James Bond in a Caribbean mystery

With Young Bond author Charlie Higson on writing duties, it was inevitable that ITV's 2013 adaptation of Agatha Christie's A Caribbean Mystery should include a few nods to James Bond. I was reminded of these when the drama was repeated recently on ITV3.

The title card of ITV's adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery

In the story, amateur sleuth Miss Marple is holidaying on an unnamed Caribbean island. As ever, murder follows in her wake, the first victim among Miss Marple's fellow hotel guests being a retired major who realises that a serial killer is in their midst. Miss Marple is soon on the case.

Voodoo plays a role in the plot, and we see performers put on a Voodoo-inspired show for the hotel guests, much like the entertainment that greets James Bond's arrival in San Monique in Live and Let Die.

However, it is the Voodoo scenes at the end (or indeed in the pre-titles sequence) of Live and Let Die that appear to be referenced more closely. One of the performers carries a snake with which he playfully threatens the major. He also wears headgear made out of animal skin, and has white paint on the upper part of his face and black paint on his nose and around his eyes to create the appearance of a skull.
 

A Caribbean Mystery: The major is confronted by a Voodoo performer and a snake

The costume is presumably fairly typical of Voodoo ceremonies, but the performer nevertheless brings to mind the high priest (or whatever he is) in Live and Let Die, who wears a goat-skin headdress and threatens Solitaire with a snake, while his make-up replicates that worn by Baron Samedi.
 

Scenes from the Voodoo ceremony in Live and Let Die

There is another allusion to Live and Let Die when we see a close-up of the face of hotel owner Molly Kendall (who believes herself responsible for the series of murders), which turns into a flaming skull. This recalls Maurice Binder's titles in Live and Let Die, in which a flaming skull is a prominent motif.

Flaming skulls in A Caribbean Mystery (top) and Live and Let Die

More generally, the background music for A Caribbean Mystery incorporates Bondian notes and phrases, especially whenever the handsome hotel waiter, Errol (who knows how to mix a cocktail), appears on the scene.
 

Errol (Kingsley Ben-Adir) in A Caribbean Mystery

A cameo appearance of Charlie Higson, however, provides a much more obvious nod to James Bond. He plays an ornithologist who visits the hotel to give a lecture on birds. His name? James Bond, author of Birds of the West Indies.
 

The ornithologist James Bond, as played by Charlie Higson in A Caribbean Mystery

By coincidence, Ian Fleming (played by Jeremy Crutchley) is in the audience. He tells Miss Marple that he has been working on a novel (the events of the mystery must date before 1953), but he is stuck for the name of his hero. When James Bond introduces himself with the words "My name is Bond, James Bond", inspiration strikes. (James Bond was in fact named after the ornithologist, though not quite in the manner depicted!) 

Ian Fleming (Jeremy Crutchley) in A Caribbean Mystery

Interestingly, James Bond (the ornithologist) is introduced as a representative of the Audubon Society, the American bird protection society that Fleming mentions in Dr No. That novel gets another nod when James Bond points out that the island is rich in guano; Ian Fleming tells a puzzled Miss Marple that guano is bird droppings.

The 2013 adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery is very enjoyable tale of murder and intrigue, and the James Bond references are an added bonus. Well worth watching.

What's in store for Young Bond 2?

As announced by Ian Fleming Publications, the adventures of Young Bond will be continued by children's author Steve Cole and pick up where Charlie Higson's first series left off, with James Bond expelled from Eton College and about to resume his education at Fettes in Edinburgh. We know something of Bond's life at Fettes from his obituary in You Only Live Twice, and in an interview for the regional UK newspaper The Bucks Herald, Steve Cole revealed that Bond will be aged 14 or 15, and that the stories will be set in the 1930s and describe Bond's encounters with the Secret Service and his uncle, a spy. But can we glean any further information about what to expect in the new series from Ian Fleming's own experiences and Steve Cole's work?

Bond's obituary (written by M) records that the atmosphere of Fettes was Calvinistic. Quite what this means in practice is unclear, but given the starting point of Calvinist teaching that humanity is totally depraved, and that no amount of good will redeem one in the eyes of God, the college's masters would probably have regarded all their charges as innately sinful, and presumably discipline would be strictly enforced to ensure that pupils' behaviour was acceptable (M hints at this when he describes standards as rigorous). In this oppressive atmosphere, the young Bond may become rebellious – if he was to be a sinner, he might as well have a proper bash at it and sin in style – just as Ian Fleming rebelled at Eton. Andrew Lycett records that Ian Fleming racked up a series of misdemeanours and was birched for them, and that after befriending Ivar Bryce (who would become a lifelong friend), he'd play truant and chase girls. Possibly young Bond's behaviour will mirror Fleming's to some extent.

According to the obituary, Bond was inclined to be solitary. This individualistic nature is reflected in the sports at which Bond excelled: athletics, boxing, and Judo. Like his creator (Fleming also excelled at athletics, winning a long-jump competition and a hurdles title at Eton, and achieving the very rare feat of becoming champion athlete or victor ludorum two years in a row), Bond is likely to eschew team sports and be happiest away from the classroom competing on the track or in the ring.

The information in the obituary that Bond set up a Judo club, the first for a British public school, is especially interesting. This reveals that Bond has a good knowledge of martial arts, and we should expect him to use it in the course of his adventures. But it also demonstrates natural authority, commitment, determination, and the ability to plan and think innovatively, possibly in the face of opposition (qualities that Fleming showed during his time in Naval Intelligence during the war).

So much for Bond's school life. Do Steve Cole's published books give any clue about the nature of his adventures? The author is probably best known for his Astrosaurs, Cows in Action and Slime Squad series. These are written for younger children, but his books for teenagers are just as acclaimed. One of his series for older children features a protagonist who has something of a Bondian quality about him. In the Tripwire series, teenager Felix Smith, avenging the death of his father at the hands of terrorists, is recruited into a secret service, Minos Chapter, and becomes a bomb-disposal expert. Each adventure pits Felix against a diabolical organisation with an evil plan, and sees him race against time to solve the clues and find and defuse the bomb set for devastation. Possibly the young Bond will also find himself racing against time to beat that ticking clock. Tripwire was co-written by bomb-disposal expert, Chris Hunter, demonstrating a desire for accuracy that would have pleased Ian Fleming, and we may expect the new Young Bond series include its fair share of technical and authentic details.

Z. Rex is another series for older children. In this, thinking, talking mutant dinosaurs are brought to life and threaten the world. Fourteen-year-old Adam Adler befriends one (Zed) and together they battle beasts – and the beasts' masters – intent on wreaking havoc. While the Young Bond series is likely to have little in common with Z. Rex, the use and abuse of science (an aspect of course touched upon in Fleming's Moonraker and On Her Majesty's Secret Service) might be a theme common to both. Steve Cole's The Wereling series, which is about a family of werewolves, seems much further removed from the type of adventures we can expect young Bond to have, although I wouldn't be surprised to see aspects of the occult creeping in from time to time (and indeed given Fleming's apparent interest in the subject, expressed for example in Live and Let Die, this too would not necessarily be un-Bondian).

As Steve Cole says in interview, the main source for Bond's teenage years is the obituary in You Only Live Twice. But taking a memetic perspective – acknowledging that authors writing about James Bond tend to look to Ian Fleming's experiences to fill gaps in Bond's, and suggesting that authors' interests and background are likely to influence their writing – we can put forward a few ideas about what we can expect in the forthcoming Young Bond series. I for one can't wait to read it!

Reference:
Lycett, A, 1995, Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond, Turner

James Bond and Alan Turing

Saturday 23rd June marked the centenary of Alan Turing's birth. Turing died in 1954 of cyanide poisoning, but his fame lives on as the father of modern computing and the mathematical genius who was so instrumental in cracking German codes at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. His birth has been commemorated with the unveiling of two blue plaques – one at St Leonards, Hastings at his childhood home, and the other at Manchester University, where he studied after the war and continued his pioneering work – and over the last week or so, there has been much media focus on his work and legacy.

A number of articles have been published on the BBC website. One, by Graham Moore, looks at how the incredible, but troubled, and ultimately tragic life of Alan Turing has been addressed by writers of fiction. For example, in 1980 Ian McEwan wrote a short play, The Imitation Game, which was inspired by Turing's experiences at Bletchley. Another play, Breaking the Code, written by Hugh Whitemore in 1986, featured Turing more directly, and was later filmed for the BBC with Derek Jacobi as Turing. More recently, 2007 saw the publication of the novel, A madman dreams of Turing machines, by Janna Levin.

There was, however, one book that Graham Moore forgot to mention. That was, of course, Charlie Higson's Young Bond adventure, Double or Die, published in 2007. At the end of the book (and stop reading now if haven't read the book and you don't want to know what happens), we are introduced to an older James Bond at the end of the war. He arrives at Bletchley to collect an important code-breaker and take him to headquarters in London. That man is Alan Turing (and indeed, Young Bond meets Turing as a Cambridge Student earlier in the book).

The coda elegantly closes the book, with its themes of codes, puzzles and danger, and gives us a glimpse into the life of Bond at the start of his post-war secret service career. It also nicely brings in a place with which Ian Fleming was himself associated, visiting Bletchley every few weeks during the war in his role as assistant to the director of the Naval Intelligence Division, Admiral Godfrey.

How many James Bond book titles are there?

Or, to rephrase the question, how many types of titles did Ian Fleming use? To give an example, Live and Let Die is what I will call a phrase variant, deriving obviously from the well-known saying, ‘live and let live’. Other phrase variants are Diamonds are Forever, a mutation of the de Beers’ advertising slogan, ‘A diamond is forever’, From Russia, with Love, which is a play on oft-used sentimental expressions, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which is taken from the standard phrase used on government communications, and You Only Live Twice, a derivation of the saying, ‘you only live once’.

Then there are film/book title variants. The Man with the Golden Gun appears to fall into this category, with its inspiration probably coming from The Man with the Golden Arm, a 1955 film starring Frank Sinatra. Another title type is personal name – Goldfinger and Dr No – with other names forming a fourth category. Moonraker, the name of Drax’s rocket, Thunderball, the name given to the mushroom cloud resulting from an atomic explosion, and Octopussy, the pet name of an octopus, belong to this group. (We should note, however, that Fleming didn’t actually choose the Octopussy short story title as the main title of the volume, as it was published posthumously.)

Of the remaining titles, For Your Eyes Only is presumably an original phrase, which Fleming came across and used during his wartime career in the Navel Intelligence Division, although I must confess I can’t put my finger on evidence to support this. It may in fact be a phrase variant, being similar, but not identical, to a form of words used in espionage. The origin of The Spy Who Loved Me is also uncertain, but is also provisionally placed in the original phrase category.

So we have a tentative list of five title types. Fleming’s titles in turn inspired the authors charged with writing continuation Bond novels, who tended to use the same basic title types. Phrase variants include John Gardner’s Win, Lose or Die, and Raymond Benson’s The Facts of Death. Personal names are evident in Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (Kingsley Amis) and Scorpius by John Gardner. Curiously, neither Raymond Benson, nor Charlie Higson, author of the Young Bond series, use personal names for titles. Of the film/book title variants employed by the continuation authors, all examples, such as Licence Renewed (John Gardner) and The Man with the Red Tattoo (Raymond Benson), have their origin in Fleming’s phrases or titles. The fifth type, original phrase, is interesting in that the continuation authors have turned to the category proportionately more than Fleming. There is, for example, Gardner’s Role of Honour, Benson’s Zero Minus Ten, and Higson’s By Royal Command. Recent authors have also used original phrases; Sebastian Faulks had Devil May Care, while Jeffery Deaver’s forthcoming novel will be called Carte Blanche.

Another aspect to consider is the association of certain words or concepts with the world of James Bond. The most frequently used are death (or variants of, such as die), forever, the man who or from, and negative words, such as never and nobody. Fleming used these sorts of words sparingly, but they increased their frequency among continuation authors to the point of over-use. Half of Raymond Benson’s Bond novels have the word death (or similar) in the title, while almost a quarter of John Gardner’s titles use a negative. In contrast, only 8% of Fleming’s titles use a form of death, and none uses negatives. Despite this, these words and concepts have become so strongly associated with Bond that continuation authors regularly turn to them. Their use has also spread to films – Licence to Kill, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day – and no doubt anyone invited to generate a Bondian title is likely to consider words like these. Oddly enough, no title generator has used the word that Fleming used twice and is just as Bondian: love.