CommanderBond.net

Back on the CBn main page from SILHOUETTE MAN...

The Literary James Bond In The 1970s

An examination by 'SILHOUETTE MAN'

An awfully tempting proposition from the �Silhouette Man�. Would be pretty exhilarating seeing 007 going against the likes of the IRA, SLA and the Baader-Meinhof gang. Apart from international terrorism and political scandals (e.g. Watergate), the 70s too have witnessed its share of revolutions (Cambodia, Iran, Nicaragua, Afghanistan) whose impact is still reverberating today.

Fancy 007 playing a part in determining the outcome of these world events! Why not place Bond in a historical fiction set in the turbulent 70s? That would be quite a treat for the fans of the literary Mr. Bond. Anyone out there to rise up to this challenge?

Great piece of work, as always!

The 70's is really a decade that holds more than just a few interesting themes for Bond to tackle with, as was already mentioned. To name but a few:

-Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) founded in 1970 in Milan; bombings, bankrobbery, attempted and successful killings and abductions in the years to follow, the most famous one the still mysterious and never entirely solved case of Aldo Moro

-Black September attack on the Israeli athletes of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich; several airplane hijackings, letter bomb attacks, assaults on civilians and officials

-Yom Kippur war of 1973 and the ensuing first oil crisis of '73

-Amin's and Bokassa's respective regim�s of terror in Uganda and Central Africa as well as several other conficts on this continent, not the least of which the Apartheid regim� of South Africa

-War between India and Pakistan regarding Bangladesh in 1971

-War and Khmer Rouge terror in Cambodia

-Provo-IRA bombings and killings throughout the decade causing deaths and maimings in the hundreds

-Baader-Meinhoff (later RAF - Red Army Faction) terror in Germany and Western Europe; 'German Autumn' of 1977 seeing the killing of politicians, industial leaders, high ranking civil servants and numerous police officers in 1977;

and so on. The political background for potential 00-missions in the 70's is nearly unlimited. Other themes would be the boom of organized crime and drug trafficking during those years. Properly set up, there are more missions than a single 00-agent could ever handle.

Time enough and world for lots of new period 007-adventures.

This post has been edited by Trident: 25 March 2008 - 16:01

Maybe that's where Faulks' book should've been set, in the '70s.

It appears that at least one James Bond fan has written a piece of Bond �fan fiction� set during the decade of the 1970s. As a coda to the second half of his article on the literary Bond, �The Spy Who Seduced The World,� Gary M. Dobbs in �the magazine of cult fiction,' Thriller UK wrote:

�In 2004, I wrote a Bond novel, A Whisper of Love, A Whisper of Hate. Set in THE EARLY 1970�s and following on directly from where Colonel Sun left off. However I have found it impossible to get the mss even considered for publication since the copyright owners are refusing to look at anything for the foreseeable future. Ahh well, Never say never and maybe one day this hack�ll get the chance to add to Mr Fleming�s wonderful world. Until then have no doubt, James Bond will return��
(Gary M. Dobbs, �The Spy Who Seduced The World (part II),� Thriller UK, No. 22, April 2005, p. 31.)

I think you are correct that the politically and culturally turbulent decade of the 1970s would make for an interesting setting for a future Bond scribe to work in. It is the only decade since his creation where the literary Bond did not truly feature, and where the cinematic Bond was in many ways at his most decadent, and as such it remains an untapped resource. It might also be a way of grounding the literary Bond in reality again and not having him go on ad infinitum. This is what Sebastian Faulks has elected to do with Devil May Care, by setting it in, or about the year 1967.

This post has been edited by SILHOUETTE MAN: 10 April 2008 - 12:33

This would in effect acknowledge that Bond really does age, however literary that ageing might be. Just think of Phillip Marlow who ages a mere 9 years in an actual time of 15 years. And there would have to be changes in Bond's world that go beyond the Gardner ones.

This post has been edited by Trident: 10 April 2008 - 14:56

Literary Bond did briefly check in during the 70's, through Christopher Wood's novelizations of TSWLM and MR. These works were worlds apart from their movie counterparts, IMO, and despite the far-flung subject matter they had enough "grit" to keep my interest in place. The 007 character was Fleming's Bond in greater measure than Gardner and Benson, albeit with some adaptation to a 70's setting to produce an interesting approximation of Fleming's voice, which was exactly what Wood set out to do. In my mind's eye, I pictured the slightly older Hoagy Carmichael-like Bond with black hair slightly longer in the back and sides, dressed in gabardine, slightly flaired slacks and a black knitted tie perhaps slightly wider in keeping with the times. Compared to the works of Len Deighton, John LeCarre, Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsythe (and sheepishly, Sidney Sheldon!) from that decade, TSWLM and MR likewise reflected the feel of the decade, though I don't remember if they made references to current political events of the time as suggested in an earlier post.