Great Fleming Quotes

Perilagu Khan wrote:

"Bond smiled at Doctor No. He said, 'I know about your contact in King's House, Miss Taro. She is your agent. I have recorded the fact and it will be divulged in certain circumstances'--Doctor No's expression showed no interest--'as will other facts. But, if we are to have a talk, let us have it without any more stage effects. You are an interesting man. But it is not necessary to make yourself more interesting than you are. You have suffered the misfortune of losing your hands. You wear mechanical hands. Many men wounded in the war wear them. You wear contact lenses instead of spectacles. You use a walkie-talkie instead of a bell to summon your servant. No doubt you have other tricks. But, Doctor No, you are still a man who sleeps and eats and defecates like the rest of us. So no more conjuring tricks, please. I am not one of your guano diggers and I am not impressed by them."

It is interesting that filmic Bond is never this glib and articulate. Not by a long shot. In fact, it seems that others--most notably M and Alec in GE and Vesper in CR--tend to get the better of him verbally. Just once I would like to see a film do justice to the intelligence and wit with with which Fleming imbued his creation.

trevanian wrote:

I really like the MOONRAKER bit that starts by talking about miasma (thumbsucking) and concludes with " ... you great hairy-faced brute."

I actually filmed myself doing that whole speech back when I was 19 or 20. Man do I wish I still had that roll of film (disappeared along  with every frame of a nearly-complete THE PRISONER parody film I made the year before. Had a girlfriend for awhile who was supposed to be on anti-psychotic meds but wasn't taking them the whole time we were together -- found that out from her sister a month after I up and left her -- and sometimes she really went crazy. Some of my films fell prey to her, along with every paper draft and floppy drive version of my first feature-length spec script. Still pisses me off.)

MR may well be Fleming's best. It seems there are bits that sparkle on just about every page.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

trevanian wrote:

I really like the MOONRAKER bit that starts by talking about miasma (thumbsucking) and concludes with " ... you great hairy-faced brute."

I actually filmed myself doing that whole speech back when I was 19 or 20. Man do I wish I still had that roll of film (disappeared along  with every frame of a nearly-complete THE PRISONER parody film I made the year before. Had a girlfriend for awhile who was supposed to be on anti-psychotic meds but wasn't taking them the whole time we were together -- found that out from her sister a month after I up and left her -- and sometimes she really went crazy. Some of my films fell prey to her, along with every paper draft and floppy drive version of my first feature-length spec script. Still pisses me off.)

MR may well be Fleming's best. It seems there are bits that sparkle on just about every page.

Right, and I love all the little insights into Bonds workplace in that book as well.

What an extraordinary difference there was between a body full of person and a body that was empty! Now there is someone, now there is no more. This had been a Mexican with a name and an address, an employment card and perhaps a driving license. Then something had gone out of him, out of the envelope of flesh and cheap clothes, and had left him an empty paper bag waiting for the dust cart. And the difference, the thing that had gone out of the stinking Mexican bandit, was greater than all Mexico.

There is some philosophy in this. Fleming seems to be something of a Cartesian dualist.

At any rate, this passage is echoed in SP when Brofeld recounts Hinx's blinding of his rival to become a SPECTRE assassin. He says something along the lines of, "When he was deprived of his sight, it was as if he was no longer there. Extraordinary!"

You may be right about the inspiration.One of the best openings of any Bond book, and the reason I always figured the GF pts is set in Mexico even though it is never stated where it is.

Bond broke into his warehouse one night and left a thermite bomb. He then went and sat in a cafe a mile away and watched the flames leap above the horizon of rooftops and listened to the silver cascade of the fire-brigade bells.

This is the basis of the famous eyelid-fluttering scene in GF's PTS.

And to think, all the Mexican chap in the GF pre-credits gets is 'Shocking ... positively shocking'. Hehehe.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

And to think, all the Mexican chap in the GF pre-credits gets is 'Shocking ... positively shocking'. Hehehe.  

Yes, those reflections in a double bourbon were not reflected until CR, I think.

"Inside, Bond's torch shone everywhere into red eyes that glowed like rubies in the darkness, and there was a soft movement and scuttling. He sprayed the light up and down the fuselage. Everywhere there were octopuses, small ones, but perhaps a hundred of them, weaving on the tips of their tentacles, sliding softly away into protecting shadows, changing their camaflage nervously from brown to a pale phosphoresence that gleamed palely in the patches of darkness. The whole fuselage seemed to be crawling with them, evilly, horribly, and as Bond shone his torch on the roof the sight was even worse. There, bumping softly in the slight current, hung the corpse of a crew member. In decomposition, it had risen up from the floor, and octopuses, hanging from it like bats, now let go their hold and shot, jet-propelled, to and fro inside the plane--dreadful, glinting, red-eyed comets that slapped themselves into dark corners and stealthily squeezed themselves into cracks and under seats."

Whew. What a description.

Fleming is ace at underwater descriptions. I think his diving hobby contributed to that.

Yes. The verisimiltude of his descriptions of marine life and its behavior can only have come from personal experience.