Am I alone in preferring the movies to the books?
Doctor Who
Posts: 62MI6 Agent
I've tried reading the books, and I could never get through them. Bond wasn't at all likable in them, and he seemed very joyless and dour. Perhaps because I was raised with the movies first, but I couldn't picture ANY actor saying some of his dialogue. The books are also written in a way which is too "high society" I guess to be relatable. This is kind of why I don't like the movies that stick closer to Fleming's book - I find them a bore. Am I alone in this? In preferring the Bond created by Broccoli and played by Connery and Moore especially to Fleming's vision?
Comments
I don't dislike the more "Fleming" films though - but even then, they're still modern interpretations of them blended with what the films had previously delivered anyway.
"Better make that two."
I see where you are coming from and I would probably also take the books.
They're like peking duck and russian caviar, very different but I love them both equally.
(
Amongst fellow Bond-film fans I know in the real world, very few have ever read the books and some get angry when I suggest they really should. Some folks just don't read books. In this day and age, many have elaborate excuses involving obsolete formats and new technology, meaning I'm the stupid one for reading anything at all. Even amongst people who do read and are proud to do so, I have found Fleming is dismissed as pulp fiction (...and that's a bad thing why?).
It's not just Fleming and Bond. I have found its a general rule that when something is adapted to a movie, it does absolutely nothing to interest normal welladjusted folks in the source material. Comics do not sell better just because there is a #1 box office version out. And I have never met a person who decided to read Tolkien after seeing the Peter Jackson films, again I have seen people get quite angry when anybody suggests if they like the film they should read the real version: for them the film is the real version
Maybe it's because I've seen all the movies before is started reading the books (and have now stopped after reading MR, CR, DAF and half through FRWL), but he books, to me, just aren't that interesting. For instance, there's a whole chapter in FRWL about Bond experiencing turbulence on a plane. If that sort of thing was included in a film, that would be slammed for only servicing to pad the run time.
On the other hand, I did prefer the DAF novel to the movie. DAF was a pretty good novel, my favourite out of those I've read.
1) Description. He's an excellent wordsmith and observer when it comes to describing people and the world that Bond inhabits.
2) Characterization. Fleming's villains, in particular, are often much more multi-layered than might be expected for a paperback thriller. True, he borrows a lot from the pulps and often reimagines existing characters (Dr. No becomes a kind of Fu Manchu redux, for instance), but the end result is meaty.
3) Plot. Say what you will, but Fleming's plots, while sometimes baroque and often reinventions of fairy tales (Goldfinger is essentially King Midas, for example), his plots are inventive and seldom linear. Today's thriller writers either overload their prose with mounds and mounds of clumsy action or are so formulaic you can guess the ending by page 3. Not Fleming , who pretty much keeps you guessing, even as you know Bond will triumph, often at great cost, in the end.
4) Titles. Even when Fleming is just revising cliches -- You Only Live Twice, for instance -- he does so inventively and provocatively, both hallmarks of great titles.
However, Fleming has some significant weaknesses, too:
1) Dialogue. His dialogue runs the gamut from effective to outlandish. He's especially bad at writing Americans, who often sound like caricatures of caricatures. While he frequently creates strong women, the drivel they have to mutter is usually embarrassing.
2) Racism. All the apologist "He was a man of his times" rhetoric doesn't belie the fact that Fleming creates some of the most venal racism (and classism, sexism, etc.) ever on the page. Some of his rants through Bond border on psychotic, such as his distaste for Koreans in Goldfinger. Even Mickey Spillane and other "tough guy" writers contextualize a lot of their character's prejudicial flaws. With Fleming, they're not only acceptable but tacitly endorsed. It was appalling then, and it's appalling now.
3) Dating. This all depends on your taste. If you like things rooted in the times in which they were created, the Bond books are classics, reading as time capsules as much as popular entertainment. I happen to like film and literature from the 1940s through the 1960s, so the books are fantastic. They take place before the plasticky go-go-go era we now live in. But if you're expecting something akin to Star Wars, where someone merely pushes a button and zap, they're across the galaxy without effort, the books will seem ponderous and redundant.
I've always approached the films as "film of the book" and looked forward to seeing the scenes Fleming had described onscreen. This worked just fine in the earlier movies and less so in the later ones, which nevertheless I've always accepted as entities in themselves- eg, Fleming's LALD just wouldn't have worked as a film in the 70s and the necessary updating seemed reasonable.
When the films departed totally from the books (TSWLM) or almost totally (TMWTGG, MR) I enjoyed the variations and updating. When a film used chunks of Fleming (FYEO, CR) I rejoiced.
It's almost impossible for a Bond film to not capture at least some of the spirit of Fleming, at least so far. Entirely original stories (TWINE, SF) still have his influence guiding them.
Books and films are two separate things, of course, and I love them both!
Well, I've read all the Fleming novels due to that type of fan obligation. Some of them were excellent, but I doubt I would actually re-read any of them for enjoyment, whereas I constantly re-watch the films.
That must be why Fleming fans prefer Timothy Dalton & Daniel Craig…
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
With 007 !
Watched them on TV and would read about them in bed. Infact my only reading about necrophilia was in
A New Avengers story !
One just looks for more when you've gotten hooked on a certain character and in our case it's James Bond and his world. Love all the things we can get nowadays, the movies of course, documentaries, various books about Bond, comics (when they're good!), continuation novels...and I'm particularly loving the Young Bond series. But I draw the line at the James Bond Jr. cartoon series!
it was exactly the same as the movie except there was a torture scene and detailed description of Anya's anatomy
then Diamonds are Forever and the Man with the Golden Gun were the next ones on teevee, and I quickly read those books too ... and was completely confused as to how they could be so different, especially the opening scenes of Golden Gun! it took me about six months to notice James Bond, the Spy Who Loved Me wasn't actually by Ian Fleming...
in those days, the real Spy Who Loved Me and Octopussy were the hardest ones to find. In book stores today its the opposite, usually they're the only ones left (new printings include all 14 books, but the better ones sell out first)
messy desk editions were the versions in print in the 1970s. As I searched used book stores to fill in the gaps I found the boldly coloured 1960s editions and replaced my messy desk editions with those. Now those messy desk editions are almost impossible to find, they seem to be even rarer than the 1950s painted illustration covers!
that's one difference between now and then. Today if you want to bring the experience home with you, you just buy the dvd's. in the 1970s you had to buy the books, which had the same titles but were different.
Well, I can say for myself that often times a movie lead me to the book. I saw the Lord of the Rings in the movies and sought out the books in turn and liked them just as much. I saw Interview with a Vampire and it led me to Anne Rice's works. I have been into Bond since I was around 9 or 10 and I've given the books several tries...They just don't feel to me like any of the films, especially the character of Bond. The only one I kind of enjoyed was Diamonds Are Forever because it had a sleazy pulp feel, but the dialogue was wretched.
The books may have been shocking for their time, with some of the violence and sex, but they're just not that shocking today. And because of that, for the most part, they're just bland stories of a spy who also happens to be a bit of an a**hole.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
I dig the Christopher Wood novilizations for Spy and Moonraker better than the Fleming originals.
In all fairness though, the films that are the most 'Flemingesque' are also the most highly regarded in the series: Dr. No, FRWL, Goldfinger, OHMSS, and maybe even Casino Royale.
I'd also like to put in a good word for the DAF novel, which I do strongly prefer over the movie.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK