The James Bond Dossier

Last updated

The James Bond Dossier
JamesBondDossier.jpg
The first edition published by Jonathan Cape has artwork from their previous Bond books: For Your Eyes Only (top), Goldfinger (left), You Only Live Twice (centre), The Man with the Golden Gun (right), Thunderball (bottom)
Author Kingsley Amis
Publication date
1965
ISBN 9789997512284

The James Bond Dossier (1965), by Kingsley Amis, is a critical analysis of the James Bond novels. Amis dedicated the book to friend and background collaborator, the poet and historian Robert Conquest. Later, after Ian Fleming's death, Amis was commissioned as the first continuation novelist for the James Bond novel series, writing Colonel Sun (1968) under the pseudonym Robert Markham. The James Bond Dossier was the first, formal, literary study of the James Bond character. More recent studies of Fleming's secret agent and his world include The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels to the Big Screen (2001), by the historian Jeremy Black.

Contents

History

Written at the Bond-mania's zenith in the 1960s, The James Bond Dossier is the first, thorough, albeit tongue-in-cheek, literary analysis of Ian Fleming's strengths and weaknesses as a thriller-writer. As a mainstream novelist, Amis respected the Bond novels, especially their commercial success, believing them 'to be just as complex and to have just as much in them as more ambitious kinds of fiction'. [1] That was a controversial approach in the 1960s, because from early on, since the mid-1950s, the James Bond novels were criticised by some detractors for their violence, male chauvinism, sexual promiscuity, racism, and anti-Communism.

Despite his intellectual respect for the Fleming canon, Amis's way of writing about it, according to his biographer Zachary Leader, ' ... partly guys academic procedures and pretensions by applying them to low-cultural objects' and, as such, is deliberately provocative. [2] In that context, the Dossier can ' ... look like a cheeky two-fingered salute to the academic world, a farewell raspberry blown at all things pedantically donnish, in a manner Lucky Jim would surely have approved. For to Ian Fleming's œuvre Amis brought the anatomising and categorising zeal he never had devoted and never would devote to more elevated works of literature'. [3]

From essay to book

Kingsley Amis had several motives for writing the Dossier. He had recently retired from teaching and wanted to 'put behind him the more rigid austerities of university life'. [4] He wanted to expand his range as a writer beyond poetry and mainstream fiction. The need to make more money was also a consideration. [4] Primarily, however, he wanted to show the academics that the literature of popular culture could be as substantive as the literature of high culture. [5] In November 1963, he announced to Conquest the idea of writing an essay of some 5,000 words about the James Bond novels. By late 1964, he had expanded the essay to book length, and submitted it to his publisher, Jonathan Cape. In one hundred and sixty pages, The James Bond Dossier methodically catalogues and analyses the activities and minutiae of secret agent 007: the number of men he kills, the women he loves, the villains he thwarts, and the essential background of Ian Fleming's Cold War world of the 1950s. [6]

After Fleming's death in August 1964, Glidrose Productions Ltd., owners of the international book rights, asked for Amis's editorial assessment of the uncompleted manuscript of The Man with the Golden Gun , which Jonathan Cape deemed feeble, and perhaps unpublishable. He reported that the manuscript was publishable, but would require substantial modifications. Because Amis was not the only writer consulted, [7] it remains controversial if his editorial suggestions were implemented, and to what extent Amis contributed directly to the revision of the manuscript. In the event, the Dossier's publication was delayed a year, because Jonathan Cape asked Amis to include discussion of The Man With the Golden Gun. [7] Both books were published in 1965; later that year, Amis reviewed The Man With the Golden Gun in the New Statesman. [8] [9]

The Dossier

The James Bond Dossier includes most of the Bond fiction cycle, excepting Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966), the final collection of 007 short stories, which was published after the Dossier. Kingsley Amis's argument is that the Bond novels are substantial and complex works of fiction, and certainly not, as Ian Fleming's critics said, 'a systematic onslaught on everything decent and sensible in modern life'. [10] He viewed them as popular literature, akin to that of the science fiction texts he critiqued in New Maps of Hell (1960). [11]

Although written in Amis's usual accessible, light-hearted style, The James Bond Dossier is neither patronising nor ironic – it is a detailed literary criticism of the Ian Fleming canon. In the main, he admires Fleming's achievement, yet does not withhold criticism where the material proves unsatisfactory or inconsistent, especially when the narration slips into 'the idiom of the novelette'. [12] Amis reserves his most serious criticism for what he considered to be academically pretentious rejections of the Bond books, a theme implicitly informing much of the Dossier.

Each of the 14 chapters deals with one aspect of the novels – 'No woman had ever held this man' defends Bond's attitude to and treatment of women: "Bond's habitual attitude to a girl is protective, not dominating or combative"; 'Damnably clear grey eyes' describes M., the head of SIS: "a peevish, priggish old monster"; 'A glint of red' is about the villains, who have in common only physical largeness and angry eyes; and so forth. According to his first biographer, Eric Jacobs, [13] the hand of sovietologist and scholar Robert Conquest is betrayed in Amis's precise dissertation upon the genesis and changing nomenclatures of SMERSH, the employer of the villains of the early novels. [6] Three appendices deal, respectively, with science fiction, literature and escape, and 'sadism'. With 'almost parodic scholarly dedication', [14] Amis provides a ten-category ('Places', 'Girl', 'Villain's Project', etc.) reference guide (pp. 156–159) to the Bond novels and short stories.

Typical of Amis's approach is where he suggests several implausibilities in Bond's capture by the eponymous villain in Dr No (1958). However, that 'Bond is temporarily helpless in his creator's grip', does not matter, because 'three of Mr Fleming's favourite situations are about to come up one after the other. Bond is to be wined and dined, lectured on the aesthetics of power, and finally tortured by his chief enemy'. [15] Earlier, Amis had discussed the matter of Bond's correct designation: 'It's inaccurate, of course, to describe James Bond as a spy, in the strict sense of one who steals or buys or smuggles the secrets of foreign powers ... Bond's claims to be considered a counter-spy, one who operates against the agents of unfriendly powers, are rather more substantial'. [16]

Although, as noted elsewhere, Amis wrote three books related to the James Bond franchise, and may or may not have contributed to one of Fleming's novels, The James Bond Dossier would end up being the only book of this type to be published under Amis's own name.

Critical endeavours

In the 1968 essay 'A New James Bond', anthologised in What Became of Jane Austen? And Other Questions (1970), Kingsley Amis revisits the literary character, and explains why he accepted the commission of writing Colonel Sun (1968), discusses the challenge of impersonating the writer Ian Fleming, and explores the stylistic and world-view differences among the spy novels of Ian Fleming, John le Carré, and Len Deighton. [17] Moreover, under the pseudonym 'Lt.-Col. William "Bill" Tanner' – M.'s CoS and 007's best friend in SIS – Amis wrote his second Bond book, The Book of Bond, or Every Man His Own 007 (1965), a tongue-in-cheek, how-to-manual to help every man find his own inner secret agent.

Other studies of the James Bond phenomenon include:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingsley Amis</span> English author, critic and teacher (1922–1995)

Sir Kingsley William Amis was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Fleming</span> English author (1908–1964)

Ian Lancaster Fleming was an English writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his father was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 1910 until his death on the Western Front in 1917. Educated at Eton, Sandhurst, and, briefly, the universities of Munich and Geneva, Fleming moved through several jobs before he started writing.

<i>Goldfinger</i> (novel) Novel by Ian Fleming

Goldfinger is the seventh novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Written in January and February 1958, it was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 23 March 1959. The story centres on the investigation by the British Secret Service operative James Bond into the gold-smuggling activities of Auric Goldfinger, who is also suspected by MI6 of being connected to SMERSH, the Soviet counter-intelligence organisation. As well as establishing the background to the smuggling operation, Bond uncovers a much larger plot: Goldfinger plans to steal the gold reserves of the United States from Fort Knox.

<i>Moonraker</i> (novel) 1955 novel by Ian Fleming

Moonraker is the third novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. It was published by Jonathan Cape on 5 April 1955 and featured a cover design conceived by Fleming. The plot is derived from a Fleming screenplay that was too short for a full novel, so he added the passage of the bridge game between Bond and the industrialist Hugo Drax. In the latter half of the novel, Bond is seconded to Drax's staff as the businessman builds the Moonraker, a prototype missile designed to defend England. Unknown to Bond, Drax is German, an ex-Nazi now working for the Soviets; his plan is to build the rocket, arm it with a nuclear warhead, and fire it at London. Uniquely for a Bond novel, Moonraker is set entirely in Britain, which raised comments from some readers, complaining about the lack of exotic locations.

<i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> (novel) Novel by Ian Fleming

The Man with the Golden Gun is the twelfth and final novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series and the thirteenth Bond book overall. It was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 1 April 1965, eight months after the author's death. The novel was not as detailed or polished as the others in the series, leading to poor but polite reviews. Despite that, the book was a best-seller.

Robert Markham is a pseudonym used by author Kingsley Amis to publish Colonel Sun in March 1968. The book was the first continuation James Bond novel following the death of Bond's creator, Ian Fleming.

Ian Fleming Publications Limited is a production company. In 1952, author Ian Fleming bought it after completing his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale; he assigned most of his rights in Casino Royale, and the works which followed it to Glidrose.

<i>James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007</i> 1973 biography by John Pearson

James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 by John Pearson, is a fictional biography of James Bond, first published in 1973; Pearson also wrote the biography The Life of Ian Fleming (1966).

<i>Colonel Sun</i> Novel by Kingsley Amis

Colonel Sun is a novel by Kingsley Amis published by Jonathan Cape on 28 March 1968 under the pseudonym "Robert Markham". Colonel Sun is the first James Bond continuation novel published after Ian Fleming's 1964 death. Before writing the novel, Amis wrote two other Bond related works, the literary study The James Bond Dossier and the humorous The Book of Bond. Colonel Sun centres on the fictional British Secret Service operative James Bond and his mission to track down the kidnappers of M, his superior at the Secret Service. During the mission he discovers a communist Chinese plot to cause an international incident. Bond, assisted by a Greek spy working for the Russians, finds M on a small Aegean island, rescues him and kills the two main plotters: Colonel Sun Liang-tan and a former Nazi commander, Von Richter.

<i>Licence Renewed</i> Novel by John Gardner (British writer)

Licence Renewed, first published in 1981, is the first novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. It was the first proper James Bond novel since Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun in 1968. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and in the United States by Richard Marek, a G. P. Putnam's Sons imprint.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Ian Fleming, creator of the fictional secret agent, James Bond, wrote a number of short stories featuring his creation that appeared in the collections For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and The Living Daylights. Since 1997, several more short stories featuring Bond or set within the official James Bond universe have been published by authors who continued chronicling the world of Fleming's creation. The majority of these stories have, as of 2008, never been collected in book form, unlike the Fleming works. There are five exceptions: "Blast from the Past", "Midsummer Night's Doom" and "Live at Five" by Raymond Benson, "Your Deal, Mr. Bond" by Phillip and Robert King, and "Bond Strikes Camp" by Cyril Connolly which are discussed below.

<i>James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me</i> 1977 novel by Christopher Wood

James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me is the official novelization of the 1977 Eon James Bond filmThe Spy Who Loved Me, which was itself inspired by the 1962 novel of the same title by Ian Fleming.

<i>Casino Royale</i> (novel) 1953 novel by Ian Fleming, the first James Bond book

Casino Royale is the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming. Published in 1953, it is the first James Bond book, and it paved the way for a further eleven novels and two short story collections by Fleming, followed by numerous continuation Bond novels by other authors.

<i>Diamonds Are Forever</i> (novel) 1956 novel by Ian Fleming

Diamonds Are Forever is the fourth novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the story at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, inspired by a Sunday Times article on diamond smuggling. The book was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 26 March 1956.

<i>The Book of Bond</i> Book by Kingsley Amis

The Book of Bond or, Every Man His Own 007 is a book by Kingsley Amis which was first published by Jonathan Cape in 1965. For this work, Amis used the pseudonym Lt.-Col. William ("Bill") Tanner. In Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, Bill Tanner is M's chief of staff and a recurring character throughout the series.

Double O Seven, James Bond, A Report (1964), by O. F. Snelling, is the first book-length, critical analysis of the James Bond novels, and the only such study Ian Fleming approved. It was published in August 1964, the month when Fleming died, a coincidence that earned the book's first edition a wide readership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Bond (literary character)</span> Fictional spy

Commander James Bond is a character created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the protagonist of the James Bond series of novels, films, comics and video games. Fleming wrote twelve Bond novels and two short story collections. His final two books—The Man with the Golden Gun (1965) and Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966)—were published posthumously.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to James Bond:

A bibliography of reference material associated with the James Bond films, novels and genre.

References

  1. ↑ Amis, Kingsley The James Bond Dossier. London: Jonathan Cape, 1965, p. 9
  2. ↑ Leader, Zachary The Life of Kingsley Amis. Pantheon Books, 2007, p. 524
  3. ↑ Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 269
  4. 1 2 Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 267.
  5. ↑ Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1995, pp. 267, 270.
  6. 1 2 Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 269.
  7. 1 2 Leader, Zachary The Life of Kingsley Amis. Pantheon Books, 2007, p. 542
  8. ↑ Lycett, Andrew Ian Fleming. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995, p. 445.
  9. ↑ Amis, Kingsley What Became of Jane Austen? And Other Questions. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970, pp. 73–74
  10. ↑ Amis, Kingsley The James Bond Dossier Joanathan Cape, 1965, p. 10
  11. ↑ Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 270.
  12. ↑ Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 271.
  13. ↑ Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 270
  14. ↑ Jacobs, Eric Kingsley Amis: A Biography St. Martin's Press, 1995, p. 269.
  15. ↑ Amis, Kingsley, The James Bond Dossier Jonathan Cape, 1965, p. 21
  16. ↑ Amis, Kingsley, The James Bond Dossier Jonathan Cape, 1965, p. 11
  17. ↑ Amis, Kingsley What Became of Jane Austen? And Other Questions. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1970; pp. 65–77
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.