I have just been reading a long complaint, in the monthly The Twentieth Century, about the unsatisfactory tone of Ian Fleming's novels. The author of this complaint, Bernard Bergonzi [see excerpt above], having remarked that these novels are similar to John Buchan's in subject (spies and pursuits), then goes on to say that, whereas Buchan's books are fundamentally decent and do depend on an ethic of sorts, Commander Fleming's tales are without any ethical frame of reference and have an 'affective superstructure' of a perverted and anti-social nature….
Now this is a quiet and well-argued article, but it does appear to reach a most naive conclusion. I mention it here because this type of complaint, about Commander Fleming and others, is increasingly in evidence and has always seemed to me to be entirely beside the point. Since when has it been remarkable in a work of entertainment that it should lack a specific 'ethical frame of reference'? I don't suggest that any of Fleming's books, least of all the latest one, Dr. No, should be left around in the nursery any more than [John Vanbrugh's] The Relapse or [Ovid's] Ars Amatoria. What I do suggest is that Commander Fleming, by reason of his cool and analytical intelligence, his informed use of technical facts, his plausibility, sense of pace, brilliant descriptive powers and superb imagination, provides sheer entertainment such as I, who must read many novels, am seldom lucky enough to find. It may well be, as Mr. Bergonzi suggests, that Fleming's conscious reaction to the dowdiness of the Welfare State has induced him to create fictitious pleasure-domes so splendiferous as to be merely vulgar: the menus in Dr. No are a joy to read for all that. It may be that James Bond, hero of Dr. No and all Fleming's novels, is indeed the super-colossal father-figure of every juvenile delinquent that ever there was: he certainly 'sends' me. I venture to suppose that, whether you approve of him or not, whether you are a banker, a lawyer, a soldier or a turf accountant, he will 'send' you too.
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Fleming, Ian (Lancaster) 1908–1964: Critical Essay by Simon Raven Access Pass.
