Ian Fleming @ 100.

"It's the big day: the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ian Fleming," announces Janet Maslin in the New York Times. "Without Fleming, who died in 1964 at 56, we would never have had the debonair company of James Bond, the creative sadism of Goldfinger and Dr No or the pet octopus named Octopussy. Without the benefit of Fleming, however, we've had Octopussy as a cinematic Bond Girl in 1983, part of a movie franchise that is miraculously resuscitated (most recently by Daniel Craig as Bond in Casino Royale) each time it falters, and a string of ersatz Bond books by fill-in writers. To this shaky bibliography we can now add Devil May Care."

Updated through 6/1.

But let's back up a moment: "A number of new books have been timed to the centenary... and London's Imperial War Museum is staging an exhibition, For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond, which explores the numerous connections between Bond and the author's real-life experiences, particularly those that occurred during his service with British Naval Intelligence in World War II," writes Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times:

All the Bond books - 12 novels and two collections of short stories - were written over a dozen years, beginning when Fleming was 44, and all were composed during his annual three-month sojourn at his beloved retreat on the Jamaican coast, Goldeneye. (The name was borrowed from a particularly ingenious intelligence operation Fleming conceived during the war.) There, each day, the author rose early, went for a swim in the cove below his home, then went to work on a portable Remington typewriter for three hours. Cocktails and lunch were served on the terrace with its spectacular views, followed by an hour more of work and the completion of each day's quota: 2000 words. The rest of the day and evening were spent in the glittering company of friends - Noel Coward, first among them, but also W Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Eden and a "Who's Who" of British literature and politics....

Coming to Fleming's utterly masterful Bond novels fresh after many years, one is surprised to find just how tough-minded and extraordinarily well written they are. (It's easy to see why John F Kennedy so admired them, a taste that was instrumental in winning Bond's first American audience.) Fleming was a taut and propulsive stylist with a deep gift for characterization. Perhaps because we now see Bond through the gauzy scrim of affable, slightly preposterous films with inevitable political and sexual happy endings, it's easy to forget that the Bond of Fleming's books was, in many cases, an unlovely character, often described as "cruel," his relations with women often aggressive and forthrightly exploitative.

That brings us to the latest in a long series of Bond novels by Fleming impersonators sanctioned by his estate. (The first, Colonel Sun, actually was written by Kingsley Amis under the pseudonym Robert Markham.) Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks is the 22nd such book and, though competently enough constructed, belongs more to the cinematic Bond tradition than to the one Fleming tapped out on his Remington.

The London Times runs an extract from Devil May Care, while Peter Kemp interviews Faulks.

Joseph Connolly collects first editions: "The jacket is all-important. That of Casino Royale is legendarily rare, and five years ago one fetched more than £13,000 at auction; that's just the jacket - there was no accompanying book. Caveat emptor, however: in the jargon of the book-collecting world, this was a 'first state' jacket."

Also in the Telegraph:

• Faulks on writing Devil May Care.

• Sam Leith's review: "He unrolls everything you want from Bond, thereafter, more or less by the numbers: a violent pre-credit sequence; a visit to M and a flirtatious exchange with Moneypenny; capture while snooping in the hangar holding the secret weapon; transportation to the Secret Base, where there is a monorail; having the villain confess his plans; then thwarting said plans."

• The "Ian Fleming map of Britain."

• Online browsing: Damien Noonan scours the web for the best 007 links."

• Online viewing: Making Quantum of Solace.

The Guardian challenges its readers: "give us the outline for a new, updated James Bond plot - but keep it snappy: 70 words max." Also: Charlie Higson's "top 10 Bond villains," a quiz, and John Grace takes note of the other authors that have preceded Faulks but followed Fleming: "Between 1981 and 1996, John Gardner wrote 14 Bond novels - equalling Fleming's output - and when he retired, the American, Raymond Benson, knocked out a further 12."

"[T]he Bond stories are catalysed by conflicts between individualism and authority, loyalty and betrayal, heterosexual desire and misogyny, and luxury and sacrifice, to name just the most overt, and the most enduring, of the themes," writes Sarah Churchwell. "But sex, snobbery, and sadism remain the bedrock of the Bond mystique." Also in the Independent: Faulks and Fleming, side by side.

Earlier: Penguin covers Bond; John F Burns (NYT) and Charlie Higson (Guardian) on the London exhibition; Joan Collins (Telegraph) on not being a Bond girl.

Update, 5/29: "Much of the nihilism and fatalism of the latter Bond books reflect Fleming's own failing health and confrontation with mortality," writes Jeffrey Hill at Edward Copeland on Film. "But the novels were also a conduit for Fleming to dwell on any matter that interested him. Cars, cards and gambling, food, drink and women... but also crime. After reading Fleming's travelogue that he wrote late in his life, Thrilling Cities, it becomes clear just how fascinated he was with gangsters and mob wars."

Update, 5/31: "Devil May Care is in many ways a stronger novel than any that Fleming wrote, both because it's better written and because it has all the Bond lore to draw upon," writes Charles McGrath in the NYT. "It's a satisfying thriller in its own right, set in the early 60s and beginning in Paris - very satisfactorily - with a man getting his tongue pulled out with pliers, then traveling to Iran and Russia. But it's also a fond and at times funny homage to all the other books in the series."

Updates, 6/1: "Faulks has indeed produced 295 pages, unfalteringly, as though he were Ian Fleming," writes ASH Smith at Stop Smiling. "Their styles are indistinguishable. What's more, Devil May Care is a good thriller on its own merits: a doubly masterful achievement."

More from Euan Ferguson in the Observer: "It's good. Which is to say it's better than it could have been. It is not, however, that good."

Posted by dwhudson at May 28, 2008 6:39 AM