![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MRer-Book-198x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Penguin Books<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a ten or eleven-year-old kid I read a lot of Ian Fleming\u2019s James Bond novels.\u00a0 Indeed, I read most of them before I ever saw any of the films.\u00a0 However, it was only a few years ago, after Penguin Books brought out new editions of the novels, using the same covers that\u2019d graced them in the 1950s and early 1960s and having contemporary writers like Val McDermid write introductions to them, that I got round to reading the novels I hadn\u2019t come across in my boyhood \u2013 Moonraker<\/strong> (1955), The<\/strong> Spy<\/strong> Who<\/strong> Loved<\/strong> Me<\/strong> (1962), On<\/strong> Her<\/strong> Majesty\u2019s<\/strong> Secret<\/strong> Service<\/strong> (1963) and Octopussy<\/strong> and<\/strong> the<\/strong> Living<\/strong> Daylights<\/strong> (1966).\u00a0\u00a0 I also reread a few of the novels I\u2019d read at a young age which, for one reason or other, had gone over my head or not left much of an impression \u2013 I still vividly remembered Live<\/strong> and<\/strong> Let<\/strong> Die<\/strong> (1954) or You<\/strong> Only<\/strong> Live<\/strong> Twice<\/strong> (1964) from those far-off days, but almost nothing of Diamonds<\/strong> are<\/strong> Forever<\/strong> (1956) or The<\/strong> Man<\/strong> with<\/strong> the<\/strong> Golden<\/strong> Gun<\/strong> (1965).<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n And in the case of From<\/strong> Russia<\/strong> With<\/strong> Love<\/strong> (1957)\u2026\u00a0 Well, as a kid, I started reading it, but unfortunately at the time I was staying at my grandmother\u2019s house in rural Northern Ireland.\u00a0 My grandmother noticed I had my nose stuck in a book, insisted on reading the blurb on its back cover and confiscated it from me, saying she didn\u2019t think it was suitable reading matter for someone my age.\u00a0 To rub salt into the wound, she then started reading it herself.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m really enjoying it,\u201d she told me a few days later.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Anyway, here is the first in a series of posts in which I describe my reactions to the Fleming \/ Bond novels I\u2019ve read or re-read in the 21st<\/sup> century.\u00a0 Starting with Moonraker<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to approach Moonraker<\/em> the novel without having your brain fogged by memories of Moonraker<\/em> the 1979 movie, which for good or bad \u2013 well, bad, actually \u2013 was a milestone in the James Bond cinematic franchise.\u00a0 The Bond movies had become increasingly absurd over the years and by 1979 both the filmmakers and cinema audiences were firmly aware of their silliness. But with Moonraker<\/em>, those filmmakers \u2013 Cubby Broccoli and his team \u2013 seemed to abandon all restraint.\u00a0 It was as if they decided, \u201cThe audiences<\/em> know that we<\/em> know the movies are silly\u2026\u00a0 And we<\/em> know that they<\/em> know\u2026\u00a0 So, let\u2019s have a ball!\u201d\u00a0 The result was that Moonraker<\/em>, which has James Bond (Roger Moore) blasting off in a space shuttle and taking on an orbiting space station full of villains, also blasted off into whole new realms of galaxy-sized daftness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Apart from the far-fetched science-fictional plot (which might have had something to do with the success of a certain movie called Star<\/em> Wars<\/em> two years earlier), the stupidity includes the hulking, steel-toothed villain Jaws (Richard Keil), who\u2019s not only invulnerable to mishaps such as falling out a plane and hitting the ground without a parachute or having a cable-car crash down on top of him, but who\u2019s also given a cringe-inducing, comedic love interest.\u00a0 But even the business with Jaws pales into insignificance compared to the sequence where Bond escapes from some baddies in Venice using a gondola that transforms into a speedboat and then into a hovercraft, whose appearance in St Mark\u2019s Square causes a pigeon \u2013 yes, a pigeon \u2013 to do a double-take.\u00a0 I remember the movie critic John Brosnan writing<\/a> that at that moment he concluded \u201cthe Bond series had gone about as far down the tube it could possibly go without reaching China.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 Eon Films<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But\u2026 Trying to erase all thoughts of the movie, I started reading the book from 24 years earlier.\u00a0 Unlike the film version, whose plot ricochets between the USA, Italy, South America and outer space, the novel\u2019s action takes place entirely in England, where immensely rich industrialist, stockbroker and rocket-designer Sir Hugo Drax has built a base, with a launch site, on the south coast.\u00a0 From this he intends to test-fly a new missile called the Moonraker, potentially a valuable new means of defence against the Soviet Union.\u00a0 Bond first crosses paths with Drax at Blades, an exclusive and opulent London gentleman\u2019s club, where he discovers he\u2019s been cheating at cards.\u00a0 This suggests he\u2019s less saintly than the adoring British media has made him out to be.\u00a0 Later, Bond is sent to investigate the death of a security officer at Drax\u2019s base, where he finds further, and much more serious, evidence that Drax is a bad \u2019un.\u00a0 In fact, Drax is an embittered former Nazi, now employed by the USSR, who plans to fit a nuclear warhead into the Moonraker and send it ploughing into downtown London during its test flight.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n During his mission, Bond joins forces with a policewoman called Gala Brand, who\u2019s working undercover at the base.\u00a0 After Drax\u2019s goons make a couple of unsuccessful attempts to eliminate them, they manage to thwart the scheme by sending the Moonraker off course.\u00a0 Rather than striking London, it niftily lands on top of a submarine transporting Drax and his minions back to the Soviet Union.\u00a0 The novel ends on a rather un-Bondian note, however.\u00a0 Gala Brand reveals to 007 that she already has a fianc\u00e9 and isn\u2019t about to swoon into his arms.\u00a0 So, instead, Moonraker<\/em>\u2019s final line is: \u201cHe touched her for the last time and they turned away from each other and walked off into their different lives.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Moonraker<\/em> the film, Gala Brand is replaced by an American heroine called Holly Goodhead, played by Lois Chiles.\u00a0 (Goodhead\u2026 Get it?\u00a0 Good<\/em>\u2026 head\u2026<\/em>?)\u00a0 In fact, according to jamesbond.fandom.com<\/a>, poor Gala is \u201cthe only lead female character of the Fleming canon not to have appeared as a character in a James Bond film\u201d, which is puzzling given the quip-friendly nature of her name.\u00a0 I could just imagine Roger Moore hoisting a crinkly eyebrow at her and intoning, \u201cWell, this is going to be a Gala<\/em> affair\u2026\u201d or \u201cI know where I\u2019d like to Brand<\/em> you\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 Eon Films<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reading Moonraker<\/em>, what struck my 21st<\/sup> century self was the shadow that World War II casts over the plot.\u00a0 It has a heavy bearing on the characters \u2013 not just on the villainous ex-Nazi Drax, who draws on German V2 technology for his missile project and intends to destroy London as revenge for his country\u2019s defeat in 1945, but on minor ones like the lift operator in the secret-service headquarters who lost an arm during the conflict.\u00a0 And of course, there are references to how Bond served in the war himself and has scars on his back to prove it.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t notice this so much when I read other Bond novels in the 1970s probably because, then, the war didn\u2019t seem so far back in time.\u00a0 I knew middle-aged people who had vivid memories of it.\u00a0 And it was still being enacted on television in countless documentaries, comedies and dramas like The<\/em> World At War<\/em> (1973-74), Dad\u2019s Army<\/em> (1968-77), It Ain\u2019t Half Hot Mum<\/em> (1974-81), Secret Army<\/em> (1977-79) and Colditz<\/em> (1972-74), and the stories in practically every boys\u2019 comic on sale in the newsagents at the time \u2013 Victor<\/em>, Battle<\/em>, Warlord<\/em> \u2013 dealt with nothing else.\u00a0 Indeed, there were probably some kids my age who believed we were still fighting<\/em> the Germans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And no doubt the war, or more specifically the war\u2019s aftermath, played a part in the Bond novels\u2019 huge success in the 1950s.\u00a0 Those six years of conflict had broken Britain\u2019s economy and Fleming\u2019s readers inhabited a drab, grey world of rationing and austerity.\u00a0 I recall a remark J.G. Ballard made in his memoir Miracles of Life<\/em> (2008), about leaving Shanghai and arriving in Britain for the first time in 1946.\u00a0 Taking his first steps on the soil of his home country, Ballard wondered why the British claimed to have won the war.\u00a0 From the worn-out faces and rundown landscapes around him, it very much looked like they\u2019d lost it.\u00a0 Another pertinent quote is one made by Keith Richards, who said that growing up in early 1950s Britain was like living in black and white.\u00a0 Only when rock \u2018n\u2019 roll arrived from America did life suddenly switch to being in colour.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But reading Moonraker<\/em>, I also realised how far Bond is removed from the dreary reality of post-war Britain.\u00a0 Fleming portrays him as a shameless consumer, one with a seemingly inexhaustible shopping budget.\u00a0 He wears the most expensive labels, smokes the costliest cigars, drinks the finest wines and spirits, helps himself to the fanciest foods.\u00a0 Accordingly, Bond\u2019s first encounter with Drax in Moonraker<\/em> is in the club Blades, whose service, food-and-drink and furnishings were things that most of Fleming\u2019s 1950s readers could only dream about.\u00a0 Though Fleming was accused of marketing watered-down pornography in his books, it surely wasn\u2019t pornography of a sexual or violent nature that titillated his readers so much at the time.\u00a0 It was consumer<\/em> porn, intended to give a perverse, if futile, thrill to underfed and down-at-heels readers who were still carrying ration books.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mind you, the fact that Moonraker<\/em>\u2019s plot is confined to 1950s England didn\u2019t go down well with those readers who\u2019d started reading the Bond books \u2013 Moonraker<\/em> was the third in the series \u2013 for the pleasure of being transported in their imaginations to exotic locales, which in real life they lacked the financial means to visit themselves.\u00a0 My trusty copy of Henry Chancellor\u2019s guide to the novels, James Bond: The Man and his World<\/em> (2005) tells me that \u201cFleming received a number of letters from disappointed readers complaining that Kent, even on the most glorious English summer\u2019s day, did not compare with the tropical heat of the Caribbean.\u00a0 \u2018We want taking out of ourselves,\u2019 declared one old couple, who read Bond novels to each other aloud, \u2018not sitting on the beach in Dover.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Fleming took note of the complaints.\u00a0 None of his later novels restricted Bond to English soil.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 Hammer Films<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have to say that nowadays Fleming\u2019s descriptions of Drax\u2019s base and its technology sound decidedly low-fi.\u00a0 The references to \u2018gyros\u2019, \u2018radio homing beacons\u2019, \u2018ventilation tunnels\u2019 and, indeed, \u2018rockets\u2019 had me thinking of some old black-and-white British sci-fi movie.\u00a0 They particularly made me think of the Hammer film Quatermass 2 <\/em>(1957), which features both rockets and a big secret base where the villains \u2013 aliens \u2013 hang out.\u00a0 For their depiction of the base, the filmmakers used the sprawling and suitably eerie oil refinery at Thurrock in Essex for location shooting, and I imagined Bond and Gala battling Drax and his minions against a similar backdrop.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the other hand, one element of Moonraker<\/em>\u2019s plot that feels more relevant than ever is its notion that a super-rich tycoon could become so enthused about, and involved in, developing futuristic rocket technology.\u00a0 I can think of one billionaire\u2026 no, two billionaires\u2026 no, three<\/em> billionaires<\/a> in 2023 whose fascination with space-going vehicles is like that of little boys with toy train-sets.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Finally, even as a ten or eleven-year-old, one thing I did pick up from Fleming\u2019s novels was a sense of Bond\u2019s melancholia \u2013 a melancholia that wasn\u2019t hinted at in the movies until the tenures of Timothy Dalton and, later, Daniel Craig in the lead role.\u00a0 You get this in Moonraker<\/em> at the very beginning, with Bond calculating how many more missions he has to go on before he can retire from the secret service and what the odds are for surviving that number of missions.\u00a0 Retirement for Bond, I was shocked to discover, comes at the age of 45.\u00a0 Yikes, I thought.\u00a0 If I\u2019d been an agent in Fleming\u2019s version of MI6, I\u2019d be way<\/em> beyond pensionable age now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, readers of post-war Britain, forget the thrills and spills, and forget the fine living and exotic locations, and forget the fancy cars and beautiful women.\u00a0 Even Commander Bond has reasons to gripe about his lot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a9 Penguin Books As a ten or eleven-year-old kid I read a lot of Ian Fleming\u2019s James Bond novels.\u00a0 Indeed, I read most of them before I ever saw any of the films.\u00a0 However, it was only a few years ago, after Penguin Books brought out new editions of the novels, using the … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MRer-Poster.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/RM-LC-in-MR.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/bloodandporridge.co.uk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Q2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n