60 (yes, 60) Years of Bond

Oh my, all the hype and hoopla about 2012 being the semicentennial or golden jubilee anniversary of James Bond, Agent 007 with a license to kill and thrill in defense of the British Realm. Life Magazine has even risen from dormancy to publish a special issue dedicated to the man with the Walther PPK and all those tricky cars; if you're a fan, I greatly recommend the Life effort despite the hefty cover price and the error made in You Only Live Twice: the editors claim Bond did not drive any vehicle in the film when, of course, he piloted a small one-man helicopter ("Little Nellie"), brought to Japan by her Uncle Q. All the hustle-bustle about the 50th Anniversary is to spark more interest in the latest Bond film, Skyfall. The problem is, this is not the 50th anniversary, but the 60th, the diamond jubilee, or, more appropriately, the sexagennial. Yes, Commander James Bond may have first graced the silver screen in 1962 when Slyvia Trench became the first Bond Girl (sorry, Honey Ryder comes after her) in Dr No, but Mr Bond was first released on a dangerous Cold War world in Casino Royale, written in 1952 and published the following year. It may surprise those who know James Bond only from the great (and some not so great) films, but Bond made ten book appearances before the first film, and his father was Ian Fleming (1908-1964) writer and real-life WW2 spy.

American readers in the 1950s and 1960s encountered the exploits of James Bond in Signet editions, and those are the editions (except for some British numbers) I have in my own collection. They were published in such great numbers that they are still easily found both on and off line. It's probably more of an emotional/nostalgic connection but I prefer these over the later editions, especially those reissued as a film tie-in. James Bond was for me a literary character before I saw my first Bond film, and that's what I think of him as first, even though the fellows who strut across the screens are the ones who will have the enduring public legacy. My hope as a bibliophile, of course, is that the films will lead people to read the books, just as Guy Ritchie's frenetic Sherlock Holmes films led some people to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In addition to Fleming's own books, however, there are some other related tomes well worth tracking down.

First and foremost in your ancillary James Bond library should be O.F. Snelling's 007 James Bond: A Report, published in 1964. Snelling was a Bond fan from the very beginning, with the publication of that "remarkable book" Casino Royale in 1953; additionally, he was an expert on antiquarian books and worked for several prestigious auction houses including Sotheby's. It's natural, then, that his biography concentrates on Bond as revealed in Fleming's tales. As Snelling wrote the book, he knew he was in a race with Kingsley Amis, who was writing his own critical analysis of the Bond novels; beating Amis into print assured the bestselling status of his own book (hitting the stands at the very apex of Bond fever) but it meant he also beat the publication of You Only Live Twice, which contained an obituary (rather premature, as it turned out) for James Bond, issued by MI6 in an effort to set the record straight about certain "high-flown and romanticized caricatures of episodes in the career of an outstanding public servant." He did not rewrite the paperback edition of the book, but did include footnotes here and there. You Only Live Twice is a good place to stop with Bond, since the true identity of the author of The Man With the Golden Gun (1965) is muddled at best, and the less said about Octopussy & The Living Daylights (1966) the better.

The aforementioned Kingsley Amis was a good friend of Ian Fleming and wrote three books in the vein that of importance. The first, The James Bond Dossier (1965), was his own take on the novels, and although the essay from which the book grew was written somewhat earlier, it was Snelling's book that reached the public first, taking away a bit of the thunder which this book deserves. Amis' own status as a literary giant and a Renaissance man gives his book a depth lacked by Snelling's, as well as a hefty dose of dry British humor. The second is The Book of Bond (Every Man His Own 007), published the same year as Dossier and is a foray more solidly into humor, instructing men how to be like James Bond, using extensive quotes from the books as illustrations; the first edition of this British book featured a slipcase entitled The Bible to be Read as Literature, presumable so agents of SMERSH or SPECTER would not be able to spot their wannabe adversary. The third book to consider is Colonel Sun, first of the non-Fleming James Bond adventures, which Amis wrote under the pen name Robert Markham. Bond, in tracking down the kidnappers of M, foils a plot by Communist China to create an international incident. Not Fleming, but a good novel nonetheless, and much more readable than many of the many novels that followed from other hands.

Among the more odd oddities of books about Ian Fleming's literary creation is one written by Benjamin Pratt, a retired pastor of the United Methodist Church. In Ian Fleming's Seven Deadlier Sins & 007's Moral Compass: A Bible Study With James Bond Pratt sees Fleming's tales as modern parables. In seven lessons, complete with biblical references and discussion questions, Pratt examines Fleming's complex spiritual allegories. As Pratt said in an interview with CommanderBond.Net: "...at the core, each Bond tale reflects choices between moral courage and moral cowardice. This is not only reflected in the characters James Bond pursues, but in Bond, as well. When he is true to his duty and mission, his choices are morally courageous. But, like most of us, he gets world-weary (accidie) and he fails to stay true to course. He becomes self-righteous, hypocritical, snobbish, and cruel or lust driven, his most infamous moral struggle. He is constantly battling the inner spiritual and moral war, as well as the war with the deadly demons he pursues." Perhaps the oddest thing about this book is that it actually succeeds in its purpose, and will be of interest to both truth seeker and thrill seeker.

Although there are numerous other books about James Bond (and most of them dwell on nothing but the films), there is just one other book to suggest for your collection of vintage Bond. For Bond Lovers Only (1965), was compiled and edited by Sheldon Lane. Although 19 of the 29 photos in the center of the book are great looking girls from the films (the other photos are of even better looking guns), the real emphasis is on the Bond books, the Bond character, and on Fleming as a writer. Most of the selections have no date or place of original publication, but I think they were either magazine or newspaper features. While the stars of some of the writers have slipped into unfortunate obscurity, many still have prominence today in the fields of spy and crime writing -- in an interview, Raymond Chandler tells what he thinks of Fleming as a writer and James Bond as a tough guy ("a little too tough"); French writer Georges Simenon discusses "the thriller business" in general and Fleming in particular; Jack Fishman interviews Fleming about who Bond is and where he came from; former Communist and espionage expert Bernard Hutton recalls how Fleming interviewed him for an article about spies; and former CIA Director Allen Dulles (The Craft of Intelligence) tells of the Ian Fleming he knew and how he was given his first James Bond book (From Russia With Love), a book he liked not just for its writing but because he lived in Constantinople after the Great War, by Jacqueline Kennedy. More than any of the other books, this one is like sitting down with a few old friends and gabbing about a mutual love.

I don't discount the importance and popularity of the films, and I fully realize that if Bond is around in other 40 years (joining Sherlock Holmes in the Centennial Hall of Fame maintained in the Diogenes Club) it will be because of the influence of the films. Still, I have hopes that people will from time to time return to the source waters of the character, and feel refreshed and enlightened for having done so. And so...

It's a crime!

If you're the kind of person who thrives on contention, argument and bare-knuckle conflict (you know, you think that firecrackers and ant hills were made for each other), there are all sorts of things you can do to amuse yourself -- throw a T-bone into a pack of junk yard dogs, toss chum and sharks into a municipal swimming pool, put $2 price tags on plasma TVs on Black Friday or shove a pork barrel into a Congressional meeting. Or you could just ask fiction fans to define genres. When I attended a World Fantasy Convention, a panel discussion on science fiction vs fantasy led to a battle royal, and I don't mean a war of words. The only agreement was in the need for ice afterwards. You might get a similar reaction if you asked fans to define "crime fiction."

I used to engage in those sorts of futile literary arguments all the time, but not so much anymore. Back in the day, however, I was usually the intransigent force standing firm against the voices of reason and compromise; in the case of crime fiction, I define it pretty much the same way as the National Rifle Association interprets the Second Amendment -- very strictly, and with a tommy gun (metaphorically) close at hand.

Lists of the best crime writing are easy to come by, especially in this age of electronic flummery, but I eschew them in favor of The Armchair Detective Book of Lists edited by Kate Stine. A quick perusal of the Haycraft-Queen list, the Julian Symons list compiled for The Sunday Times, H.R.F Keating's 100 Best list, and the complementary lists submitted by the Crime Writers Association (British) and the Mystery Writers Association (American) reveal one obvious fact -- people are ready to call just about anything a crime novel. I beg to differ. First of all, no spy novels allowed, which eliminates The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Riddle of the Sands and From Russia with Love. I'm also giving the old heave-ho to the thriller Day of the Jackal, the adventure story Rogue Male, and Conan Doyle's best, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Just for good measure, so long to The Big Sleep, Rebecca and Murder on the Orient Express.

Mystery fans usually had daggers in their eyes (or hands) by this time, and none were at all mollified by the fact that I allowed The High Window, Tiger in the Smoke, Strangers on a Train, The Glass Key, The Grifters, The Third Man and the entire Lovejoy series of books. The ire of the fans (short for fanatics, of course) is understandable, expected and probably even deserved. So, what makes for a crime novel?

Before we look at what aspects are integral to the crime novel (as opposed to mystery or spy novels) we should consider what traits are not necessary for this peculiar and particular sub-genre:

Good guys/Bad guys

Mysteries

An investigation

Justice

Okay, that cuts out a lot of books that masquerade as crime novels in the best-of lists and in publishers lists. So, what is required? Some obvious, and some not so much:

Crime

Criminal(s)

Victim(s)

Motivation

Philosophy

To quote a detective named Zero: "There are no good guys; there are no bad guys -- it's just a bunch of guys." Whereas the heart of the mystery is morality, the core of the crime novel is, if not amorality, then ambiguity.

Detectives and police, other than in supporting roles, generally get in the way in the crime novel, as does any sort of investigation. An obvious example of that is The Maltese Falcon where Sam Spade finds himself tossed back and forth between the antics of criminals and adventurers Kaspar Gutman, Bridget O'Shaughnessy, Joel Cairo and gunsel Wilmer Cook. Everybody thinks Spade is investigating the whereabouts of the Black Bird, but all he's really doing is watching the principals of the crime, and even at the end, when he pegs duplicitous Bridget for the murder of partner Miles Archer, it's neither the result of investigation nor deduction, just an observation of an obvious crime he can't ignore, no matter how much he's tempted. The Maltese Falcon -- no investigation, no police other than knuckleheads  Polhaus and Dundy, and no justice, just the moral ambiguity of Bridget heading off to prison, only because the gunsel is not around to take the fall, and Gutman and Cairo are heading back to Constantinople. Plot and motivation rule, with Spade as a passive nemesis. Not the greatest detective or mystery novel, as some bill it, but certainly the greatest crime novel.

For the crime novel, criminals are essential, but they need not be masterminds, or even competent.  In fact, it may help the plot for them to be small fries in thrall to an organization as ruthless as the Mafia or Wal-Mart. Such is the case in The Grifters by Jim Thompson, where Lilly Dillon works for bookie Bobo Justus. The plot is propelled by Lilly's conflict with Bobo, who thinks she's cheating him, and by Lilly's competition with her weak-willed son's moll for his affections. The novel is infused with crime, criminals, victims, criminals as victims, motivation and the moral ambiguity of the crime novel universe that guarantees there will be no justice, at least not a justice based in a lawful morality. The philosophy of the crime universe is not one of good vs evil, or even of evil vs eviler; the crime philosophy sets aside the concepts of good and evil more deftly than ever did Frederick Nietzsche, who might be considered the patron saint of the crime novel. The Nietzschean race of the television series Andromeda, based on an idea by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, perfectly embody the moral orientation of the crime novel -- "I'm on your side, as long as it's my side too; situations may change, but I don't -- I'm always on my side."

While spies might be considered just as morally ambiguous as the crime novel's protagonists, they really are not; they are agents of constituted authority, possessors of a rigid morality oriented to lawful order, even when they act in chaotic-unlawful ways. You can get an idea of the part played by moral philosophy in the crime novel from the graph to the right. Characters like James Bond, Quiller, Matt Helm and Harry Palmer are going to be either Lawful Good or Lawful Chaotic, for their goals, no matter their actions, always support society. Likewise, Sherlock Holmes is going to bounce between Lawful Good (Hound of the Baskervilles), Chaotic Good (The Adventure of the Devil's Foot) and Lawful Evil (The Final Problem). Contrast that with Sam Spade's nature as Lawful Neutral or Lilly Dillion's Neutral Evil. Killers like Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr Ripley) and Dexter Morgan (from Jeff Lindsay's popular crime novel series) fall into a neutral crack in the universe as well, this time Chaotic Neutral, because their actions neither advance nor retard the course of society; one of Tom Ripley's victims nails the dichotomy  between the mystery/detective/spy universe and the crime universe when he exclaims, "I cannot understand your total disconnection with the truth of things!" There lies the great divide, that which singles out the crime novel as a unique sub-genre to the mystery.

Crime novels are much more difficult to write than other kinds of mystery novels, not so much in the plotting, characterization, motivation or atmosphere, but in the conclusion. Even in a crime novel, where many of the rules go right out the window, the conclusion must still be satisfying to the reader. That's not always an easy task when main characters may be hoods, where everyone may die, where the innocent and the guilty are equally liable to end up in prison, or on a marble slab. When it's handled wrong, you just shake your head, drop the book in disgust and wonder why you wasted your time; when done right, even brilliantly, you have a novel that can be just as cathartic as any morality play by Christie, Chandler, Fleming, P.D. James or Conan Doyle. A toast, then, to crime...and the criminal in all of us.

A small Christmas gift to crime fiction and noir fans: