In a conversation about celebrity crushes this week, I guiltily admitted my lifelong infatuation with James Bond (Sean Connery being the pinnacle of all 007s, of course). While I’m a big fan of spy and political thriller movies, I hadn’t attempted the written versions of Bond’s glamorous trysts and travels. So I sat down with From Russia With Love, Ian Fleming’s seminal Bond classic. I expected a fun, quick read, but wasn’t expecting to get as swept up as I did. Just like the Bond films, the novel was fun, shallow, shiny and alluring, full of expensive alcohol, watches and cars, 60s misogyny and blatant sexuality, and scant political correctness—and, guiltily, I lapped it up.
In From Russia, Fleming is elegant, crisp, fresh, and quietly charming in his writing style, just as Bond is in dress and act. But more than that, the man can spin a really great story. You don’t even need the visually arresting on-screen accompaniment of Pierce Brosnan’s piercing blue eyes, or the acrobatics of Daniel Craig’s hand-to-hand combat on top of a speeding train, or Ursula Andress walking out of the crystalline shallows of the Caribbean in Dr. No. Fleming is successful at entertainment value in his own right.
In this genre, less is more. Fleming masters Bond’s appeal by keeping him mysterious. He is little more than a chiseled jaw with a taste for adventure (sometimes driven entirely by sex drive). Bond is distant, unattainable, unreal, and (at least in literary form) one-dimensional.
This trend continues in William Boyd’s recent reprisal of Bond’s life in the novel Solo. The Fleming estate approved another Bond adventure, placing Boyd with seven other distinguished authors—including Kingsley Amis, one of Britain’s foremost—to take up Bond’s storyline.
Boyd keeps the basics of Bond’s life the same, especially his one dimensionality. “Had it been stripped from a corpse, Bond wondered, and resold for profit? He didn’t particularly care.” Bond doesn’t care, as per usual, which we know thanks to our omnipotent narrator. This distinct distance from Bond’s inner thoughts is deliberate. The narrator reveals only what Bond wants us to see. Bond is only vulnerable when it helps his cause. This is what distinguishes this sort of novel, a fun read, from so-called “serious fiction.” Pulp fiction forgoes vulnerability for pure entertainment, if such a thing exists.
Boyd also maintains the glamour of the original Bond through selective details. First, the attire: “a jersey all-in-one navy catsuit with an ostentatious gold zip” and a wool suit fresh from a Savile Row tailor. Then, the cars: dusty, rusty military Jeeps and a whole chapter dedicated to the imaginary, very sexy, Jensen FF. Finally, of course, the locale: from the posh Dorchester Hotel that has the best water pressure in London to the civil war-torn, imaginary nation of Zanzarim. But most characteristic is the array of drinks. Bond imbibes schnapps, whiskey, green star beer, gin and tonic, creek water, a bottle of sherry, Veuve Cliquot, a draught of strong black coffee, and a carafe of Barolo (with such drinking slogans as “slange var” and “proost”). Bond knows how to have fun.
Fleming is successful in sharing this fun with his audience, but Boyd fails to impress—Solo isn’t worth reading for much more than the drink recommendations (spoiler alert: it’s shaken, not stirred). Not only was Solo boring, but it was startlingly, frustratingly objectifying in a manner that topped even Fleming’s originals. I know that what Fleming wrote and what is portrayed in the films is full of stereotypes and tropes. It is still a bit of fun, at least when at its least extreme, like in From Russia With Love. Dr. No, for example, is sometimes unbearable. In both the book and the movie, the racism is overt and unshy.
I don’t excuse Ian Fleming for his racism in this novel, but in From Russia With Love, it is generally hidden. In all his novels, the guns, gowns, and girls are campy and over-sexualized, but there is still something that pulls me in. Yet with Boyd, the story itself is so boring that every instance of misogyny and racism stand in relief. When it comes to classic Bond, indulge when you’re in the mood. When it comes to Boyd, don’t even bother. It’s all the guilt and none of the pleasure.
