![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Bond, James Bond
Feb. 12th, 2023 01:15 amGetting back to catching up on books I've read lately and never wrote about ... back in December I reread several of Ian Fleming's Bond books, at least the ones I have on hand, because I was thinking about writing a Yuletide treat for a Bond request (for the MI-6 office staff).
I didn't end up writing it, but it did remind me that while the books have their ups and downs, and the downs are DOWN, I do genuinely enjoy them. I first read these in college and, on subsequent rereads, I thought I would probably just continue being more and more put off by the racism/sexism/etc until I gave up, but I guess I've hit a sort of steady state with it, where the "ugh" parts are very ugh, but I know they're coming and the parts I like, I really do like.
For one thing, they're good action books, and good spy novels. In spite of the OTT-ness of the books at times, which gets worse as the series goes on, Fleming did know espionage, and a lot of the espionage aspects are both enjoyable and emotionally true. There's a chapter of one of the books in which Bond has to take his part of a rota covering the office phones at night, terrorizes the canteen girls for sending him tea (which he hates) instead of coffee, and generally wanders around the empty building having existential thoughts about his life. There's another book that opens with Bond coming off a two-day bender thinking about the emptiness of his existence. He's not supposed to be nice, the books are clear that he's cruel and terribly damaged, and both he and his author know it.
( I continue to ramble about these books with no particular point in sight, mostly about the early books in the series. Some spoilers, though not really book-ruining. )
I didn't end up writing it, but it did remind me that while the books have their ups and downs, and the downs are DOWN, I do genuinely enjoy them. I first read these in college and, on subsequent rereads, I thought I would probably just continue being more and more put off by the racism/sexism/etc until I gave up, but I guess I've hit a sort of steady state with it, where the "ugh" parts are very ugh, but I know they're coming and the parts I like, I really do like.
For one thing, they're good action books, and good spy novels. In spite of the OTT-ness of the books at times, which gets worse as the series goes on, Fleming did know espionage, and a lot of the espionage aspects are both enjoyable and emotionally true. There's a chapter of one of the books in which Bond has to take his part of a rota covering the office phones at night, terrorizes the canteen girls for sending him tea (which he hates) instead of coffee, and generally wanders around the empty building having existential thoughts about his life. There's another book that opens with Bond coming off a two-day bender thinking about the emptiness of his existence. He's not supposed to be nice, the books are clear that he's cruel and terribly damaged, and both he and his author know it.
( I continue to ramble about these books with no particular point in sight, mostly about the early books in the series. Some spoilers, though not really book-ruining. )
