With The Spy Who Loved Me, Ian Fleming took an ambitious gamble: abandoning Bond for much of the book in favour of a female narrator. As Skyfall opens, Richard Williams remembers a surprising heroine
Vivienne Michel is perhaps the least well-known of the women for whom Ian Fleming arranged assignations with James Bond, and yet none of her more celebrated sisters, from Vesper Lynd through Tatiana Romanova and Pussy Galore to the Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, succeeded in engaging the author's interest to the same extent. To her alone is accorded the honour of a Bond book written entirely in her voice, with 007 making a late appearance in a supporting role. And although, unlike some of the others, she survived to tell the tale, she was destined to suffer a different kind of literary death.
Few novelists in Fleming's position, riding the public's voracious appetite for the adventures of a fictional hero,...
Vivienne Michel is perhaps the least well-known of the women for whom Ian Fleming arranged assignations with James Bond, and yet none of her more celebrated sisters, from Vesper Lynd through Tatiana Romanova and Pussy Galore to the Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, succeeded in engaging the author's interest to the same extent. To her alone is accorded the honour of a Bond book written entirely in her voice, with 007 making a late appearance in a supporting role. And although, unlike some of the others, she survived to tell the tale, she was destined to suffer a different kind of literary death.
Few novelists in Fleming's position, riding the public's voracious appetite for the adventures of a fictional hero,...
- 10/26/2012
- by Richard Williams
- The Guardian - Film News
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