Devil May Care | Sebastian Faulks | At Long Last, the Real James Bond is Back

Devil May Care | Sebastian Faulks | trying to out fleming fleming

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Devil May Care

	Devil May Care Sebastian Faulks Doubleday, 2008 - 278 pages average customer review:based on 72 reviews view larger image
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At Long Last, the Real James Bond is Back

If Ian Fleming were alive today, he'd've just turned 100 and I like to think he'd be pretty bloody pleased with the Bond franchise he'd spawned. As a lover of everything Bond from Fleming, though Gardner and Connery through Craig (okay, I was a little disappointed in George Lazerby), I like to think I'm qualified to muse a bit about the latest of the Bond writers. First off I have to say:

Well done, Mr. Faulks.

Fleming wasn't always politically correct, of course he died before it was fashionable, and Faulks follows in the non PC tradition. I loved Fleming's Bond, read him when I was in high school, saw Goldfinger the day after it opened at Gruman's Chinese Theater.

I mourned Ian Fleming's passing and thought I'd seen the last of James Bond, then in 1968 came Colonial Sun, written by Robert Markham (which belongs back in print), who was really the excellent writer Kingsley Amis, who joined Ian Fleming in 1995. That was a great book.

Then in the Eighties came the Gardner books. Lord I loved his Bond, loved those books, all fourteen of 'em, but I especially liked his first one, License Renewed. But good things don't last forever and in the late Nineties John Gardner's health forced him to quit doing Bond and sadly last year Mr. Gardner went away and joined Messers Fleming and Kingsley.

However, right on the heels of the last Gardner book came the Benson Bond and I liked all six of those as well, read his shorter Bond stories, liked them too. But through it all, Gardner's Bond was not Fleming's Bond, nor was Amis' or Benson's. They'd changed him, some for the better, some for worse. They'd humanized him, grew him up, gave him good stories, great adventurers.

But now I feel as if I'm young again, not yet twenty, standing in line with the man I was going to marry at Grauman's, waiting to see Goldfinger. God we loved Bond back then. There was a man.

He's back.

Thank you, Mr. Faulks.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

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trying to out fleming fleming

faulkes portrayal was creditable but lacked the energy and detail of fleming. Fleming's escapes for Bond were ingenious and well thought out; perhaps scripted over and over al la Hemingway. Faulkes did just enough to sell but not to impress. It was a nostalgic read but almost tiresome.

LMcL

So far so good

I am three quarters into the book and so far it is engaging enough to keep me interested. I cannot say that it is as if Fleming is writing, but it is good enough for me to want more. I look forward to more books in the future.

For Non-Purists Eyes Only

This is a fun Bond pastiche that moves at an agreeably fast clip. There are a few good action scenes and the tennis match is silly but fun. You'll never forget that it's not from the original canon, partly because Faulks never gets the Bond character quite right. And for all the hype about his "literary" reputation, I never felt the writing was terribly fine. Indeed, it never really rises to the level of an admirably dedicated second-stringer like Daniel Silva. And what's with the lame title? Still, you will be entertained.

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Moderately good Bond

I've been reading Bond since the 60's. This is among the best of the books written after Fleming's death. Its strongest feature is that the character of Bond comes across as real, very much in the flavor of Fleming's Bond -- unlike the novels of Benson, whose Bond was cardboard, or the novels of Gardner, whose Bond was cartoonish. (I stopped reading Gardner when Bond made love to a one-breasted Amazon who turned out to be Blofeld with a sex change!) The storyline is also good, set in the cold war where we get a sense that Smersh is still an active threat. However, one would've hoped for more suspense. In our present sound-byte culture, novelists today don't take the time to develop a suspenseful thriller, they go right to the meat. In this case, Bond doesn't gradually uncover the villainy. Rather, the villain just makes a long speech telling us all the very bad things he's doing. The climax is disappointing as well: Bond is about to be shot by a professional assassin so he comes up with diversion. But ask yourself: How long would it take to pull of this particular diversion? Try it at home. My guess is that Bond would have had six bullets in him by the time he finished his diversion. Lastly, there is a denouement at the end which, in my opinion, diminishes Bond's status as a double-O agent. Still, despite its flaws, the book has some value and makes for a pleasant read.

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