007 in books stupid? Open Spoilers

Cafe Society
1

I was on vacation and had grabbed a couple of the original James Bond novels to read by the pool: Goldfinger and Moonraker. I was prepared for the sexism and the racism, but I was unprepared for how stupidly Bond behaves.

Example 1: In Goldfinger, Bond shows up for a sheduled meeting with Goldfinger at GF’s house. GF is already suspicious of Bond, but as soon as Bond arrives, GF tells him that he has been called away by a minor emergency, but Bond should make himself at home. It is an obvious set up, but as soon as GF leaves Bond searches the house until he finds a hidden camera set up by GF to record how Bond behaves while alone in GF’s house. Well DUH! It was obvious that this was the reason for GF’s staged departure.

Example 2: In Moonraker, Bond is trying to stop a lunatic from launching an atomic missile into the heart of London. The villain is operating under the disguise of being a contractor for the British government. The government thinks the villain is launching a test missile, but instead the bad guy intends to strike at London.

Bond sneaks into a air duct before the launch and hides there while the villain gives an interview to several reporters from the BBC and other outlets. There are also a number of government officials on hand during the interview. After the interview, Bond launches a very complicated plan to stop the nuke from hitting London.

Now, I do not have 00 status, but while the villain was giving the live TV interview, I would have started yelling from the air duct “stop, he’s crazy, I’m a government agent and that man is trying to kill everyone in London!” This would have gone over the airwaves and while people would think me crazy, they certainly would look into the matter and presto! no nuking of London.

So my question is this: Who is stupid, Bond, or Flemming? Is he supposed to be that thick or was Flemming just a lazy plotter? Do the books get better? I need to know this because I bought a bunch in bulk at an English language bookstore in Jakarta and I would like to read them, but can’t put up with more stupidity.

2

It’s not you, he really is occasionally that stupid, in the books. I read the entire series myself back in the Pleistocene, and what I came away with was, “Geez, he’s always falling through trapdoors and stuff.”

But remember, Fleming was writing for a “thriller” audience, and he wasn’t trying to create a Superhero, just a “spy”. And if you don’t have your spy fall through a trapdoor once in a while, how are you going to have any plot development or character sympathy? If your spy just goes and calmly routs SMERSH out of their secret headquarters like he’s punching a time clock, there’s no dramatic tension, other than the merely “How will he get’er’done?” tension.

I don’t think Fleming was a lazy plotter, just one who was bowing to the exigencies of his medium. The whole point of James Bond novels is the ordinary joe who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances–given a “license to kill” (!–talk about your plot device) and sent off on all kinds of strange expeditions, with all kinds of high-tech equipment, to Save The World. Egad.

So your Ordinary Joe thrust into these extraordinary situations, outside of his custom gun or sports car and the widgets that Q can think up, has only his original equipment between his ears, and that means that, like Everyman, he’s occasionally going to fall through a trapdoor. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be Everyman, he’d be Superman, and that’s a different genre.

ETA: They don’t get “better”, they just get “different”, as Fleming starts writing for a bigger and presumably more gadget- and action-oriented audience. And Bond does stop falling through trapdoors quite so much, but he still doesn’t morph into Superman, or even Jason Bourne. I found it quite endearing, actually.

3

It’s not “stupid,” it’s “swagger.”
:smiley:

Bond can act pretty dumb in the movies, too.

4

Bond is a lousy source for “How to Act Like a Secret Agent”. Fleming himself acknowledged that Bond was a gambler (that’s why he’s always in those casinos), and explicitly says how often he plays his hunches in his job. Of course, since this is fiction, Bond is as lucky on the job as he is in the casinos. If you tried to duplicate his behavior in real life you’d end up broke and dead.*

Fleming also made statements and assertions about the world that give the books local flavor, but frequently aren’t actually true. We’ve rehashed some of these on the Board. And, yes, he occasionally does dumb things. Of course, his villains do, too. For the life of me I can’t figure out why Goldfinger lets Bond live and come with him to Kentucky. Why? For the free office help? Is it worth having an enemy agent on hand just so you can save money on temps? They made things seem more reasonable in the movie, in this case.
But Fleming was trying to create a fast-paced, atmospheric thriller. Unless you’re a Le Carre, books about real spying are awfully dull.

*(A friend of mine who’s a bigger Bond fan claims that Fleming eventually started emulating his hero in drinking and smoking and other vices, and this is how he ended up dead so fast. It’s worth pointing out that Fleming’s Bond is also a fatalist – he’s convinced his job will kill him at an early age, so he doesn’t save money and he allows himself destructive habits. Again, NOT a good role model.)

5

I’ve read the Bond books and you unfortunately happened upon two of the weaker in the series. Give Casino Royale or From Russia With Love a try. I think they would stand up as good stand alone stories without the Bond brand.

6

Thanks all. Like I said, I have two more to read. Even as a kid, I read LeCarre instead of Flemming (I’m kind of a geek).

As Cal said, the plot of GF in the book is much more ridiculous than the plot from the film. I’ve got Casino Royale and I’ll give it a read next weekend when I go snorkeling, but I think I’ll bring Smiley’s People, just in case.