Flemingesque

If you've been with me a while you'll know about by penchant for Ian Fleming's Bond. One of those remnants from your youth I suppose. Since I first started reading proper books I've read Bond books.
I've got quite a library now, some first editions (though not the early ones), and some lovely 'pulp' type paperbacks.
It's amusing to see how these books have gone, in perception, from mass market spy novels to Modern Classics.
It's all about trends, isn't? Perhaps art, is like what Charles Fort labeled science - "the fashionable thing to wear, for a while".
Whatever, Bond books are great. Full-on hedonism, daring-do, villains with deformities and a a beautiful girl or two.
The new Bond book (out yesterday to mark Fleming's 100th birthday, written Sebastian Faulks), well, it ticks all the boxes and then some. I think the initial reaction to this new book from Fleming die-hards will be lukewarm. Because it tries very hard to be a Fleming book, (the references to past missions etc). But that shouldn't be a criticism, it's what the book's about!
But it also has a brooding pace, and it reads like Fleming. Not so much the situations, but in the attitude. More than any other post Fleming Bond book (except Colonel Sun, which I will have to re-read after this 'un).
I'm reminded of Moonraker and even more, of You Only Live Twice (my favourite Bond novel). The slow sweep of the first half, building to the confrontation. The tennis match in Devil is Blades in Moonraker, Darius in Devil is Tiger Tanaka in Twice.
And the Fleming fans are worrying 'is it worthy of Fleming?', well, I remember the clumsy gangster dialogue in the final Fleming book wasn't, and I also remember the 'nod' to the movies that Fleming gave in the last two books by giving Bond a Scottish heritage in honour of Connery - yet the die-hards are saying 'the Moneypenny sequence in Devil is too filmic'.
Get over it you crazy cats! It's the best Bond book since the delightfully sinister Colonel Sun, so go and fill your boots with the latest essence of Bond and race out in the streets all excited with toy guns and dance a Bondonian twist in honour of the return of the sexist misogynist (and very British) hero!
It's a tale of thrills, spills, food, booze, broads and, thank fuck, it reads like a book "written for red blooded men on trains and planes. . " (as Fleming said about his own books, but you knew that right? I mean, you've read this far!)

Ian Fleming was a bachelor for the first forty years of his life. Imagine that?
Set in his ways he was, so I hear.
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The piccies, the top one is yesterday in Beatties Coffee shop, with panini, coffee and the new Bond novel, published on Fleming's 100th birthday.
Left is my Bond collection. Top right for the first editions. . lovely!!!!
Last photo, some pre-movie paperbacks with top artwork. Bliss upon bliss and groovy!