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...