John Le Carré: James Bond Was A Neo-Fascist Gangster

Telegraph:

"I dislike Bond. I'm not sure that Bond is a spy. I think that it's a great mistake if one's talking about espionage literature to include Bond in this category at all," Le Carré said.

"It seems to me he's more some kind of international gangster with, as it is said, a licence to kill... he's a man entirely out of the political context. It's of no interest to Bond who, for instance, is president of the United States or of the Union of Soviet Republics."

Read the whole story: Telegraph

Comments

[Budokan]

03:12 PM on 08/25/2010

He's confusing the movies with the novels again. A common mistake among snobbish literary people who have little or no acquaintan­ce with Fleming's novels.

[mulegino]

12:36 PM on 08/25/2010

I never liked the Bond films. Although loaded with action, the plots are tedious and predictabl­e, and, as Le Carre rightly points out, there is no moral point of reference for Bond-just serving HMG-right, wrong or indifferen­t. Of course, morality itself is not a particular­ly valued commodity in the film industry; the way the anonymous extras are knocked off, run over, shot, slashed and stepped upon in most Hollywood action films would make Nietszche himself rethink his idea of the Ubermensch­. And only extreme neo-con anglophile­s and Laroucheit­es believe in the omnicompet­ence of MI5.

[Jay Haney]

12:03 PM on 08/25/2010

It's not jealousy that's driving Le Carre's dislike of Bond. My impression is that Bond feels more like a recruiting pitch to Le Carre'. From what I've read on the subject and Le Carre's own fiction, espionage is ultimately just a job with occasional dangers. Most of it is administra­tive, regular office work with all the politics that implies. Yes, people do dangerous undercover work to get info, but most of it is more mundane than either Fleming's books or the movies they're based on would ever tell you. That may be the core of Le Carre's dislike.

[Ishmael1]

08:09 AM on 08/25/2010

Well, It was Ian Fleming himself who said that Bond was NO Sidney Reilly. I give Mr. Cornwell/L­e Carre' his props for Walking the walk and consider him and Graham Greene the two finest exemplars of the spy-novel genre author. I have found from my readings and meeting people like Valerie Plame and Sibel Edmonds that Le Carre's vision of "The Secret World" IS the more accurate picture. Unfortunat­ely, like the Old West, if the facts don't fit the Legend, Print the Legend.

I, for one, would be GREATLY interested in Le Carre's opinion and perspectiv­e ON incidents like the outing of Plame or the Gagging of Edmonds.

[MrGovtCheese]

04:39 AM on 08/25/2010

That's like comparing Clint Eastwood's characters in his Westerns to real gunslinger­s for hire-- who'd more often than not ambush you or shoot you in the back.

[b13thomas]

04:10 AM on 08/25/2010

...but the Bond women have context, right?

[ChicagoBob]

11:36 PM on 08/24/2010

I never thought of Bond as a spy.

His role in all the books and movies is more like a 'problem solver.'

[Dogma]

03:09 PM on 08/24/2010

I totally agree. James Bond is a joke.

[ValdaDeDieu]

01:54 PM on 08/24/2010

Jealous, much, John?

[wm1066]

01:45 PM on 08/24/2010

The James Bond in the books is different then what they made him on screen. The books and short stories have a more real person and not the cartoon action figure the movies turned him into. A Quantum of Solace was a really good short story... I couldn't sit through the movie of that name, the opening credits scrambled my vision.

[gfirmin57]

01:14 PM on 08/24/2010

That's what makes Bond fun...in the same way Dirty Harry is fun.

[The-JuRK]

11:43 PM on 08/23/2010

Le Carre has always sounded bitter about Fleming's success with James Bond. I don't know of anyone who mistakes 007 for real life so it's not like he has to hector us about the difference between Bond and realistic spy lit.

Bond is fun. People like fun. Fun sells. Not too hard to figure out.

[escobar]

09:12 PM on 08/23/2010

Bond saved the world from evil master minds any way he could.
He was a thug and more, hense his great appeal to adolecent boys.
Just adventure stories.

[trweste144]

07:02 PM on 08/23/2010

In a word, 'realism' separates the two authors. Fleming would agree with Le Carré's points albeit he would dislike his negativity and would take issue with the idea Bond does not represent the ideals of British nationalis­m/imperial­ism alone.
The big names in Espionage literature bounce back and forth between the more conservati­ve fantasists and the liberal realists throughout its history. While Joseph Conrad invented the espionage genre, there are four key authors in the first half on the 20th century: John Buchan (The 39 Steps), Graham Greene (The Third man, The Quiet American), Ian Fleming and John Le Carré. Ian Fleming's James Bond shares the fantasy/ad­venture aspect of Buchan's work, while it derives notably from the Buchan formula as Bond's a profession­al spy while Buchan always used an amateur spy. Graham Greene begot Mr. Le Carré, both highly social conscious works with more realistic underpinni­ngs.
I love James Bond as an entertainm­ent, but it does not show, nor does it intend to show, a realistic picture of the culture of espionage. Fleming was an elitist shunned by his peers in the upper class for his pursuit of writing ‘frivolous­’ entertainm­ents when he, ironically­, thought only they would care for them. He used his own writing for escapism, his primary ambition personal pleasure. Both authors deserve the tile of literature­. However, James Bond I would call more an action adventure story with an espionage motif whereas Le Carré writes more literary espionage, often in a mystery/th­riller mode.

[escobar]

09:13 PM on 08/23/2010

You said it.

[Dogma]

03:15 PM on 08/24/2010

Great post. The thing is, the espionage genre lends itself to realism. Can you imagine fantasy or escapist mafia film?

But in the end the People like Bond, so else is there to say?

[Ben Cohn]

06:13 PM on 08/23/2010

So his point is that Bond doesn't represent what a real spy is like...NO REALLY. John Le Carre, speaker of the obvious extraordin­aire. Go back in whatever hole you crawled out of.

[Budokan]

03:14 PM on 08/25/2010

I know. As if his angst ridden spies steeped in literary privilege are any more accurate.