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James Bond And Religion

An examination by 'SILHOUETTE MAN'

An interesting read (as always Silhouette Man).

Definitely another thorough look from SILHOUETTE MAN.

Great stuff.

Remember this brief exchange from FYEO?

Bond: Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
Q (in disguise): That's putting it mildly, 007.

That tells us a lot in terms of Bond's attitude towards religion and the related concepts of sin and salvation, does it not?

Despite his Christian background, I believe Bond is more of an agnostic. Would this be a fair statement?

Scaramanga'74 - Yes, it does but this post of mine from February 2006 was dealing primarily with the literary Bond and that was why it was posted originally in the General Literature Discussion. I was not considering the role of religion in the Bond films, of which there are probably even fewer references.

I intend to post an update on 'Bond and religion' at some point if I get the time as I have noticed a fair number of things in the novels and short stories since concerning religion, morality and ethics that I would like to incorporate for the sake of completeness.

As regards him being an agnostic, I'm not so sure there is any evidence for that in the Fleming novels and short stories at least. John Gardner was interestingly an agnostic for many years after relinquishing his position as an Anglican priest. I think Bond was brought up in the reformed faith and the morality and ethics displayed in some of the novels and the stories point to this, though perhaps it could be said that they are few and far between.

Thank you for all of the positive comments so far. Glad you enjoyed it!

This post has been edited by SILHOUETTE MAN: 26 February 2008 - 14:35

Another great article, very interesting!





One thing that immediately came to my mind was from OHMSS; it's from chapter 11 'Death For Breakfast'; two girls discussing the death of one of Blofeld's guards on the bob-run and Bond overhearing the conversation:

The sententious girl was being sententious again.
'Well, all I can say is it must have been some kind of punishment for what he tried to do to Sarah. You always get paid off for doing wrong.'

'Don't be ridiculous. God would never punish you as severely as that.'
The conversation followed this new hare off into a maze of infantile morality and Scriptures.

Bond lit a cigarette and sat back, gazing thoughtfully at the sky. No, the girl was right. God wouldn't mete out such a punishment. But Blofeld would...

This post has been edited by Trident: 26 February 2008 - 18:33

I've just seen that this article was referenced but still rather shamelessly used as the basis for this short piece in The Times:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2008/...james-bond.html

Yes, I noticed this myself by accident about two months ago, spynovelfan. Shameless as you say, but I'm still rather pleased it got a little recognition further afield. I'm probably going to add to this article at some stage, if I ever get the time!

You should be pleased! You were in The Times - Bond's newspaper.

I've been meaning to mention this the next time this topic came up. I'd be interested in hearing what the group thinks. In the manuscript of FRWL at the Lilly Library, there's a different opening to Chapter 27, Ten Pints of Blood:

So after all he was still alive!
Bond lay inert as a drowned man and briefly thanked his God.
He explored his sensations. ***

Paragraph three then carries on as in the published text.

Having written this section, Fleming crossed it out, including the one-line second paragraph, with its reference to God, and re-wrote it. It may have been that Fleming regarded the opening sentence as a poor way of announcing Bond's survival and describing the ploy that made it possible. But, for whatever reason, when the book was published the reference to Bond's religion was gone.

So what do we make of this? Did Fleming think he'd gone too far in giving Bond a religious faith? Had he strayed too far into making Bond a three-dimensional character? Or, perhaps, is there a side to James Bond that Fleming knew was there that's been concealed from us readers for fifty years?

Very interesting!

If I may add something: I'm pretty sure I spotted a reference to religion when I read Colonel Sun recently. It was something like Bond wishing he had a god to thank. Unfortunately I can't find it back right now, but I'll try better.

Interesting, Major T! But I think your first guess is more likely the right answer: he realised he had to explain as soon as possible precisely how Bond surivived or risk irritating readers unduly. There's also the fact that he'd already used the observation of someone looking like a drowned man at the very beginning of this novel: while it's quite a nice mirror image, I think if he had published it as this it would not have come across as that for most readers, but rather given them an impression of repetition and lack of imagination. Finally, Fleming may have reflected that it seemed out of character for Bond to thank 'his God' in this way. Despite SILHOUETTE MAN's excellent work, I think there are remarkably few references to Bond having any religious beliefs in the novels.

At any rate, the published version is much better.