and betrays his country to SPECTRE in a projected Sunday Telegraph review (it was dropped for fear of libel) of the 1968 novel was rather wide of the mark, to say the least of it!
So yes, I do think that Ann Fleming's influence was always there until her death in 1981 (Peter Fleming having died in 1971) and it seems clear that after her death the last bar to a new Continuation Bond novel was removed and so John Gardner was asked by the go-between crime author H.R.F. Keating to continue the series proper in a letter in autumn 1980 and the rest, as they say, is history.
Yes, of course not. It just goes to show she had never actually read any of Colonel Sun (or much of her husband's work either by the look of that - YOLT, anyone?!) and that the "review" was merely going to be a polemic against Kingsley Amis, hence why it was wisely pulled before publication for fear of a libel case by Amis or his publishers. I'll post the quote I have from the review shortly.
Yes, I think that was in Amis's later life where he had the idea for a short story about Bond rescuing a kidnapped American senator (or his daughter) and in the process of that he falls down a ravine or waterfall to his death. Naturally, Glidrose blanched at Amis' idea and told him not to write a word of it! As this most likely occurred when John Gardner was still writing Bond novels (Amis hated Gardner's Bond novels but he died in October 1995 at the age of 73) it could be construed as Amis trying to kill off not only Bond but the Continuation project as well. And of course there was a second Bond novel briefly planned by Amis that would almost certainly have been set in the 1970s. Sadly, that was not to be and Amis returned to his own books where he was still writing genre fiction on and off as well.
Yes, there are and I intend to detail these in a future blog article. I've been doing a bit of research into that area and will share it when it's completed. Amis' contributions to the literary Bond I find very interesting to research and write about and I hope readers will too!
they had in mind for Bond.
Not the Reichenbach Falls, by any chance...?
Yes, it's very Holmesian, isn't it?
Quite true, yes. I suppose they're desperate enough to adapt bits of unpublished Amis as they've kind of mutilated Fleming's work as it is!
Well when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however implausible....
True, but I doubt Eon will ever officially adapt any of the continuation Bond novels sadly.
trying to make another. Although as someone pointed out the copyright only
lasts for 75 years so who knows what legal battles are ahead in years to come.
Yes, that's if they don't extend the legal copyright as I know that the EU did with music copyright, extending it to 90 years to protect musical artists of long standing whose early hits were 50 years plus (e.g. Cliff Richard, whose back catalogue extends back to the 1950s). So the same could also happen with film copyright law; it remains to be seen if it will when older films come under pressure to be protected from falling into the public domain.
I was never a fan of ROH myself - Gardner was ill at the time and the novel reads like an unpolished/unfinished draft script. Definitely the weakest of the first four Gardners, but then again others seem to love it.
It's one of my favourites from Gardner.