James Bond will never have a reputation in the intelligence or spy writer community as being a great spy. He was a secret agent with a license to kill, should he need to use it. This is not to say that Bond does not do any intelligence gathering or was not skilled in counter-intelligence. But…
Article by Revelator This month we conclude our 7 part series inspired by Ian Fleming’s “Seven Deadlier Sins.” Fleming conceived the idea for a series on the Seven Deadly Sins in the Sunday Times, and though it did not materialize for the paper, a book was published in 1962 that contained essays by some of…
Article by Revelator In his foreword The Seven Deadly Sins, published in 1962, Ian Fleming declared that the traditional seven deadly sins — PRIDE, ENVY, ANGER, SLOTH [accidie], COVETOUSNESS, GLUTTONY and LUST — were no longer sufficient. Thereupon, he proposed seven deadlier sins more worthy of a one way ticket to Hell: AVARICE, CRUELTY, HYPOCRISY,…
Article by Revelator 2016 marks the 60th anniversary of Ian Fleming’s novel Diamonds Are Forever. During what’s left of the year Artistic Licence Renewed wishes to pay tribute to its heroine, Tiffany Case, arguably Fleming’s best female character. Diamonds Are Forever suffers from weak plotting and its main villains–the Spang twins–appear too briefly to join…
Review by Revelator This is a wonderful book, a long overdue one. For anyone who cares about Ian Fleming’s work, The Man With the Golden Typewriter will be a must-have reference, deserving to rest on the same shelf as Fleming’s biographies, Kingsley Amis’s Bond Dossier, Matthew Parker’s Goldeneye, and Henry Chancellor’s James Bond: The Man…
Today marks the anniversary of the death of Ian Fleming and the birthday of his only son – Caspar. We pay tribute to them both. 1952 was a momentous year for Ian Fleming. He had begun Casino Royale in January and completed a rough draft six days before marrying Ann O’Neill on March 24. Last…
On July 4,1952, Ian Fleming wrote ‘Pleasure Islands?’ for The Spectator shortly after completing the draft of Casino Royale, in which he discusses race relations in Jamaica. Article by Revelator; first published here. There are several notable things about this article, starting with the date. Perhaps it’s true that “after forty it is difficult to start a new life,”…
Article by Revelator It’s one of the most obscure mysteries in Bondology. In July 1965 a “magazine for men” named Saga published what it offensively called “Ian Fleming’s Last Interview: How to Take Any Woman…James Bond Style!” The note from the editor read: In the summer of 1964, French journalist Alain Ayache interviewed Ian Fleming, the…
In his foreword to the book The Seven Deadly Sins, published in 1962; Fleming declared that the traditional seven deadly sins — PRIDE, ENVY, ANGER, SLOTH, COVETOUSNESS, GLUTTONY and LUST — were no longer sufficient. He proposed seven deadlier sins more worthy of a one way ticket to Hell: AVARICE, CRUELTY, HYPOCRISY, MALICE, MORAL COWARDICE,…
The legacy of the ‘Bond continuation novel’ began in 1968 with Kingsley Amis‘ ‘Colonel Sun’, published by Jonathan Cape on this day – March 28th. Kingsley had been a Bond fan “ever since he discovered the first paperback, ‘Casino Royale’, on a railway bookstall” (The Times Educational Supplement) and had already written the seminal The James Bond Dossier, and…
Words by Revelator After reading Mathew Parker’s book it will be impossible to over-estimate the importance of Jamaica to James Bond. Beginning with Fleming’s wartime discovery of the island, Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born is a chronological countdown of his years there, interlaced with a concurrent history of country. Goldeneye, Fleming’s Jamaican residence, mirrored the…
The common perception of a Bond girls, as damsels in distress waiting for our hero James Bond to save from the clutches of the villain and also themselves, is not without its flaws. In a recent interview I did with Robert Caplen, author of Shaken & Stirred: The Feminism of James Bond, when asked this same question he…
Article by Revelator After For Your Eyes Only Bond was no longer a wonderful machine. Nor was he a fully-dimensional, complex human being—that would involve surrendering his role as a male-fantasy projection—but he was considerably more human than before. Why? Because Ian Fleming failed. He explained why in an interview with Counterpoint: Now, you’ll notice that…
Article by Revelator After the narrative slack of Diamonds Are Forever, Fleming decided to better himself with From Russia with Love. Because its story was entirely structured around a deathtrap for one man, it was important for that man to be human enough to hold the audience’s empathy. This demanded a more rounded Bond, and…
Words by Revelator Here is part 1 of 3 that we’re calling “the three ages of Bond.” Thanks to Daniel Craig (and his underrated predecessor Timothy Dalton) we’ve heard a lot of the phrase “Fleming’s Bond,” as in “Craig comes closest to Fleming’s Bond, the ruthless government assassin” and so on. This phrase has always rang…
Philip Larkin, the greatest English poet of the second half of the past century (and a genuine Bond fan), reviewed Licence Renewed in the June 05, 1981 issue of The Times Literary Supplement. His review is really about Fleming’s legacy, and he makes the case–with more eloquence and insight than anyone since–for why Bond-continuation novels…
Article by Revelator Doctor No is definitely one of the better Fleming novels. The novel is divisive only because it caused an idiot at the New Statesman named Paul Johnson to write an article accusing Fleming of “sex, snobbery, and sadism,” a phrase still used by lazy journalists. Johnson went on to attack The Beatles with equal viciousness…
In September 1965, Kingsley was offered the opportunity to write his own Bond story after the success of both his literary critique The James Bond Dossier and tongue-in-cheek The Book Of Bond (Or Every Man His Own 007). Shortly afterwards, in 1966, official Bond publisher Glidrose Productions Ltd. commissioned novelist Geoffrey Jenkins to also write a Bond novel. Set in South…
Article by Revelator: Philip Larkin is perhaps was the first critic to connect Major Smythe to Fleming, and at first glance, Smythe’s similarities to Fleming are many and obvious. Both are in their mid-50s and dealing with a sagging belly, heart trouble, and a soured marriage. Either could be described as “the remains of a…
Widely regarded as the greatest English poet to arise after the second world war, Philip Larkin was, like his close friend Kingsley Amis, a fan of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. In the following article, published in the July 8, 1966 issue of The Spectator, he reviews the final Bond book. These two stories, according to…
Artistic Licence Renewed 