Oh hello, here’s what I read during April. Which was A Terrible Month in Any and All Aspects. But I digress. I didn’t have the headspace for much else so it was all, once again, pretty much all Bond. But I’m finally done with the Fleming books so maybe we’ll let that character take a break for a bit.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by Ian Fleming. Great story, but not my favorite. Which is surprising because this seems to be one of the more acclaimed entries. But I found Fleming’s writing, usually so vivid and robust, sloppy and middling for most of the thing. It made it clear to me that I had reached the point in the series where every subsequent book would dole out diminishing returns, and I was sadly right for the most part. It’s fascinating reading these, knowing something of Fleming’s life story. How his failing health colored so much of his writing during this period, how, expecting the inevitable, he seemed to be taking his outlandish self-insert of a protagonist to a gradual end as well. There’s a real, deep sense of melancholy with Bond in these last few novels. Accidie was the term Fleming liked to use—spiritual listlessness. It’s appropriate, I suppose—Bond began the series reeking of it, already willing to hang up his spurs halfway through Casino Royale, but this characteristic was progressively pushed to the back seat as the series went on getting bigger and more ambitious, mirroring Fleming’s own growing fortune and increasing playboy tendencies. But as his health continued to decline, so returned the acedia to the world of Bond. The ending of this novel is full of it, and it is a blunt and brutal and entirely tragic affair. And it’s to Fleming’s credit that these concluding chapters feature the novel’s most exciting and striking prose. All the time in the world, indeed.

I also watched and thoroughly enjoyed the film version of this. I was surprised by how faithful it was to its source material, too, and it made me wish Eon kept going down this route. Anyway, George Lazenby was a rad Bond and I will not hear otherwise.

The Jugger by Richard Stark. An attempt to break away from Bond. By going to another stoic scoundrel of a character lol. But this series is great and I want to continue with it. Apparently one of the weaker Parker novels, going by reviews, mostly because it shakes up the established formula – but I ended up liking it a lot precisely because it shook up the status quo. Parker is not dealing with the usual heist here, but a hang-up — although he goes about in the same exacting way he would a traditional caper. The central dilemma is small, almost domestic, but I still found it intriguing, particularly the chapters dealing with Captain Younger and how he learns about Sheer. Younger is the type of secondary character you would think would be a bore to read about, but Stark injects him with enough guile and shrewdness to make his point of view chapters fascinating. And, of course, it makes it all the more fun to read how Parker will inevitably get the better of him. Although not, as it turns out, without any repercussions. A very fun, surprisingly dark entry. 

The aforementioned unfavorable reviews I came across made me wonder if I was just something of a contrarian when it came to these older series, but I feel it’s probably more that I’ll always be more partial to underdogs (see: Lazenby). 

You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming. I enjoyed this one, if mostly for the travelogue aspect, which, when not being horribly patronizing and racist, was actually fairly fascinating. The grounded realism of the earlier novels is long gone, though, replaced with Fleming’s liberal interpretations of the Saint George and the Dragon legend, which he seemed to be particularly fond of. It makes for some entertaining, albeit flimsy flights of fantasy. And while I enjoyed the sheer wildness of this story, for the most part I found the whole “Blofeld trilogy” disappointing. In particular with its central villain. Gone is the shadowy, menacing figure so brilliantly introduced in Thunderball, replaced by a boring, bombastic buffoon deserving of all the cartoon parodies that were to come. The book’s climax is also Fleming at his most unhinged, beginning with a truly bizarre fourth wall break, and ending with an incredibly unnecessary scene featuring the female lead going into a sex shop to try and get Bond’s mojo back. Staggeringly silly stuff, particularly when compared to the previous novel’s devastating denouement. 

The Man with the Golden Gun by Ian Fleming. The famously unfinished novel. I actually liked it quite a bit, first-draft feeling and all. The middle bits are contrived as hell, but the opening and ending feature some of that familiar Fleming finesse that long felt absent. There’s a lot more I wish could have been done with the book, but it’s all moot, since the long-suffering, eternally exhausted author died before ever doing a polishing pass on it. And so the last proper James Bond adventure can’t help but feel anticlimactic. Still, though, in spite of a weak latter half, these books are one hell of a run. And what a legacy to leave behind.

Octopussy and The Living Daylights by Ian Fleming. Bit of a down note on which to end this most thrilling of journeys. Still, not entirely disappointing. The two title stories are among the best of the Bond short stories. I was impressed by “Octopussy” in particular, mainly because of the intimacy of the material. It felt like Fleming at his most personal, and indeed, knowing his biography, it sometimes seemed like he was just writing about himself. A melancholy tale, full of regret and pulp and aplomb. In a lot of ways it is the quintessential Bond tale, despite the fact that the titular character doesn’t figure much into the plot. I also enjoyed “007 in New York,” for a lot of personal reasons. It’s very much an inconsequential tale where the most outrageous thing that happens is Bond sharing his decadent recipe for scrambled eggs. It’s much more of a lifestyle piece, and I always enjoyed reading about the life of this most particular of characters. I also found the abrupt ending absolutely hilarious. As if Fleming just went “Sod it, I can’t be bothered,” which is just highly relatable as a writer. One of my main takeaways from this series is that I found Fleming as a writer so endlessly fascinating. Playful and irreverent, one of those authors who you can really see is working the story out on the page. And it’s such a gift.

“Belle Mer” by Luanne Rice was this month’s short story. A provocative but kind of nothing story that never really goes anywhere. Surprisingly overwrought, despite the brief length.