Without giving anything away, the plot moves between London, Africa and Washington and if you are concerned that this new incarnation sounds soft, there is plenty of horrific violence and a perfectly revolting villain in the form of a mercenary, Kobus Breed, complete with a missing cheekbone and permanently watering eye.įor the Fleming estate persuading a writer of Boyd's talents to write a Bond book is a real coup and as a work of fiction, Solo is the pretty near perfect culmination of a lifelong fascination with Bond and with Fleming. In Zanzarim, too, Bond's mind is as much on the humanitarian horror he witnesses as on the brutal task in hand. This is an aspect of his character's past which Fleming himself never really explored in any detail and it's a thoughtful and interesting addition to Bond's biography. You think, in particular, of the hard drinking, careless and frankly ropey Bond of You Only Live Twice and The Man with the Golden Gun, when Fleming presented Bond as destroyed by the death of his wife, Tracy Bond, who he meets and marries in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.Īs well as powerful sense of the danger he presents to women with whom he becomes involved, Boyd's Bond is haunted by dreams about his active service in World War 2.
In On His Majesty's Secret Service, looking at an idyllic scene on the beach in Royale, we find Bond in uncharacteristically pensive mood: "What a long time ago they were, those spade and bucket days! How far he had come since the freckles and Cadbury milk-chocolate Flakes and fizzy lemonade! Impatiently Bond lit a cigarette, pulled his shoulders out of their slouch and slammed the mawkish memories back into their long closed file.īoyd's Bond is also Fleming's at his most complicated, perfectly attuned to those occasional yet haunting bouts of doubt, conscience and even vulnerability. But the fiction, if not the films, occasionally pause the carnage and seduction to tell a slightly different, less deluded, story. It's largely, of course, thanks to Ian Fleming that spying is a vocation that we've come to associate with high octane glamour. Aged just 11 or 12 the then scandalous book From Russia With Love (Fleming's fifth and a huge seller after JFK said it was one of his favourite novels) captivated Boyd, getting him addicted to what he's succinctly described as the "now familiar blend of snobbery, sex, ludicrous violence, exotic travel and superior consumer goods."
0 kommentar(er)
