theladyrose (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theladyrose) wrote2008-08-15 12:42 am
theladyrose) wrote2008-08-15 12:42 am
and you expect me to believe that scarlett papava is a semi-russian name?
I don't think I could ever beat my friend's review of Sebastian Faulks' new 007 novel, Devil May Care: "Bond in DMC is more passive than a Gaydar bottom."
I wanted to like this book. I really, really did. But it's simply a travesty to have "Sebastian Faulks as Ian Fleming" printed on the cover. Just because a book has the James Bond formula down pat (it's a bad ripoff of Moonraker) doesn't mean that it's a Bond book; Faulks practically takes a connect the dots approach. The villain is marginally more interesting than James Bond. It's supposedly set in the 60's, but it sounds like the modern era with all of the drugs and the technology. And all of the references to Bond's past missions (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, The Man With The Golden Gun) come across as awkwardly inserted, rather than as a continuation of the 007 literary timeline. And don't even get me started on Scarlett and the awkward attempts at political correctness that still leave me feeling insulted as a reader and disappointed. The attempted sex scene made me laugh harder than anything else that I've read in print for some time - and I don't think I was supposed to be laughing. Fleming was a prejudiced bastard at times, but at least you felt connected with the world, however flawed, that he was describing. He has these incredibly jaded observations and idiosyncratic characters that I love, whereas I couldn't find anyone in DMC remotely compelling.
I don't deny that Fleming was classist, racist and sexist, but what makes the Bond novels so compelling is that James Bond still makes a fascinating observer and compelling agent provocateur nevertheless.
I am disappointed that I wasted $6 in getting a used copy at the library.
I wanted to like this book. I really, really did. But it's simply a travesty to have "Sebastian Faulks as Ian Fleming" printed on the cover. Just because a book has the James Bond formula down pat (it's a bad ripoff of Moonraker) doesn't mean that it's a Bond book; Faulks practically takes a connect the dots approach. The villain is marginally more interesting than James Bond. It's supposedly set in the 60's, but it sounds like the modern era with all of the drugs and the technology. And all of the references to Bond's past missions (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice, The Man With The Golden Gun) come across as awkwardly inserted, rather than as a continuation of the 007 literary timeline. And don't even get me started on Scarlett and the awkward attempts at political correctness that still leave me feeling insulted as a reader and disappointed. The attempted sex scene made me laugh harder than anything else that I've read in print for some time - and I don't think I was supposed to be laughing. Fleming was a prejudiced bastard at times, but at least you felt connected with the world, however flawed, that he was describing. He has these incredibly jaded observations and idiosyncratic characters that I love, whereas I couldn't find anyone in DMC remotely compelling.
I don't deny that Fleming was classist, racist and sexist, but what makes the Bond novels so compelling is that James Bond still makes a fascinating observer and compelling agent provocateur nevertheless.
I am disappointed that I wasted $6 in getting a used copy at the library.
papava?
yikes.
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Just to make you giggle.
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Re: papava?
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I was also confused by situations that didn't seem to fit in 1967/8. And as someone with special interest in the Nordic/Baltic region, I was appalled that early in the novel he depicts Estonia as an independent country, when it was still very much Soviet at that time. At least he gets his St. Petersburg/Finland geography right.
One scene that stuck out was Chagrin's last. It reads as if Faulksimeanfleming wrote it in two minutes on the back of an envelope to meet a deadline. Sloppy and rushed, to say the least...
Ah well, just a few months until the next film!
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Perhaps I've been jaded by the movies, but the villains' deaths were rather lackluster. What happened to Gorner reminded me a bit of Dr. No falling into the radioactive vat - kind of anticlimatic there.
I can't wait to see Quantum of Solace!
Re: papava?
papaver somniferum, good golly, what very weak punny names. semi-russian? they should have gone all the way with the racism and made them asian lassies.
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