William Boyd tinkers with typecast Bond in new novel "Solo"

Reuters ^ | Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:34pm EDT

[Perdogg]

The women, fast cars and a glamorous London hotel set the scene for the launch of a new James Bond novel on Wednesday that sees 007 set out on a renegade mission in the pursuit of justice.

[Perdogg]

ping

[BenLurkin]

"There is no doubt if you read, particularly the earlier novels of Fleming, they are very reflective of the kind of unthinking attitudes of a man of his class and era and education would have,"

Fleming, a military intelligence officer during World War Two.

Does not compute. Boyd says "unthinking" but I think he means unbrainwashed.

[BenLurkin]

Makes me wonder if Boyd has ever even heard of Sydney Reilly.

[Vaquero]

I read Bond by Fleming

I read Holmes by Conan Doyle

I read Godfather by Mario Puzo.

anything else is bogus.

[mrsmith]

“Solo” is “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”, not even a Bond character!

Just how stupid is this wuss?

[JoeDetweiler]

This just got me to thinking....I can’t think of any original Bond novel where “fast cars” played a role. I don’t think Fleming was really “into” cars much. Anyone want to set me straight? It has been a while, I admit :-)

[JoeDetweiler]

I just noticed the irony of my previous post, given that Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.....

[yarddog]

I totally agree. When i was in high school and college I read every one of the Bond novels. It has been so long ago that I don’t remember much.

Not only are the novels not the same, the movies also got worse and worse, the more they deviated from the novels.

I recently saw a video of a very old interview of Ian Fleming. It was in B&W. The interviewer asks Fleming why there are no 4 letter words in his novels and Ian sort of jokes that it is the influence of his straight laced Scottish ancestors, then he takes a more serious tone and simply says he never liked to see curse words in print.

Sort of surprising considering how much sexual nuance and plays on words he uses.

[isthisnickcool]

Open channel D, overseas relay.

[InterceptPoint]

William Boyd????

;)

[a fool in paradise]

It's revealed his this guy's great great great great grandad:

[trisham]

Daniel Day Lewis as Bond? Never! Where is my fainting couch?

[Boogieman]

In order to play Bond, DDL would have to spend the next 3 years traveling to exotic locations and assassinating people, in order to get in character. I don’t think it’s going to happen.

[a fool in paradise]

The third officially approved Bond continuation novel - in which Boyd attempts to reconcile the casual racism and misogyny of the original character for a present-day audience - sees Bond ignore spymaster M's orders as he travels from a gritty African civil war in 1969 to Washington at the height of U.S. hegemony.

Buh bye Mr. "Bond".

[trisham]

They might as well bring back Roger Moore.

[a fool in paradise]

I read Bond by Fleming... anything else is bogus.

If you are going to read bogus Bond, might as well pick up this:

[x]

Well, that would make for a change, at least.

The next novel will be written by Sean Connery's body hair. Couldn't be worse than the other ghosts.

[trisham]

Is he now Sir Roger Moore?

[x]

Yes, like Sir Sean Connery (which is a little strange for a Scots nationalist).

Dalton and Brosnan do have lesser honors from the Queen, but as an Irish citizen, Brosnan's not eligble for the full knighthood (like he deserves one).

Daniel Craig got his OBE (Order of Bacon Excellence) from the British Bacon Board for having british bacon delivered to the Bond set in Italy.

And nothing for Lazenby (hardly seems fair).