CommanderBond.net

From doublenoughtspy on the CBn main page...

'Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies' A CBn Review by Charles Helfenstein

Good review, sums up alot of my ideas about this book as well. It was a nice surprise when this was "discovered" on CBn and I first heard about it. Always good to have a new book on the Bond novels.

Great review, doublenoughtspy. If you say this is the Fleming reference guide to have, then it is the guide to have, period.

I think the book must be wonderful. Accolades from Spy Novel Fan, Zencat and McCartney007 would be worth their weight in gold.

Come on Royal Mail, keep the British end up!

Well, Charles H. (the reviewer, not the author) says the chronologies are the most controversial part of this book. In fact, they ruined it for me.

One would expect a chronology to have some relationship to reality. Sadly, they do not. In fact, the chronologies are just the tip of the iceberg. They reveal that the book has made many wrong turns, obsessing on details and failing to understand the novels or the writing process.

Let's look at Live And Let Die, for example. John Griswold sets the story in January, 1952 (for no particular reason). He then mentions that Bond wonders who will run SMERSH now that Beria is gone. He notes that Beria "was arrested in June 1953 and executed in December 1954." So the story, if set in the January after the arrest of Beria, would have to be January 1954...two years later, or even late 1954, early 1955 (after the book was published). This doesn't seem to bother Griswold, but it bothers A LOT of other things in the novel. For example, Bond sees a sign celebrating "Miss Orange Blossom, 1954". Now this was (or maybe still is) a real festival, as a quick Googling will show. Bond also references a car that Griswold admits wasn't even manufactured until 1953. Griswold argues with himself in his book that we must listen to Bond's own recollection that Casino Royale took place in '51" in Goldfinger. So, we should believe Bond's recollection of an event years later rather than his eyewitness testimony in a novel? We should excuse Bond's occasional "premonitions" of historical events because Griswold is obsessed with nailing down dates when the author himself never bothered to do that himself? We can dismiss Sir Hugo Drax for referencing the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II BEFORE the event occures? Griswold condescendingly muses in this case: "a better course for Fleming to have chosen would have been..." Oh, thank you, Mr. Griswold! I am sure the cold corpse of Ian Fleming appreciates your advice! He only sold what? 30 million books? If one wants to note a mistake - then note it (and on occassion, Griswold does), but do not winge on defending yourself. If you have write page after page defending your chronology against history and Ian Fleming's literary choices, then maybe it is your chronology that needs to be fixed.

So we are left with a chronology that contridicts itself over and over. Diamonds Are Forever references an historical investigation into diamond smuggling, but this unfortunately takes place after Griswold's chronology, so, it is dismissed. And thus, so is much of the historical context of the story.

And my favorite excuse of Griswold's is that all the dates mentioned in the Bond books, must have a real year, thus, if Bond is flying on a Friday 13th in August, then the adventure MUST take place in a real year that has a Friday 13th in August. If Bond references events that haven't happened, so what? The FICTIONAL DATES must match REAL DATES.

Aside from the abusuridy of setting the chrnology BEFORE historical events referenced by Bond himself, Griswold spends WAY TOO MUCH TIME on everything that is unimportant in the Bond novels, and constantly misses the big picture. Sure, he obsesses over justifying setting LALD in 1952, but fails to place the entire subject of race issues in America and Communist influence in context. For example, one intriguing historical reference in Live And Let Die isn't even explored: Referring to race riots in America, Captain Dexter says, "Remember '35 and '43? You'd have to call out the Militia." No mention is made of these events, but they do a great deal to put the story in perspective. The March 1935 Harlem Riot caused three deaths and widespread damage. The 1943 riot in Harlem is also well-documented. Nor is the Amsterdam News mentioned - a famed black-run newspaper. Nor is any exploration given to Orson Wells and the "negro theatre" explosion during the 1930s, or Macbeth, put on by Wells in 1936. Why are these important? Felix Leiter WROTE for the Amsterdam News. He wrote articles about Negro Thetre "around the time Orson Wells put on his Macbeth." These incidents actually give the novel context. They are clues to the worldview that created Bond and informed Ian Fleming. They are also important if one wishes to understand more about one of the key re-occuring characters in the Bond novels.

The list goes on and on. But Griswold constantly fails to mention ANYTHING that is important. On the other hand, we get comparative maps showing us that The Isle of Surprise is actually Cabrita Island. This seems to require a page and two identical maps with only the name of the island changed. We get 20 PAGES on the play of the bridge game in Moonraker! We get some lunatic "experiment" on whether Fleming accurately described the transatlantic flight in Diamond Are Forever. Guess what? Fleming, who obviously took notes during the flight, was accruate! And if you really want to bring on a migrane, try reading Griswold's notes on the timeline of events in Thunderball! He even offers helpful hints on what Fleming should have written in many places. Get out your pens. Lets replace Fleming's words!

I found this book to be trite, inaccurate, defensive, and ultimately unreadible. It was obviously a lot of work. It was self-published, which likely means Griswold will NEVER see a dime for his efforts. But it is somehow sad. Griswold must love Bond, but he cannot communicate why. He spends most of his time trying to make the whole Bond universe "real" somehow, even more "real" than Fleming ever wanted or tried to make it. Thus the book is futile. Sure, you can look up a name or two, but not with as much depth as hitting Google (or an Encyclopedia) when you want more details on a reference. There is no context for anything, which puts this at a disadvantage to a book like The Politics of James Bond or Licence To Thrill. It is a monumental failure, which is so sad because even if it were great, the likely readership is, these days, pretty small.

I feel like the possitive comments are probably from those who are just happy anyone is talking about the novels. If true, it is a sad commentary on the state of the literary Bond these days.

How futile is this book? It is like someone trying to diagram Picasso's brush strokes, or counting vowels in Shakespear. It may involve a lot of work, but it doesn't tell you a damn thing more about why we love the original work, or why or how it was created.

Still dancing,
Bonita

Think you're confusing me with Doublenoughtspy. Was it you who also called me Charles? That must be why. Don't worry, I often get confused between Bondian, Bond-San, Bondfan, Bondman, Bondesque and Loomis.

I am truly sorry if my book upset anyone.

Hopefully, many readers and future readers will find entries that will pique their interest enough investigate further.

Two highly recommended biographies of Ian Fleming are: 'The Life of Ian Fleming' by John Pearson and 'Ian Fleming' by Andrew Lycett. Another fine book that contains information about Fleming and his Bond novels is 'James Bond’s London' by Gary Giblin. Some of these books address the issues that Charles raised in his review.

Those that are interested, please review pages 7 through 11 of my book, 'Ian Fleming's James Bond' etc., to see the sequential impact of the books on each other as they were published. The entire series of books, I feel, needs to be viewed as a whole.

My book presents the chronology for Ian's Bond stories as I view it:

First I worked with 'From Russia, With Love’ and ‘Goldfinger’:

STEP1:

FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE
CHAPTER 6 – Death Warrant (1954: per Fleming CHAPER 13 - 'B.E.A. Takes You There...', Friday, August 13 is a date in 1954, this whole chapter is based on it being Friday, August 13th)
In this chapter of Fleming's book:
"and now (see Highsmith file of December 1950) holds the secret number '007'" per Fleming

GOLDFINGER
CHAPTER FIVE – NIGHT DUTY (1957 per John)
In This chapter of this book:
Bond "had been in the double-O section for six years" per Fleming.

MY CONCLUSIONS FOR STEP1:

1. By May 1957, Bond had been in the double-O section for around six years and five full months. This fits closely with the Highsmith file of December 1950 statement in ‘From Russia, With Love’s CHAPTER 6 – Death Warrant and the statement in ‘Goldfinger’s CHAPTER FIVE – NIGHT DUTY.

2. ‘From Russia, With Love’ is set in 1954 because Friday, August 13 is in 1954. Also, in CHAPTER 11 – The Soft Life, Fleming referred to Thursday, August 12 which is also a date in 1954.

STEP2:

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
Fleming did use an explicit date in ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ that does place its events in 1953. Near the end of VII – ‘SHADY TREE’ in the Cape edition, Shady Tree told Bond: ‘Fourth race on Tuesday. The Perpetuity Stakes. Mile and a quarter for Three Year Olds. And put your money on just before the windows close.’ [In the American first edition of ‘Diamonds Are Forever’, the text is the ‘Third race on Tuesday.’] In XII – THE PERPETUITIES, Fleming stated in the narrative concerning this exact race that it was on: “‘Second Day. August 4,’ said the programme. ‘The Perpetuities Stakes.’” Tuesday, August 4 is a calendar date in 1953. In this chapter in the manuscript archived at the Lilly Library, Fleming also used the date Friday, July 31, along with the Tuesday, August 4 date within the description of the horseracing program. Friday, July 31 is also a calendar date in 1953.

If ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ had occurred in 1954, it would have chronologically overlapped events in ‘From Russia, With Love’.

FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE
CHAPTER 6 – Death Warrant (1954)
In this chapter of Fleming's book:
"The fact that this spy [Bond] was decorated with the C.M.G. in 1953…" per Fleming.

MOONRAKER
In CHAPTER IV – THE SHINER, Bond had been awarded the C.M.G. (abbreviation for Companion (of the Order of) St Michael and St George) which he did not have in prior Bond books. He would have received it as a 1953 New Year’s Honor.

Per my book page 41 (and referred to on page 4 as an entry to check as to why the C.M.G. is given), ‘The Order of St Michael and St George (C.M.G. was instituted on 27 April 1818 by the Prince Regent (later George IV), and it was intended to commemorate the placing of the Ionian Islands under British protection; originally it was intended for distinguished citizens of the islands, and also of Malta. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, due to the expansion of the British Empire, the Order was then extended to those who had given distinguished service in the Dominions and Colonies, as well as foreign affairs generally. Today, the Order is awarded to men and women who have held, or will hold, high office, or who render extraordinary or important non-military service in a foreign country.’

The key here is the portion that states that it (the C.M.G.) is ‘extended to those who had given distinguished service in the Dominions and Colonies’. Since Bond’s C.M.G. was a 1953 New Year’s Honor, Bond received it for his distinguished service in the British Empire’s Colony of Jamaica which included the results of his assignment recorded in ‘Live and Let Die’. This would place ‘Live and Let Die’ in 1952. Since ‘Live and Let Die’s events happened from January into mid-February, ‘Casino Royale’, which is prior to ‘Live and Let Die’, would be in 1951 as Fleming stated via Junius Du Pont in ‘Goldfinger’, CHAPTER TWO – LIVING IT UP.

MY CONCLUSIONS FOR STEP2:

‘DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER’ dates best to 1953. Friday, July 31, along with the Tuesday, August 4 date within the description of the horseracing program. Friday, July 31 (a date in the original manuscript) is also a calendar date in 1953.

‘MOONRAKER’ dates best to 1953. Since Bond’s C.M.G. was a 1953 New Year’s Honor, Bond received it (prior to his actual assignment in ‘MOONRAKER’) for his distinguished service in the British Empire’s Colony of Jamaica which included the results of his assignment recorded in ‘Live and Let Die’.

‘LIVE AND LET DIE’ dates best to 1952. Again because Bond’s C.M.G. was a 1953 New Year’s Honor, Bond received it (prior to his assignment in ‘MOONRAKER’) for his distinguished service in the British Empire’s Colony of Jamaica which included the results of his assignment recorded in ‘Live and Let Die’ (events happened from January into mid-February).

‘CASINO ROYALE’ dates best to 1951. Since ‘Live and Let Die’s events happened from January into mid-February, ‘Casino Royale’, which is prior to ‘Live and Let Die’, would be in 1951 (end of May to mid-July) as Fleming stated via Junius Du Pont in ‘Goldfinger’, CHAPTER TWO – LIVING IT UP.

Take care,
John Griswold

This post has been edited by ianfleming1: 6 June 2005 - 02:13

Dear John,

Well, I feel sorta bad that I ripped on your book and here you are reading and responding the same day. Listen, I know you put in A LOT of work. It does come through. Heck, it's evident in your post.

But as must be evident to you, the dates of the Bond novels, by your own admission, just don't follow through. The movie-makers have talked about Bond movies being set 'two minutes in the future' and it is, as you say, evident that Fleming was trying to keep his books as current with the publication date as possible. So the result is that the dates and historical markers don't match.

I think you made a key mistake by hanging so much of your book on this chronology. It becomes rough trying to plow through that and still find points of interest. I haven't read the Bond novels in years, yet they are still vivid enough that I was going, "hmmm, that's not right," as I would read your chronology.

Here's my beef: What gives the books more meaning? What informed readers more when the books came out? I'd say it was the verisimilitude (sp?), the sense that the stories could be happening right then. Fleming propelled the reader along at such a pace that one rarely noticed the inaccuracies, but one did note that these seemed to take place in a very real world of East-West tensions, of a crumbling British Empire, of a re-defining of race relations, of large post-War criminal syndicates. Those elements are far more important than a calendar date for any event.

I agree that the Bond novels are wonderful to look at as a whole, but when you make sense out of art or literature, you should step back and say "why?" "Why do these books move me?" "What did Fleming capture that works so well?"

So, while you spend four and a half pages on the chess match that Fleming describes in far fewer words (and find Macon Shibut to confirm that the match was based on a real match from 1955), what you fail to do is actually give context to the chess battles of the Cold War. Shibut mentions it, but you apparently never looked up the match Shibut mentions or the coverage that Shibut speculates would have been afforded the game. Again, we get all the details, more than anyone wants. But we don't get the real context. Why did Fleming choose for Kronsteen to be a chess champion? Why did we in the West want to villify the Soviet Grand Masters? These are the kind of questions an annotated version of the novels should answer.

You write about JFK, but fail to mention why Fleming brought up his name: JFK was a powerful and influential fan, and Fleming got to meet him.

You mention The Traveller's Tree, but have you read the book? Did you know Fleming is mentioned in it by name?

These things cry out for annotations, but instead we get definitions of phrases like, "piece of cake".

Just look at your previous response and see how much energy you've given to the chronology question, but in doing so you've just created knots for yourself that neither you, me or Ian Fleming could untie. It just weights the book too heavily into the realm of speculations when there is no one right answer. Imagine Fleming's answer if he were still alive and you asked him about this chronology. What would he say? Would he champion this as a useful companion to his work, or would he quietly take you aside and say he hoped those warm-blooded hetrosexuals he was writing for would not set their datebooks by his novels?

Also, if you ever tackle something like this in the future, spare the reader. When you delve into whether Fleming got his facts right, just tell us the answer. If you must document pages of methodology, just put it in a footnote. It is the information readers want. Sgt. Friday: "Just the facts, ma'am."

Anyway, take it all as it comes. I have obviously enjoyed Bond novels over the years. I wish the book had been more facts and less dogmatic speculation. Maybe others will find it useful. I know it's not fun to read someone dumping on years of work. But why lie? It was a frustrating book to go through.

I hope others can read this and try to parse the good from the bad, and thus make it a less frustrating read for themselves.

Keep dancing,
Bonita

Strong words, Bonita, but I apreciate the honesty. And the length of your posts reflects that you feel really passionate on this subject and don't just do it for the sake of contradiction.

Regarding the timelines, I always tend to take those with a grain of salt, knowing that, as you write correctly, Fleming surely didn't want his readers to set their datebooks by his novels. I know that something like this can never be more than an attempt, and each of those attempts is subject to speculation and discussion. There surely is a lot of room for different opinions, and I'm fine with that. If all questions could be answered and every mystery solved, this board would become prety useless after a while.

Have to admit that I didn't read the book yet (I hope to get it in the "diplomatic bag" by next week), but on this here forums, I read testimonials by people I know, who know both their literal and cinematic Bond very well (like, you seem to do as well) and for who's opinion I do care a lot, so I guess the book can't be all that bad. Maybe it was not quite what you expected, and it may as well contradict to your own opinion (and researches?), but I'm sure it otherwise contains are lot of good and valuable information for us ordinary Bond fans out there, even if it doesn't live up to your high standards.


Oh, and of course, fine review, Charles.

Is there any evidence that Ian Fleming regarded his novels as being set in very specific timelines? Dozens of novels are set in an amalgamation of 1975 and 1976, say, or somewhere indistinct but probably mid-60s. I happen to be writing a thriller in which I am naming the dates it's set in, and am trying to tie down current events, sunrises and sunsets and the rest. But plenty of writers don't, and if a novelist has a scene set on a Friday 13 in August, that doesn't necessarily mean the book is set in a year in which that happened, and the rest of it will correlate. After all, the book is fiction, and the central events shown in it never happened, so one can hardly accuse a novelist of inaccuracy on chronology if it's not a stated aim.

I just read a book set in the 70s and was vaguely trying to figure out what year it was as I read. There were references to characters going to a new restaurant called McDonalds, music playing in the background, and so on. At the end of the book was a note from the author saying that, as the book was a fantasy, not a memoir, he'd taken liberties with the timeline, so that not all the album releases would be accurate and so on. I think this is kind of a given, usually, but there were a lot of incidental details. Without the note, I might have tried to Google when McDonalds first opened in the town in which the book was set, when Kate Bush released that album, etc, for my own interest. But if I got to the second fact and it wasn't from the same year as the first, I would quickly conclude that the novel wasn't set in a strict chronology, but was set 'sometime in the 70s'. It would be a wild goose chase trying to figure out on which day every scene happened, and I'd only do that if I was very interested in it *and thought it was the author's intention to place the book in a very precise chronology*. Is there any evidence Fleming did, and if so, why do you think you had such problems nailing it down? Surely the inconsistencies would suggest that he didn't intend the books to be set that rigidly, in which case why bother trying to place them into a time frame the author didn't consider himself?