The Many Lives of James Bond

by Mark Edlitz

  That opaque character is well suited for the movies because you could read into their faces whatever you want to.

  You could also add to that that each movie incarnation brings the spirit of his age to that part. That’s what’s been so clever about the franchise. Sean Connery, along with Daniel Craig, was closest to Ian Fleming’s original Bond. But when you get into the ’70s, everything is getting a little bit softer and larkier. Roger Moore takes over, and there’s suddenly a completely different Bond. You’re getting more jokes, more double entendres, and the action is a little bit more camp. Then you get a reaction against that in the late ’80s with Timothy Dalton trying to go back to the harder incarnation. However, the truth of the matter is that Bond always reflects the current society in which he operates. That’s one of the clever things about the franchise: it keeps redefining itself. It hasn’t stuck to the ’50s and Cold War Bond or Byronic hero Bond. It has done a Bond for each age.

  But you deliberately went back to the time period where you wanted to be within Fleming’s canon. You’re going against the grain of what you just said has made the franchise so successful. Were you at all worried about not being reflective of our time?

  Well, it’s a good question and the answer is that my job was to write an Ian Fleming pastiche, to write a homage to Ian Fleming. As far as I was concerned, it was to be set entirely in Ian Fleming’s world.

  Having said that, I could make a few little poststructural nudges toward the modern age. For example, there’s a reference that smoking can give you cancer. I had to put that in because I’m a children’s author and I don’t normally write books in which characters smoke. I also give Bond an openly homosexual friend named

  Ian Fleming and his creation, an extension of the author’s experience and vivid imagination.

  ILLUSTRATION BY PAT CARBAJAL

  Charlie Duggan. I did that in order to tease out the latent homophobia in some of the books. There’s also a slight feminist smile there in both the creation of Jeopardy Lane and in the way Pussy Galore treats him. [Note: Galore leaves Bond for another woman.] In fact, all three women treat him quite roughly. [The third woman who treats Bond roughly is Logan Fairfax, a race car driver, who M appoints to train 007 in professional auto racing. Upon meeting Bond, Fairfax sizes him up as a “stupid sort of policeman.”4]

  These are all nodding to a modern audience who will not put up with some of the attitudes of the ’50s. But outside of that, my job as I saw it had nothing to do with the films. The films and the books are two separate things. The films remain a huge global event. They are probably one of the most significant cultural events of our times. Spectre made god knows how many billions of pounds, and when it came out, it felt like that was the only film people were talking about. That’s true all over the world.

  The books, however, are nestling in an oasis, in a remote place. I’m not sure how many people now go back and read the books and have an understanding of what Fleming created. What I’ve found is that the audience of people who wish to read a James Bond novel—either the originals or one of mine or someone else’s—is minute compared to the number of people who are going to see the films. It never occurred to me to try to modernize, make it relevant, or make it cinematic. My job was to live in the world of the books, as if the films had never been made.

  I discovered Fleming after the films. Like many, I liked the movies so I read his books. The Bond of the films has eclipsed the Bond of the novels. Why isn’t there more interest in going back to the source material?

  It’s because we no longer live in a particularly literary world. The ratio of people who read compared to the number of people who play computer games, watch television, and go to the cinema or whatever is small. Trigger Mortis did well; it sold I think about a hundred and twenty thousand copies in hardcover and in e-format. Everyone is happy with the result of it. But the fact is that in audience terms [compared with the movies], that’s relatively tiny. But I knew that before writing it. Even the decision to do the book as authentically as I tried to was not a commercial decision. Having said that, Jeffrey Deaver tried to move Bond into the modern period with Carte Blanche (2011). I’m not saying he failed, but I’m not sure that he satisfied either side of the equation.

  Kingsley Amis wrote Colonel Sun (1968), the first continuation novel. Then John Gardner picked up the torch.

  I’ve read them all, of course. I know the Gardner novels.

  When I first started reading Gardner, I didn’t truly understand what a continuation novel was. Bond belonged to Fleming and I didn’t originally understand how another novelist could continue where Fleming left off. As much as I wanted to read more Bond novels, the notion of a continuation novel seemed foreign to me. These days, the idea has permeated throughout pop culture.

  You’re right, the whole word “continuation novel” has probably only entered the lexicon in the last ten years. It isn’t just Bond, of course. It’s a huge industry. From Jane Austin to Jeeves and Wooster to Agatha Christie, etcetera. I have always feared that there was a certain cynicism at the heart of this exercise. A mixture of slightly nervous publishers desperate for an instant bestseller and in some cases—not with Fleming—an estate that might be trying to rekindle interest or value from a trademark.

  I have to emphasize that has not been the case with the Fleming estate. They have very good motives for wanting to continue with the books. But it is a modern phenomenon, that’s for sure. It was one that I had to think about twice before I accepted doing it. There were only two characters I would’ve ever done: Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. Holmes was the first one I did with House of Silk and Moriarty. I was reading Sherlock Holmes when I was in my late teens, and he was very much a part of my life. I did Bond because there was no way I was going to turn it down.

  Could you talk about working with the Fleming estate? Did they ever say Bond wouldn’t do that or you shouldn’t do that? I don’t ask that in an authoritarian context where they’re trying to arbitrarily limit your creative approach to the project. My question comes from an assumption of their love of the character and wanting to see him being treated in line with Fleming’s conception.

  On the other side of that equation is you have a writer who will not kowtow. I’m old and experienced enough to be quite arrogant in the way that I write. Generally speaking, I write what I want and I don’t like being told what to do. When I entered into this agreement, I was quite nervous to be honest with you. I knew that the Fleming estate is quite powerful and certainly would have the last say on matters. They could basically fire me. I did have great nerves.

  When I wrote the Sherlock Holmes books, I made it a condition of writing that I would not meet the Doyle ancestors and I would take no notes from them. That was the condition on which I would do it. That did not hold true for Fleming because I wouldn’t have got the job if I had asked for it. But I met with them and I was quite nervous. I thought it was going to be a bad experience, that I would get a lot of notes that would cause arguments. However, they were terrific to work with, they were very smart and very sympathetic to what I wanted to do. We did have discussions, but they had great notes.

  One of the members of the family was concerned about the title, Trigger Mortis, being too jokey and also that it might not translate. In retrospect, that was quite a good note and maybe I chose the wrong title. The title of a James Bond novel is, without any question, the hardest thing to get right.

  We discussed at some length whether Pussy Galore could come back; there were some members of the family who didn’t think it was a good idea. I had to hold my own on that one and say, “Look, this is what I want to do.” They voted on it and the vote went my way. To give them that credit, they said, “Fine, okay, go ahead.”

  There were other things in the books that I got wrong. I’ll give you a good example of that. The origin of the name Jeopardy Lane was going to be that her parents had watched the television show Jeopardy! day in and day out; they liked it so much they
named their daughter after it. The estate pointed out to me that the program Jeopardy! started in the mid-’60s and my book is set in 1957. So that wouldn’t work.

  Another example of a correction was in the original manuscript. I had Bond getting out of bed with Pussy Galore and going into the bathroom naked. I made a big point of the fact that Bond slept naked. They pointed out that Bond doesn’t sleep naked; he wears what is called a bed jacket [or “pyjama-coat,” as is established in the novel Casino Royale]. Now, a bed jacket is probably the least sexy piece of clothing a man could put on. It’s sort of a pajama jacket that comes down to the knees. I had to smile and take out the naked section because that wasn’t accurate and it wasn’t true to Fleming. But I didn’t specifically mention what he was wearing because he would have seemed ridiculous.5

  That was the sort of thing we discussed when they got the first draft of the manuscript. I think they gave me about ten big notes and twenty small ones. I corrected about two-thirds of those notes and the other third I argued and won.

  That seems like a good give-and-take, a healthy collaboration.

  It was a collaboration. They were also in charge. They could’ve said no. They could’ve said, “Do this or you’re off the job,” but they never did. They never threatened me; they were always reasonable. They’re smart.

  I learned from the James Bond Radio podcast that when Raymond Benson took over from John Gardner, he had to come up with an outline on spec.6 Then he had to write the first four chapters on spec before they officially hired him. He had to jump through a lot of hoops.

  I didn’t have that same experience. I produced an outline and the outline was what I wrote. It ran about five or six pages. I went to my first meeting with them with the outline. Before they had even asked for one, I had done it. The plot for the novel came quickly. Normally, plots take me a while, but for the Bond novel, it fell into my lap almost at once.

  Can you talk more about that meeting?

  I had lunch with Corrine Turner, who works for the estate [as a managing director], and she gave me the once-over. I started talking ideas with her. I came to the meeting with that treatment and a photograph. I submitted a photograph of a train station in New York, which is underneath the United Nations. It’s a disused station, an art deco station, and it’s beautiful. The American transit authority must be crazy not to open it to the public but maybe there’s a security issue. I was going to set the climax there, but as things turned out, it wasn’t possible to that. But that was how I presented the original idea. I was thinking visually. Although the book has nothing to do with the films, nonetheless, the book has to have a modern pace and it has to be visual. It has to be written for a modern audience.

  We were talking about the interior life of the character and you said that you don’t want to get too deep. In a movie, the audience will impose their thoughts on what a character is thinking and feeling. The silent hero works particularly well. But in a book, we expect to get inside a character’s mind.

  I don’t think you do expect to go inside Bond’s mind, because where in the Fleming novels does that happen? Where do you ever see doubt, insecurity, anything but the occasional anger, self-anger, determination, ruthlessness, snobbery, and carnal desire? Where do you see: Am I doing the right thing?; his doubts or uncertainty? The rule was only to do what Fleming did and to do nothing that he didn’t. With Bond, that works.

  It works in the same way as it does with Holmes. I could write a Sherlock Holmes novel in which he bemoans his lack of sexual activity and that there are no women in his life. However, that would be anathema to anybody who loves these books. That’s where I begin; I begin on the side of the überfan. I’m not that interested in the public at large; I’m not interested in publishers. I tell you I am interested in the estate because they are the überfans of all überfans. I’m beginning with the purists.

  Although I have taken exception to one or two things in some of the [other continuation] books and in one or two of the films, that’s only as a purist. That is not to say that the books aren’t wonderful and the films aren’t brilliant. It’s just that as somebody who is attached intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to this character I was reading in my formative years, nothing should break the rules, nothing should break the spell.

  The way you ended Trigger Mortis gave a sense that though Bond survived this mission, his luck will inevitably run out and his mortality will catch up with him. Not today, but eventually.

  When I pitched to the estate, that paragraph was in my pitch; that last paragraph and those last three words, “But not today,” were included. That sense of nothing is forever is so Bond. It’s an existential ending. That whole hard-edged, rain coming down, another dead body, the endlessness of it. It felt right for the book. The end of Moonraker is a fairly bleak ending, as he and Gala Brand go their own way. The books don’t always end with a smile. They sometimes end in a gray area, which is what I was aiming for.

  What surprised you most about the experience?

  I was unprepared for the way that being involved in James Bond puts you in a strange place. Things that you say innocently and trying to be helpful, as I am with you now, are misinterpreted. It can sometimes seem as if everybody is looking to hurt you. It was quite a painful experience in some ways. I was embroiled in rows that were certainly not intentionally of my own making and I upset people. But while I’ve been talking to you, I’ve been careful to say nothing that can be misconstrued. When you go back over this tape you’ll see that I have not criticized anybody and would not dream of it. But to give you an example, if I were to compare James Bond film A with James Bond film B and say I preferred B, a journalist might run a story about how much I disliked A and try and make something of it. That happened over and over again and I was hounded. It was not a happy experience.

  The experience of writing the book—of working with the estate, of doing serious interviews like this one—and of the response to the book, the critical response certainly, and, more importantly still, the response from the überfans has all been 100 percent positive. But in terms of what it did to me as a writer, it made me realize that there is a world out there that I don’t necessarily want to be too much a part of. I’m happier with my head below the parapet, just writing quietly, not in the bright spotlight. That was the worst of it.

  I found myself at a signing with [Bond continuation authors] William Boyd and Sebastian Faulks. I’m not quoting them, but they said they had experienced much the same thing. I apologized to them because somebody had written a piece that suggested I had criticized their books, which I had never done. I’ve been talking to you about how Bond should be this, should be that, but I’ve carefully said, “That’s as far as I’m concerned.” But I’m not judging others. They said, “There’s nothing to apologize for, because we know, we’ve been there, we’ve been through this fiery hoop and we know what it’s like.”

  You’re now part of a small club of authors who have written Bond continuation novels.

  Correct and I’m hugely proud to be part of that. I’m proud of everything I’ve done. I’m proud of Alex Rider, which came out of my love for Bond. But to be one of a small group of people in the world who has written a James Bond novel is a fantastic thing. Going back over the whole experience, although I might have been a little more circumspect and more careful when it came to publicity, there’s nothing else I would have changed. I’ve heard writers say that this is the book I was born to write. It always sounds a little saccharine and horrible when I’ve heard it. But this is the book I was born to write and I’ve written it.

  ILLUSTRATING BOND COMIC STRIPS

  JOHN MCLUSKY

  As told by his son Graham McLusky

  The first adaptation of Fleming’s superspy did not appear onscreen in the 1962 film Dr. No. It occurred four years earlier when the Daily Express published Casino Royale in 1958 as a daily comic strip. Casino Royale, illustrated by John McLusky and written by Anthony Hern, sticks closel
y to the plot of the 1953 novel. However, because only a few panels were published each weekday, the complex story took five months to unfold.

  McLusky drew twelve more Fleming titles for the newspaper from December 1958 to January 1966. He worked with Henry Gammidge, who adapted eleven stories including the Fleming short story Risico, and Peter O’Donnell, who adapted Dr. No.

  His bold, sharp, vividly expressively black-and-white illustrations are thick with atmosphere. McLusky’s panels were film noir—newspaper noir, if you will—his men were square-jawed and ruggedly handsome, the women perfectly coiffed, sultry, and scantily clad, and the villains menacing and slightly grotesque.

  McLusky was replaced by Yaroslav Horak, who illustrated thirty-three adapted and original Bond stories from 1966 until 1979. When Horak left the series, Harry North created the artwork for 1981’s Doomcrack, an original story by Jim Lawrence. McLusky returned to drawing duties from 1981 to 1983 for five original Bond adventures: The Paradise Plot, Deathmask, Flittermouse, Polestar, and The Scent of Danger, which were all written by Lawrence. Lawrence and Horak were paired for the final two Daily Express strips Snake Goddess (1983) and Double Eagle (1984).

  In this interview, John McLusky’s son Graham McLusky remembers his father, who died in 2006 at the age of eighty-three.

  How did John McLusky settle on the look of his Bond?