Literary References in Ian Fleming’s James Bond Novels

For most, especially those familiar with him from his screen appearances, James Bond is a man of action – someone who acts rather than thinks. Indeed, Terence Young, who directed three of the first four Bond films once remarked “I have never seen Bond read or go to the theatre, or to a concert. I believe he is mentally weak.”. Similarly, Ian Fleming’s novels, which provided the original source material for the films, have been described by Nicholas Lezard in his introduction to The Blofeld Trilogy as “aggressively anti-literary”. I think this is overstating the case and a close reading of Fleming’s work reveals that Bond is depicted reading a surprising number of times, providing us with further insight into his character. 

Ironically the most iconic fictional secret agent of the twentieth century is regularly shown reading thrillers, with the first reference to this genre appearing in From Russia with Love where we see him reading “The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler” on his flight out to Istanbul. Later on the Orient Express, during his encounter with the Soviet assassin Donovan Grant Bond is still trying to read “his Ambler”. However, he is distracted by Grant’s presence such that “After a few pages he found that his concentration was going.”. Much of the action of The Mask of Dimitrios takes place in Istanbul and, like Bond, Fleming read Ambler’s fifth novel (first published in 1939) on a flight out to the Turkish capital where he attended an international police conference.

 

At the conclusion of Goldfinger, Bond buys “the latest Raymond Chandler” in the bookshop at Idlewild airport whilst waiting for his flight back to England. Goldfinger was published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 23 March 1959, which coincidentally was just three days before Chandler’s death. Although it is impossible to be certain, as Fleming would have written his manuscript the previous year he may have been referring to the Chandler’s 1958 Philip Marlowe novel Playback. What is more certain though is that Fleming was a friend of Chandler’s during the latter years of his life and owed at least some of Bond’s popularity in America to an endorsement that Chandler wrote for Live and Let Die in which he stated that ”Ian Fleming is probably the most forceful and driving writer of what I suppose must still be called thrillers in England”. The more prosaic reference in Goldfinger is simply Fleming returning the compliment.  

In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond endorses the work of another American thriller writer. He is visiting M’s home – the only time when Fleming allows us  a glimpse into his boss’s domestic life - to discuss what can be done about Blofeld when M asks “What the devil’s the name of that fat American detective who’s always fiddling about with orchids, those obscene hybrids from Venezuela and so forth? Then he comes sweating out of his orchid house, eats a gigantic meal of some foreign muck and solves the murder. What’s he called.”. Bond is evidently a fan of these novels since he responds “Nero Wolfe, sir. They’re written by a chap called Rex Stout. I like them.”. Rex Stout created the character of Nero Wolfe in 1934 and he was to feature in a total of 33 novels over the next 40 years. Wolfe is a man of expensive tastes and, in addition to the fondness for orchids and food which M notes, he also has a strong liking for beer – a drink that seldom passes Bond’s lips!

  

Finally, the most dubious example of Bond’s reading material is provided in the short story The Living Daylights. Whilst on an assignment in Berlin which requires him to assassinate a Soviet operative, he kills time by reading a lurid German pulp novel entitled “Verderbt, Verdammt, Verraten” which features “a spectacular jacket of a half-naked girl strapped to a bed”. Fleming informs us that “the prefix “ver” signified that the girl had not only been ruined, damned and betrayed, but that she had suffered these misfortunes most thoroughly.”. The book serves to distract Bond from the task in hand as he temporarily loses himself  “in the tribulations of the heroine, Gräfin Liselotte Muntzenbacher”. 

This is interesting in that it confirms that Bond can speak German – we are told in You Only Live Twice that he learned German and French whilst spending much of his early life abroad on account of his father’s job as a representative of the Vickers armaments company. However, whilst John le Carré’s fictional spy George Smiley uses his knowledge of the language to read obscure German poetry, by contrast Bond’s choice of reading matter is much less erudite. 

For further consideration of the literary references in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, see my recently published e-book The Books of Bond.

The Books of Bond

For a series of books that are usually thought of as being unliterary, Ian Fleming's James Bond novels contain a surprising number of references to other literary sources. Bond himself, generally regarded as a man of action, is frequently depicted reading. Find out more about these references - which range from Eric Ambler to P.G. Wodehouse, taking in Hemingway, Lermontov, Pliny and de Sade along the way - in The Books of Bond, available now as an ebook from the Amazon Kindle store.

Literary Locations #5: The College of Arms

The College of Arms

130 Queen Victoria Street

London

EC4V 4BT

 

Website: www.college-of-arms.gov.uk

 

“The College of Arms is in Queen Victoria Street on the fringe of the City. It is a pleasant little Queen Anne backwater in ancient red brick with white sashed windows and a convenient cobbled courtyard, where Bond parked his car.”

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Ian Fleming (Jonathan Cape, 1963)

View of the College from Queen Victoria Street

The College of Arms is a royal corporation which is the official repository of the coats of arms and pedigrees of English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Commonwealth families and their descendants. The officers of the College specialise in genealogical and heraldic work which they undertake for their clients.

 

The first edition of On Her
Majesty's Secret Service

The College and its work features prominently in Ian Fleming’s eleventh James Bond novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service both as a setting and plot device. Having been despatched to the College by M, Bond is initially unaware of the reason for his visit and is quizzed by one of the College officers – who rejoices under the archaic title of Griffon Or – about his own family background. This amusing interchange provides Fleming with the pretext to provide us with some details of Bond’s roots. For instance we learn that he has “no connexion with Peckham” and that his “father was a Scot” who “came from the Highlands, near Glencoe” and that his “mother was Swiss”. Griffon Or believes that Bond will be anxious to establish whether he is related to Sir Thomas Bond, who gave his name to Bond Street in London’s West End and whose family motto is Orbis non sufficit or “the World is not enough”. The Bond coat of arms and motto provided the basis for Richard Chopping's cover design for the book's first edition.

After this initial misunderstanding Bond learns from another of the College’s officers, Sable Basilisk, that his arch enemy Blofeld has designs on the title of “le Comte de Bleuville” and has asked the College to validate his claim. This provides Bond with the opportunity to pose as “Sir Hilary Bray” - an envoy of the College – and thereby gain access to Blofeld’s mountain-top lair Piz Gloria.

The College, which has stood in its present location since 1555, looks very much as it did in Fleming’s day with the most recent addition being the gates which were erected in 1956 - although modern visitors will be unlikely to regard the present day Queen Victoria Street as a “backwater”!

Rating (out of 10): 4

Literary Locations #4: John le Carré’s “Circus”

Trentishoe Mansions

90 Charing Cross Road

London

WC2H 0JE

In John le Carré’s classic trilogy of novels featuring George Smiley as the mild mannered but mentally agile spy, the “circus” is the term used to refer to the British secret intelligence service MI6. The name derives from the proximity of its headquarters to Cambridge Circus, a traffic intersection in central London. However, le Carré provides a number of clues in his novels that enable us to pinpoint the exact building that he had in mind.

The junction of Charing Cross Road
and the former Little Compton Street

"an hexagonal pepper pot overlooking New
Compton street and the Charing Cross Road"

Firstly, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy we are told that Smiley’s colleague Bill Haydon has an office which is “an hexagonal pepper pot overlooking New Compton Street and the Charing Cross Road”. Although today these two roads do not intersect, New Compton Street was once joined with Old Compton Street by Little Compton Street, which has now vanished beneath an office block. In The Honourable Schoolboy, the circus is described as being housed in an “Edwardian mausoleum”. At the junction of Charing Cross Road and what was once Little Compton Street stands an Edwardian block of flats named Trentishoe Mansions and, if you look up to the roof, you can see a small turret resembling the description of Haydon’s lair.



"A dull doorway in the Charing Cross Road"

Further corroboration is provided when, in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, we are told that the circus’ archives are not accessible from the main entrance but are “reached by a dull doorway in the Charing Cross Road jammed between a picture-framer and an all-day café”. Although the commercial spaces are currently occupied by a musical instruments shop and a West End ticket agency, the doorway is still much as le Carré describes.

However, whilst the building itself exists, its role as a spy headquarters is a fictional construct as MI6 were never based in these residential flats. However, the building does have another literary connection in that it is adjacent to the former site of the antiquarian booksellers Marks & Co which featured in Helene Hanff’s book 84, Charing Cross Road, which documented a twenty year correspondence between Hanff and the shop’s chief buyer Frank Doel. Although Marks & Co has long since closed, the story is commemorated by a circular brass plaque on the wall.

 

Rating (out of 10): 6

Literary Locations #3: The Temple Church

Temple

London

EC4Y 7BB

Website: www.templechurch.com 

Admission charge: £4.00 (£6.00 for Friday lunchtime talks)

“London’s ancient Temple Church was constructed entirely out of Caen stone. A dramatic, circular edifice with a daunting façade, a central turret and a protruding nave off one side, the church looked more like a military stronghold than a place of worship.”

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (Bantam Press, 2003)

The Temple Church was built by the Knight’s Templar, the order of military monks that was created to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land during the time of the Crusades. It’s original design was based around a circular church, rather than the usual cross, which was modelled on the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The round church was consecrated in 1185 with the rectangular chancel being a later addition.

The church features in Dan Brown’s best-selling popular novel The Da Vinci Code as one of the locations that its protagonists Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu visit in their search for the Holy Grail. They are led there by a coded riddle that seems to point to the grave of a knight who has been persecuted by the Pope, although upon arriving there they discover that the stone carvings of nine knights that are located in the round church are actually effigies rather than grave markers.

"Lying supine on the floor, the carved, life-sized figures rested in peaceful poses."

The church is open to the public and, provided that a service is not in progress, you are free to wander around inside upon payment of the admission fee. However, it is best to coincide your visit with one of the talks that are given on Fridays during the summertime by the current Master of the Temple, Robin Griffith-Jones. Griffith-Jones gives a lively and engaging account of the origins of the Knights Templar and their persecution in France by Philip IV as well as the history of the church, including its restoration after it was badly damaged by German air raids during the Blitz – the evidence of which is still visible on the effigies of the knights. Whilst Griffith-Jones’ talk touches upon the appearance of the church in the novel, you can consult his book The Da Vinci Code and the Secrets of the Temple - which can be purchased at the desk just inside the entrance – for a more thorough examination of fact and fiction in Brown’s work.

Rating (out of 10): 6

Literary Locations #2: Platform 9¾, Kings Cross Station



The current site of the platform

Kings Cross Railway Station

Euston Road

London

N1 9AL

Admission charge: Free

“Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the ticket box had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it”

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J. K. Rowling (Bloomsbury, 1997)

Platform 9¾, Kings Cross features in J K Rowling’s Harry Potter novels as the departure point for the Hogwarts Express, the rail service by which Harry and his friends reach Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Although it is invisible to those without magical ability, the platform can be reached by passing through a brick wall barrier located between platforms 9 and 10.

Following the success of the books and subsequent film series, a “Platform 9¾” sign was erected at the station. Below it the rear wheels and handle of a luggage trolley were set into the bricks to give the appearance that it is moving through the wall.

The new concourse at Kings Cross

The sign and trolley were originally located on the wall of a separate annex to Kings Cross which houses the real platforms 9 and 10. However, they can now be found on a wall of the impressive new station concourse – the canopy of which is the largest single span structure in Europe – which was opened on 19 March 2012.

Whilst it’s worth a visit if you happen to be passing through Kings Cross and young children will enjoy the photo opportunity that it provides, it’s not worth making a special trip to see it unless you are a diehard Harry Potter fan.

Rating (out of 10): 3

Literary Locations #1: Dr Johnson’s House

17 Gough Square
London
EC4A 3DE

Website: www.drjohnsonshouse.org 

Admission charge: £4.50 (Adult)

17 Gough Square is the former home of the eighteenth century lexicographer, writer and wit Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) whose best known work was his highly influential A Dictionary of the English Language. Published in 1755, this was the leading English dictionary for almost 130 years until the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary appeared in 1884. Johnson, who was commissioned to write the dictionary by a syndicate of London booksellers in 1746, had originally claimed that he would complete the work in three years. In the end this considerable feat of scholarship, which involved writing definitions for over 42,000 words and compiling 114,000 literary quotations to illustrate them, eventually took him nine. Johnson was immortalised by his friend and biographer James Boswell in his Life of Samuel Johnson, published in 1791.

In 1911 Johnson's former home was bought by the liberal politician and newspaper magnate Cecil Harmsworth. Since Johnson’s occupancy it had been put to a number of uses including a hotel, printer’s workshop and warehouse space and had fallen into a state of disrepair. Harmsworth spent a considerable amount of his own money conserving and renovating the house, following two rules – that nothing old should be taken out and that nothing new should be brought in – so that a visitor today can form a good impression of how it would have looked in Johnson’s day. Although he received a fee of 1,500 guineas (the equivalent of about £230,000 in today’s money) for his dictionary, Johnson spent much of his life in financial difficulty and this fact is reflected in the simple and modest way in which the house is furnished and decorated.

There are four floors of the house to visit, starting in the entrance hall which doubles as a gift shop selling a range of books as well as paperweights and tea towels. You then work your way up through the living room, library and eventually into the garret in which the work of compiling the dictionary was carried out. During World War 2, members of the Auxiliary Fire Service were allowed to use the house as a social centre and this proved invaluable in saving the building when it was hit by incendiaries and a barrel of burning oil during air raids– events which are still evidenced today by the scorched beams in the roof.

One feature that will enhance your visit to the house is the excellent audio commentary which is provided on a portable handset with headphones. This is well worth the additional £2.00 charge and will enable you to gain a much better appreciation of the features and history of the house as well as Johnson’s life and his circle of friends, including his Jamaican manservant Francis Barber and the actor David Garrick. You should allow about an hour for a self-guided tour around the house with the audio commentary.

Rating (out of 10): 8