Volume 5, Number 5 · October 14, 1965
Bondage
By D.A.N. Jones
The James Bond Dossier
by Kingsley Amis
New American Library, 142 pp., $3.95
The Man With the Golden Gun
by Ian Fleming
New American Library, 273 pp., $3.95
The earliest of Ian Fleming's penny-bloods were received with laughter and mock ecstasy. The wooden doll, James Bond, was garlanded with extravagant epithets: a streamlined figure full of gadgetry, carnivorous to the back teeth, this sado-masochistic private eye, daydream of male prepotence. (I collected such quotations when I was commissioned to write advertisements for Goldfinger.) There were reasons for the reviewers' merry praise. The testicle-beating of Casino Royale seemed a pleasant change from the painless hurting and smug moralities of British body-in-the-library entertainment. Raymond Chandler, himself a product of an English 'public school,' approved the novelty of Fleming's shamelessness, the decision to describe the details of killing and torture and recognize their fascination; in a way, the new fantasy was facing facts.
Review, 2557 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |