'The wilderness of mirrors': 70 years since the first James Bond book, spy stories are still blurring fact and fiction
Retrieved on:
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
Aston, Zero, Dark, Intelligence, Cold War, KGB, Table, Iron, Conrad, Sherlock, Explosion, Retirement, Time, Risk, Nausea, Foreign Secretary, SMERSH, No, Naval Intelligence Division (United Kingdom), Perspiration, Le Chiffre, Iron Curtain, Dunderdale, Soviet people, Skiing, Contract, Omega, Attitude, Death, Overweight, Gambling, Wilderness, Book, French people, Egg, Enigma, Rape, MI6, Creativity, First, CIA, Fleming, Wilfred, Aston Martin, Goldfinger, Heineken, Red Sparrow, Admiral, Dodge, Foreign, MI5, Sony, Woman, Rolls-Royce, Terminology, World, Man, Smoke, Military intelligence, Female, Casino, Film industry, Private investigator, Entertainment, Machine tool, Casino Royale, Love, Bond, Morlands, Rimington, Goldeneye, Rolex
With these opening words, Ian Fleming (1908-64) introduced us to the gritty, glamorous world of James Bond.
Key Points:
- With these opening words, Ian Fleming (1908-64) introduced us to the gritty, glamorous world of James Bond.
- Fleming’s first novel, Casino Royale, was published 70 years ago on April 13 1953.
- British readers, still living with rationing and shortages after the war, eagerly devoured the first James Bond story.
- It had expensive liquor and cars, exotic destinations, and high-stakes gambling – luxurious things beyond the reach of most people.
Ian Fleming, Agent 17F
- He only lasted a year at military college (where he contracted gonorrhoea), then missed out on a job with the Foreign Office.
- The director of British Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Henry Godfrey, recruited Fleming as his assistant.
- Fleming excelled, under the codename 17F.
- They would obtain a German bomber, dress British men in German uniforms, and deliberately crash the plane into the channel.
- Fleming claimed he played against a German agent at the tables, an experience that supposedly inspired Bond’s gambling battles with Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.
- Fleming also pointed to Sidney Reilly, a Russian-born British agent during the First World War.
The changing world of Bond
- Bond novels still sold well, especially after John F. Kennedy listed one among his top ten books.
- From Casino Royale to For Your Eyes Only (1960), Bond battled SMERSH, a real Soviet counter-espionage organisation.
- The early Bond novels were Cold War stories.
- In the novels, Bond drove Bentleys – the Aston Martin was introduced in the 1964 film Goldfinger.
- Their female characters do more than just spend a night with Bond before their untimely deaths.
- But the revised Bond novels will include a disclaimer noting the removals.
Spies After Bond
- Le Carré introduced his readers to a more mundane, morally grey world of espionage.
- He thought Bond was a gangster rather than a spy.
- There’s a little more Bond in Mathews’ books than in those of le Carré or Rimington.
- The more tedious and banal aspects of spycraft – brush passes, broken transmitters, and dead drops – accompany the glamour and romance.
The wilderness of mirrors
- The real world of espionage is so secret that most of us only ever encounter it on pages or screens.
- We don’t usually look to Bond films for accurate representations of espionage.
- But the influence of Fleming’s spy and the general aura of secrecy surrounding intelligence work lend some glamour and excitement to the work of real spies.
- This is why the CIA invests time and money into fictionalisations dealing with its work.