The James Bond Bedside Companion

by Raymond Benson

  Emilio Largo is an adequate villain; he is not the main antagonist here—Blofeld is that—but he inhabits more of the story. He is a well-drawn character, full of tough malevolence. He is a handsome Italian, looking as if he came from the face of an ancient Roman coin. Fleming describes him as resembling a satyr, with ears that are almost pointed. He is a first-rate athlete with enormous hands of "steel." Largo is an adventurer; two hundred years ago he might have been a pirate, Fleming tells the reader. He is a womanizer, an evil one, and the perfect man for SPECTRE. He has nerves of iron. If his role in the novel were as large as, say, a Dr. No or a Goldfinger, Largo might have been one of the most successful Fleming villains.

  Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the leader of SPECTRE, is Bond's archenemy of the series. Because he appears in three books (hence, the Blofeld Trilogy), Blofeld, due to his intelligence and severity, becomes the antithesis of the Bond character. Although he appears in only two chapters of THUNDERBALL, enough of the character's aura is presented to allow it to penetrate into every chapter of the book. It is always Blofeld that Bond is battling, even though Bond is not aware of the fact at this time.

  Blofeld's appearance changes in each successive novel. In THUNDERBALL, he is a man who seems to "suck the eyes out of one's head." He has a powerful animal magnetism ascribed to great men of history, such as Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Napoleon. He is a large man, weighing about 280 pounds, and had once been all muscle. His face suggests only cruelty under his black crew-cut, cruelty to an "almost Shakespearian degree." He has no vices, and has always been an "enigma to everyone who has known him." The dark irises of his eyes, like Le Chiffre's, are totally surrounded by white; they are doll-like in their effect Blofeld is meticulous, unscrupulous, and all-knowing. He sees all, hears all, and when he desires, destroys all. He is a brilliant mastermind in planning schemes and supervising details. He succeeds in every project he undertakes—until Bond comes along, of course. An amusing and significant footnote to all this is that Blofeld's birthdate, May 28, 1908, is identical to that of Fleming's.

  M is his usual crusty old self in THUNDERBALL. He takes private pleasure in sending Bond to Shrublands at the beginning of the story. Apparently, M had tried the place himself a few weeks earlier and loved it. There is also a rare moment in the series when M, while briefing Bond on his assignment, admits that 007 is "a reliable man." He tells Bond the entire top secret details of Operation Thunderball. He reveals these secrets because of a hunch (the gambling theme again) that SPECTRE is hiding in the Bahamas. Though Bond is dubious, he goes along with his chief and travels to the islands without the slightest hope of finding any clues.

  HIGHLIGHTS AND OTHER INGREDIENTS

  There are many outstanding passages in THUNDERBALL, such as the entire Shrublands sequence (including Bond's ordeal with "the rack"). All of the underwater scenes involving SPECTRE' s hijacking of the bombs and Bond exploring the hull of the Disco Volante and the hidden Vindicator plane are eerie and atmospheric. But the most exciting sequence, and perhaps one of Fleming's most brilliant evocations of tension, is the chemin de fer game between Bond and Largo. Note in the following excerpt the dramatic tension between the two characters:

  Largo turned round to face Bond. Smiling with his mouth, he narrowed his eyes and looked carefully, with a new Curiosity, at Bond's face. He said quietly, "But you are hunting me, my dear I fellow. You are pursuing me. What is this? Vendetta?"

  Bond thought: I will see if an association of words does something to him. He said, "When I came to the table I saw a spectre." He said the word casually, with no hint at double meaning.

  The smile came off Largo's face as if he had been slapped. It was at once switched on again, but now the whole face was tense, strained, and the eyes had gone watchful and very hard. His tongue came out and touched his lips. "Really? What do you mean?"

  Bond said lightly, "The spectre of defeat I thought your luck was on the turn. Perhaps I was wrong." He gestured at the shoe. "Let's see."

  The table had gone quiet. The players and spectators felt that a tension had come between these two men. Suddenly there was the smell of enmity where before there had been only jokes. A glove had been thrown down, by the Englishman. Was it about the girl? Probably. The crowd licked its lips.

  Largo laughed sharply. He switched gaiety and bravado back on his face. "Aha!" His voice was boisterous again. "My friend wishes to put the evil eye upon my cards. We have a way to deal with that where I come from." He lifted his hand, and with only the first and little fingers outstretched in a fork, he prodded once, like a snake striking, toward Bond's face. To the crowd it was a playful piece of theater, but Bond, within the strong aura of the man's animal magnetism, felt the ill temper, the malevolence behind the old Mafia gesture.

  Bond laughed good-naturedly. "That certainly put the hex on me. But what did it do to the cards? Come on, your spectre against my spectre!"

  Again the look of doubt came over Largo's face. Why again the use of this word? He gave the shoe a hefty slap. "All right, my friend. We are wrestling the best of three falls. Here comes the third."

  (THUNDERBALL, Chapter 15)

  Another aspect of THUNDERBALL needs mentioning, and that is the invention of SPECTRE itself. When Fleming and his colleagues were writing the screen treatment in 1959, the Cold War was beginning to thaw; the conflict between East and West was not as critical as people had believed earlier in the fifties. Therefore, it became unfashionable to have the Soviets as villains. SMERSH, although mentioned from time to time in remaining novels, was not to be used again as the enemy organization. In its place was born SPECTRE, an international group of terrorists. Fleming and his collaborators unwittingly created a foreshadowing of today's fear of international terrorists. Kingsley Amis calls THUNDERBALL one of the most implausible of all the books. This may have been true in the early sixties, but today, in the nervous eighties, the situation in THUNDERBALL is frighteningly real. It is highly possible for a terrorist group to gain control of an atomic weapon. The consequences of such an occurrence would be disastrous, and it is this aspect of THUNDERBALL which makes it more realistic and alarming today. As a result, THUNDERBALL is more relevant now than it was two decades ago. Fleming, in letting his imagination run away with SPECTRE and its plot of hijacking atomic bombs (with the help of the imaginations of Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham), produced, unwittingly, a strong case against the arms race.

  THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1962)

  The tenth James Bond novel is unique among the series. It stands alone as an enigma; it is a truly strange, experimental book for Ian Fleming. This is because the story is told in first person from the point of view of the heroine. And James Bond doesn't enter the tale until two-thirds into the book! It is also controversial—Bond fans either love it or hate it. Women tend to like it more than male readers, which is not surprising. It may have been a novel written expressly for female readers. There are several fine points in the novel, but there are just as many weak ones. In short, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is a mixed bag.

  The opening section of the story outlines heroine Vivienne Michel's growth to maturity, focusing mainly on her first two relationships with men. Both experiences leave her feeling rejected by men, London, and the world, so Vivienne decides to travel abroad. She flies to Canada, purchases a Vespa motor scooter, and sets off from Quebec to Florida. The road eventually leads her to the Dreamy Pines Motor Court in New York State. After spending one night here, the managers offer her a temporary job for a few days until the motel is closed for the season. She is left alone on closing day with a promise that the owner will arrive in the morning to pay her. But that night, two hideous gangsters, Horror and Sluggsy, arrive, explaining they're from the "insurance company." Before she is badly beaten, a stranger appears at the door. Vivienne discreetly lets him know her situation, and the man gallantly offers to help. He introduces himself as James Bond, and says he is a policeman. The thugs reluctantly allow him to stay after Bond insists he must have
a room for the night Later, 007 tricks the thugs into thinking they have shot him in his bed, and they proceed to set the cabins on fire. Bond rescues Vivienne from her cabin and finally confronts Horror and Sluggsy in a furious gun battle. Both men end up in the nearby lake. Bond and Vivienne retire to the only remaining cabin, but Sluggsy, still alive, attempts to kill the couple one more time. The ever-alert 007 whips out his gun from under the pillow and kills the hoodlum. In the morning, Bond is gone, but Vivienne finds a poignant note left by the mysterious agent who will "live in her heart forever."

  STYLE AND THEMES

  Until Bond enters the picture, THE SPY WHO LOVED ME might be called Fleming's unintentional attempt at a "true confessions" tale. Vivienne's love life is right out of a soap opera; yet this is contrasted with the gritty, brutal terror which envelops the last third of the novel.

  Stylistically, the best thing the book has going for it is its brevity. Since it is the shortest novel Fleming wrote (even shorter than CASINO ROYALE), the corniness of the soap opera exposition and flashbacks does not intrude too much. The chapters still contain the distinctive Fleming Sweep and rich detail (even though, in a disclaimer at the beginning of the book, Fleming insists he found the manuscript on his desk one day—it is "co-authored" by Vivienne Michel herself). Reading THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is a breeze due to the pace of the writing.

  The female perspective is imaginative and revealing. It's almost as if a female Fleming were narrating the tale. For the most part, one can believe that the author is female until the subject centers on sex. Somehow, things Vivienne Michel says about sex do not always ring true. In the following excerpt, Vivienne relates how she feels after first making love with Bond:

  All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful. That and the coinciding of nerves completely relaxed after the removal of tension and danger, the warmth of gratitude, and a woman's natural feeling for her hero. I had no regrets and no shame. There might be many consequences for me—not the least that I might now be dissatisfied with other men. But whatever my troubles were, he would never hear of them. I would not pursue him and try to repeat what there had been between us. I would stay away from him and leave him to go his own road, where there would be other women, countless other women, who would probably give him as much physical pleasure as he had had with me. I wouldn't care, or at least I told myself that I wouldn't care, because none of them would ever own him—own any larger piece of him than I now did. And for all my life I would be grateful to him, for everything. And I would remember him forever as my image of a man.

  (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, Chapter 14)

  To be sure, many women would argue with the statement that "all women love to be semi-raped." Also, there is a touch of egotism in Fleming's writing—is this a woman thinking about her idea of a perfect man, or is it Ian Fleming imagining that he or his hero actually is the perfect man?

  Probably the most interesting aspect of the novel is the objective view of James Bond; it is a view that hasn't been taken in previous novels. It is a more depersonalized look at the man—he is seen from the outside rather than from the inside, as is usually the case. For instance, despite what Bond personally believes about women, in this book he is genuinely a kind, considerate man who treats Vivienne with utmost respect and care. He doesn't appear at all to be the ruthless, cold-hearted, and jaded male Bond believes himself to be. Because of this viewpoint, many new revelations are made about the James Bond character.

  The themes in the novel are very black and white. The story can easily be paralleled with St. George and the dragon once again. A handsome knight saves the damsel in distress from the dragon, which in this case, is represented by the two thugs, Horror and Sluggsy. The only difference is that the knight does not ride away with the damsel in his arms at the story's end. He rides off alone, leaving the maiden safe but with a permanent scar on her heart.

  Another theme, brought back from CASINO ROYALE, is the notion that there is no difference between the good guys and the bad guys. At the end of the novel, Vivienne is treated to a fatherly lecture by Police Captain Stonor:

  "In the higher ranks of these forces, among the toughest of the professionals, there's a deadly quality in the persons involved which is common to both—to both friends and enemies." The captain's closed fist came softly down on the wooden table-top for emphasis, and his inward-looking eyes burned with a dedicated, private anger. "The top gangsters, the top F.B.I. operatives, the top spies and the top counterspies are coldhearted, coldblooded, ruthless, tough killers, Miss Michel. Yes, even the `friends' as opposed to the 'enemies.' They have to be. They wouldn't survive if they weren't. Do you get me? . . . So the message I want to leave with you, my dear—and I've talked to Washington and I've learned something about Commander Bond's outstanding record in his particular line of business—is this. Keep away from all these men. They are not for you, whether they're called James Bond or Sluggsy Morant. Both these men, and others like them, belong to a private jungle into which you've strayed for a few hours and from which you've escaped. So don't go and get sweet dreams about the one or nightmares from the other. They're just different people from the likes of you—a different species."

  (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, Chapter 15)

  In fact, when Vivienne first set eyes on Bond, she believed that he was another one of the gangsters.

  CHARACTERS

  Vivienne Michel is Fleming's most successful female characterization. Since the story is related through the eyes of Viv, the inner thoughts of a Bond-heroine are finally revealed.

  Vivienne has blue, clear eyes and an "inquiring" forehead. There is a "tumble" of ordinary dark brown hair which curves to the right and left in waves. She has high cheekbones, and a mouth that is "so big that it often looks sexy when she doesn't want it to." Vivienne, described as having a sanguine temperament, was born a French-Canadian Catholic near Quebec. Orphaned at an early age, Viv lived with her aunt until she was sent to a girls' school in England. Since being orphaned, Viv's nature has always been an independent one. She usually makes her own decisions, and only rarely would she allow herself to be influenced by other people. Twice, she did so, and both instances hurt her deeply. They were love affairs with, respectively, the boy to whom she lost her virginity, and an employer who became very close to her. Both men treated her badly.

  Fleming makes no attempt to conceal the fact that Vivienne has been a victim of life. The first part of the book, which deals entirely with flashbacks to her past life and romances, plays upon the reader's sympathy for the girl. She's always been mistreated: at school by classmates, by Derek, and by Kurt; only when she is alone does she seem to be happy. Yet, even then, she longs for something to rescue her from her drab existence.

  Viv is a willful, tough girl—she holds her own against the two thugs who threaten her. She probably could hurt the men, but could never stop them from killing her. At one point, she attempts to attack one thug with an ice pick; she fails, but her attempt is admirable.

  Fleming makes the point that Vivienne has had an unsatisfactory sex life until she meets James Bond.

  I had never before made love, full love, with my heart as well as my body. It had been sweet with Derek, cold and satisfying with Kurt. But this was something different. At last I realized what this thing could be in one's life.

  (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, Chapter 14)

  Another egocentric pat on the back for Fleming and his hero; but in another way, it is the only time one is aware of what Bond's partner really does feel about his lovemaking. The feelings of the woman are emphasized. This is something that had been ignored in past novels, and it allows Vivienne Michel to seem that much more realistic.

  As mentioned earlier, Fleming's attempt at writing in female first-person is successful and imaginative for the most part. It's amusing that Vivienne is able to write descriptively about trivial subjects, just like Ian Fleming. Neverthel
ess, as Vivienne describes her wants, desires, and fears, they are believable. Only the first part of the novel tends to drag with sentimentality and a play for the reader's sympathy. Once the thugs enter the story, one is easily caught up in Vivienne's narrative; the reader willingly suspends disbelief that someone other than Ian Fleming is telling the tale.

  James Bond steps down to a supporting role in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. Bond is viewed objectively as a perfectly ordinary English gentleman, but a gentleman with nerves of steel, raw courage, and the ability to tackle two ruthless gangsters and save a damsel in distress.

  Perhaps the most revealing aspect about Bond in this novel (aside from interesting personal details, such as his dislike of Camay soap) is that he is extremely kind to women. The coldness with which he views the opposite sex in CASINO ROYALE seems to be gone, or at least he's keeping these thoughts to himself. From the moment he realizes Vivienne is in trouble, the agent bends over backward to help her. He is gentle with Viv, and supportive in her ordeal. The note he leaves her at the end of the story is warm and encouraging. He goes out of his way to make sure the authorities trouble Vivienne as little as possible so that she may be on her way to Florida quickly. Bond also arranges that any reward for the deaths of the two gangsters be given to Viv. Even though the note, in a way, is another "Dear Viv" letter, he leaves his address and welcomes her to contact him at any time.

  James Bond is a true fantasy figure in this novel. He comes out of the night from nowhere at just the right moment, saves Vivienne from death, and disappears into thin air, as if he never existed. This is Fleming at his most romantic. Vivienne sums up the mystery and wonderment of the man in this way: