Bond, James Bond: A Man For All Times

So this is my final rough draft of my English Literature paper. I hope you enjoy it! And to the other students on the blogs, if you read my paper and comment I will read yours and comment. Thanks!

James Bond is needed now more than ever

So this is my early rough draft for my English paper I hope you enjoy and I welcome any feedback. Of course it is incomplete in its current state so bear that in mind.

Today we live in a world that has unique definitions of gender roles in society. Recently there has been much discussion on topics such as gay marriage, the breakup of the family system, and the overall definition of what a man is in the 21^st century. Many of these issues can be traced back to the social movements and changes that happened during the 1960’s and onward. Because of the women’s rights movement many women today have equal opportunities in the workplace and have surpassed men in graduating college. These changes have brought a lot of benefits to our society because now the female voice has a say in many of the decisions that go on at home, at the workplace, and in the world. While women have risen to new prominence in their roles today, men have diminished in theirs. Men today are more self-centered, less masculine, and have lost their sense of responsibility. Men of our grandparent’s generation were dependable, took action, and they defined what it is to be masculine. Popular characters of their generation like James Bond personified this idea of the alpha male and masculine traits. He is the man that men want to be, and the man that women want to be with. While James Bond is a flawed and overtly sexist character, he does represent a kind of masculinity that men in our society desperately need right now.

Exploring the Genre

While researching for my paper on James Bond I decided to check out the Harold B. Lee Library for resources. One of the books I was looking for was Harmon and Holman's A Handbook to Literature which was recommended by my professor as a good general reference book for our papers. After looking around for a few minutes I was able to find the newest edition of the book. I could see why my professor recommended the book as it has countless helpful definitions of genre and terms in the world of fiction. One that I found particularly helpful was this passage on Escape Literature: "Writing whose clear intention is to amuse and beguile by offering readers a strong world, exciting adventures, or puzzling mysteries. It aims at no higher purpose than amusement. Adventure stories, detective stories, tales of fantasy, and many humorous stories are frankly escape literature, and they exist for no other purpose than to translate readers for a time from the care ridden actual world to an entrancing world of the imagination.

Patterns Followed, Patterns Compared

I am starting on my fourth Bond novel now and I have seen the movies let say around a hundred times. I think it is safe to say that I would be able to notice some sort of pattern by now. Recognizing this pattern will help me see the important points of the Bond texts and will help me develop a better paper for my literary analysis class. In the Bond films the pattern is pretty simple. In all of the films with the exception of the first film there is a pre-title sequence where either a quick action sequence is shown or something that teases the plot of the film (included here just for your enjoyment is the pre-title sequence from Goldfinger arguably the best of the Bond movies):

The opening chapters of the novels however are usually quite different. In traditional novel style the Bond books open up with a lot of exposition explaining characters and building a good background for the plot.

A Secretary in Bond's World

In the first chapter of Moonraker, entitled Secret Paper Work, we get a glimpse into the life of James Bond. His day to day affairs are often mundane. In fact the author writes "It was only two or three times a year that an assignment came along requiring his particular abilities. For the rest of the year he had the duties of an easy-going civil servant."

Realism vs. Fantasy

After buying the remaining Bond books needed to complete my collection I decided to go back and read the ones that I had missed and catch up to From Russia With Love. The first one I started with was Moonraker, the third book in the series. I had heard that this book was quite different from the film, but I didn't know it was going to be this different. It is almost an entirely different story. Sure some of the main characters have the same names, but everything else has changed. The settings and the plot are completely different. The plot of the novel is the investigation of a missile based national defense system. It is more realistic in tone. We learn about Bond's day to day life and what he does for hobbies. It is a hard-nosed spy thriller far more practical than its movie counterpart. The movie is all about space shuttles and guess what Bond actually gets to go into to space and shoot laser guns. Still even though the movie is fake beyond belief it is hard to choose which one I like best. It might help to put both into some historical context.

I'm Hooked

From Russia With Love is the first Bond novel I have read since my high school days and honestly I could not stop reading it. Every chapter had literary hooks at the end which made it so I couldn't put the book down. If I did I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen next. There was a time today where I just sat down at a bench on campus and read till the end of the book, it was that good. And I know I've seen the movies a billion times, but the books stray enough from the plot to keep me interested. Bond gets hurt in these books. He isn't the superhero shown in films. He bleeds, he gets shot, he is nearly beaten to death. You actually fear for his life. Almost every chapter in this book seemed to raise my fears about what would happen to Bond. Especially these two sentences at the end of the chapter entitled "The Killing Bottle": "The bullet, homing on Bond's heart, flashed over its two quiet yards. Bond pitched forward on to the floor and lay sprawled under the funeral violet light." Even the end of the book has a HUGE hook. Big enough that I am now buying the next Bond book to find out how Bond will get out the situation he is in. Reading this book has truly helped me to understand how a great author can use plot and language to produce something very entertaining to read. Five out of five stars James.

"His gun spoke twice from the hip".

I have mentioned before how much I love Ian Fleming's use of language to describe settings and characters in a novel. But this last chapter I read in From Russia With Love really helped me to see the skill he had in building tension. The chapter started with James Bond being invited to dinner with a gypsy tribe. The scene intensified when it was announced that two gypsy girls were to fight it out to the death over a man. As if the declaration of their fight wasn't terrifying enough, the author was able to provide us with a description of the two fighters that seemed almost like they were being introduced into a boxing ring. The actual fight was violent and harsh, no gory detail was spared. The fight was building to a climax when an explosion rang out. The gypsy tribe was being attacked by a rival gang of Bulgars. During the skirmish Bond is almost killed. Then the fight ends with the Bulgars retreating from the gypsy camp. Things slow down and Bond is left to reflect on what has just happened. Exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement all tightly packed in one chapter.

"A Labour of Love"

"It was her disgust and her contempt for a person who could live in the middle of such a smell that helped her look down into the yellowish eyes that stared at her through the square glass panes. Nothing could be read in them. They were receiving eyes, not giving eyes. They slowly moved all over her, like camera lenses, taking her in."

Tatiana and Colonel Klebb as depicted in the film version of From Russia With Love

Those eyes belonged to Colonel Klebb, one of the top ranking officials for SMERSH; which is a Russian abbreviation for 'Death to Spies'. Earlier in the book Colonel Klebb's character was described as cold and calculating. She put fear into the hearts of those she interrogated, even men. She used those eyes to observe the little body movements given by her subjects and then used that information to construct a verbal assault designed to extract information. She was good at what she did and the blonde girl pictured above, known as Tatiana, was in the gaze of those eyes. I loved how the author used imagery and comparisons to describe the eyes of Colonel Klebb. The intensity of their encounter was heightened because of this effect. Noticing descriptions like this in the fiction we read can help us imagine the characters and world that that they live in. That gives us much more enjoyment as readers because we are taken into the perspectives of those involved in the story and we feel a little bit of what they are feeling. A good author puts vivid descriptions like these throughout his/her books so that we as readers don't just hear a good story, but we go through an experience.

"The Slaughterer"

Now I remember why I loved reading the Bond books along with the movies. After my post last week I decided to go and buy one of the Bond books I hadn't read yet. I bought From Russia with Love which is considered by many to not only be the best book in the series, but the best movie as well. It has a fairly simple plot in comparison to other Bond escapades with the Soviet lektor decoder machine acting as the macguffin for the story. Bond goes on a wild goose chase for this device and runs into great trouble along the way. I have been re watching the Bond movies with my roommate as he hasn't seen many of them before and we watched From Russia Love partly because I wanted to compare the novel and the movie directly. I love the movie, particularly the scene above where Bond faces Red Grant an assassin that could be Bond's match in physicality and fighting skill.In the movie Grant is simply described as a psychotic homicidal killer.
But in the book we learn so much more

"The Artist Is The Creator of Beautiful Things"

As I looked through what seemed like an endless amount of fiction books at Barnes and Noble last Thursday I was overwhelmed with all the choices I had. I really wanted to pick a book that was popular, a classic even, and that had a good price because I am a college student and I need money for food. I must have spent a little over an hour paging through books and picking them up and putting them back. A little frustrated I started to make my way over to other sections of the bookstore. I glanced over to where the calenders were at and I saw the bargain book section. Looking through the books I saw The Picture of Dorian Gray staring back at me. At first I put it aside, deciding to look at other books. But I kept remembering how much the cover of The Picture of Dorian Grey struck me. The picture was so interesting. I wondered what this picture meant for the story. Who was Dorian Grey? At the bottom right corner the "only $6.98" sticker kept tempting me. I looked back at the other books, Dorian Grey was among the cheapest. After checking through the pile again for the fifth or sixth time I decided to go with Dorian Grey. It was one of those times where I couldn't resist buying. I judged the book by its cover. And the little sticker at the bottom. Good job Barnes and Noble.