Quantum of Solace, The complete James Bond short stories by Ian Fleming
As a precocious pre-teen, I used to devour each and every James Bond book I came across in my grandmother’s large library. To my delight, most of the fourteen in the series were there, in fairly good condition for well-thumbed paperbacks!
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Then I started to watch the Bond films. I loved Connery’s depiction of the ubercool MI agent, winced at Roger Moore and the few who followed, was ambiguous about Pierce Brosnan, and found that Daniel Craig sort of grew on me.
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But those were the movies, and me, I’ve always preferred the books. So when I chanced upon the complete JB short stories, I had to pick it up despite the rather silly and very lurid jacket. So glad I did, the book is a treasure.
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There are nine shorts, each one compact and standalone, each one downright fun to read. Some of the titles are familiar to Bond fans: From A View To A Kill; For Your Eyes Only; Quantum of Solace; Octopussy. And when the reader reaches the last page, it is to realise that the book is a celebration of Ian Fleming the writer more than James Bond, his character.
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Really, I’d forgotten what a good writer Fleming was. The shorts have the usual combine of espionage, sabotage, subversion, betrayal, and much derring-do and of course, projectile-paced action. I know I`m leading with the chin here but what struck me forcibly though, was how much more charming these stories are when compared to John le Carre or Graham Greene’s works.
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Fleming employs words to draw very evocative pictures. Sample this lyrical passage: a pair of hedge sparrows went busily on collecting bits and pieces for a nest they were building in a thorn bush. The fat thrush finally located its worm and began pulling at it, its legs braced. Bees clustered thick among the roses on the mound, and from where he was Bond could hear their summery sound. It was a scene from a fairytale—the roses, the lilies of the valley… great shafts of sunlight lancing down through the tall trees into the pool of glistening green.
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We find M, a senior naval officer with quite a few idiosyncrasies, (one being an distrust of people who called him `sir` off duty!) is occasionally prone to soliloquies about his job and the burden of responsibility it carries. Bond, during his long stints of waiting for the target to move into the cross hair, muses on things as astonishingly diverse as the difference between a hill and a mountain, whether darkness falls or rises, why birds still fear man in dense forests, and so on. In fact, Fleming’s Bond is a thinking man, and quite perceptive about people. This stands out beautifully in the title story which — spoiler ahead — is a tale beautifully told after 007 has been to the place and done what he was sent to do. Quantum of Solace is really a masterly sketch of men and women. The attention to detail is wonderful; if Bond is on a yacht, we get a crystal clear picture of what he sees, from the sofas to the drinks on the bar, to the colour of the woodwork.
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The Hildebrand Rarity, which deals with the murder of a particularly unprepossessing villain, is my favourite from this collection. There are two suspects (and Bond is not one of them!) but no one’s talking.
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Fleming’s James Bond is a secret agent with a heart, one who shows his emotion when he deems it safe to do so and which does not, in any way, erode his intense alpha maleness. Bond’s dry wit is delightful, not the out- to- score- one we notice in the celluloid Bond. He is a fastidious man, about the way he dresses, his personal hygiene, about the way he has to deal with foes, and more important, about first understanding just why he has to dispose of these foes. He’s cool but not really sophisticated. He is the hero but with a lower case `h`, the catalyst who moves the story forward.
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Some things are the same, though. Women still preen before Bond. His art of flirting is still quite unique. “Sort of fellow who got all the girls he wanted,“ muses a man on the sidelines. The villains are dreadful, dire types who mistreat their subordinates and whip their women. And yes , there is a cardboard cut-out sameness to all the women.
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And of course, the stories are dated. It is fun to read of British Airways being referred to by its earlier avatar BOAC; to find out that M has a direct communications link with Edgar Hoover. This was when Nassau was the rich man’s (always men, of course) playground, when champagne was popped only on special occasions, when Sri Lanka was Ceylon, when villains applied hair grease, when barbiturates were the main go-to for the way out.
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But most importantly, James Bond remains an enigma. Three cheers for that!
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Sheila Kumar worked for the Times Group and now writes for many newspapers and magazines on matters concerning just about everything under the sun. She has had her short stories published in as many as six anthologies.Sheila’s first book, a collection of short stories titled Kith and Kin (Rupa Publications) was released to very good reviews.