91-508: Commander Bond may refer to: James Bond (literary character) , fictional character with the rank of Commander in the British Royal Navy CommanderBond.net , James Bond 007 fansite See also [ edit ] Bond (surname) [REDACTED] Index of articles associated with the same name This set index article includes a list of related items that share
182-690: A Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in either 1953–as described by a Russian dossier about Bond in From Russia, with Love —or 1954, as described by Bond's obituary in You Only Live Twice . Bond lives in a flat off the King's Road in Chelsea . Continuation authors John Pearson and William Boyd both identify the location as Wellington Square. The former believed the address
273-521: A Rolls-Royce . Sir Fitzroy Maclean was another figure mentioned as a possibility, based on his wartime work behind enemy lines in the Balkans , as was the MI6 double agent Dušan Popov . In 2016, a BBC Radio 4 documentary explored the possibility that the character of Bond was inspired by author and mentor to Fleming, Phyllis Bottome in her 1946 novel, The Lifeline . Distinct similarities between
364-416: A "Mark II", a term which was never used. Bond replaces the engine with a Mark IV 4.9 L and commissions a body from Mulliners that was a "rather square convertible two-seater affair." He paints this car battleship grey and upholsters it in black. Later, against the advice of Bentley, he adds an Arnott supercharger. In 1957 Fleming had written to Rolls-Royce's Chairman, Whitney Straight , to get information about
455-489: A 3 in (76 mm) long, thin vertical scar on his right cheek; blue-grey eyes; a "cruel" mouth; short, black hair, a comma of which rests on his forehead. Physically he is described as 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) in height and 76 kg (168 lb) in weight. During Casino Royale , a SMERSH agent carves the Russian Cyrillic letter "Ш" (SH) (for Shpion : "Spy") into the back of Bond's right hand; by
546-537: A birth date of 11 November 1920, while a study by Bond scholar John Griswold puts the date at 11 November 1921. According to Griswold, the Fleming novels take place between around May 1951, to February 1964, by which time Bond was aged 42. If the quality of these books, or their degree of veracity, had been any higher, the author would certainly have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. It
637-482: A black oxidised Ronson lighter. The cigarettes were the same as Fleming's, who had been buying his at Morland since the 1930s; the three gold bands on the filter were added during the war to mirror his naval Commander's rank. On average, Bond smokes sixty cigarettes a day, although he cut back to around twenty-five a day after his visit to a health farm in Thunderball : Fleming himself smoked up to 80 cigarettes
728-728: A boy, Fleming devoured the Bulldog Drummond tales of Lieutenant Colonel Herman Cyril McNeile (aka "Sapper") and the Richard Hannay stories of John Buchan . His genius was to repackage these antiquated adventures to fit the fashion of postwar Britain ... In Bond, he created a Bulldog Drummond for the jet age . William Cook in the New Statesman During the Second World War , Ian Fleming had mentioned to friends that he wanted to write
819-559: A day. Bond occasionally supplements his alcohol consumption with the use of other drugs, for both functional and recreational reasons: Moonraker sees Bond consume a quantity of the amphetamine benzedrine accompanied by champagne, before his bridge game with Sir Hugo Drax (also consuming a carafe of vintage Riga vodka and a vodka martini); he also uses the drug for stimulation on missions, such as swimming across Shark Bay in Live and Let Die , or remaining awake and alert when threatened in
910-585: A drophead. However, Mulliner's price was too high and Silva eventually had the body built by Henri Chapron, with the work completed in July 1958. In 2008 the coachwork on this car was modified to match the proposed Mulliner conversion more closely. According to academic Jeremy Black , Bond is written as a complex character, even though he was also often the voice of Fleming's prejudices. Throughout Fleming's books, Bond expresses racist , sexist and homophobic attitudes. The output of these prejudices, combined with
1001-779: A first in English in 1947, he had decided by then to give much of his time to writing. In 1946 he met Hilary Bardwell . They married in 1948 after she became pregnant with their first child, Philip. Amis initially arranged for her to have a back-street abortion , but changed his mind, fearing for her safety. He was a lecturer in English at the University College of Swansea from 1949 to 1961. Two other children followed: Martin in August 1949 and Sally in January 1954. Days after Sally's birth, Amis's first novel, Lucky Jim ,
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#17327728280521092-473: A good name.' Casino Royale , Chapter 7: Rouge et Noir Bond's drinking habits run throughout the series of books. During the course of On Her Majesty's Secret Service alone, Bond consumes forty-six drinks: Pouilly-Fuissé , Riquewihr and Marsala wines, most of a bottle of Algerian wine, some 1953 Château Mouton Rothschild claret , along with Taittinger and Krug champagnes and Babycham ; for whiskies he consumes three bourbon and waters, half
1183-432: A keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born". When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened; I wanted him to be a blunt instrument ... when I
1274-513: A librarian in Hull) and his temptation to adultery. I Like It Here (1958) takes a contemptuous view of "abroad", after Amis's own travels on the Continent with a young family. Take a Girl Like You (1960) steps away from the immediately autobiographical, but remains grounded in the concerns of sex and love in ordinary modern life, tracing a young schoolmaster's courtship and ultimate seduction of
1365-608: A maid. After being sent down from Eton, Bond was sent to Fettes College in Scotland, his father's school. On his first visit to Paris at the age of 16, Bond lost his virginity , later reminiscing about the event in " From a View to a Kill ". Fleming referenced his own upbringing for his creation, with Bond alluding to briefly attending the University of Geneva (as did Fleming), before being taught to ski in Kitzbühel (as
1456-673: A member of the Special Operations Executive , claimed that the name could have been linked with him. Bond's code number—007—was assigned by Fleming in reference to one of British naval intelligence's key achievements of First World War : the breaking of the German diplomatic code. One of the German documents cracked and read by the British was the Zimmermann Telegram , which was coded 0075, and which
1547-647: A moment. Three measures of Gordon's , one of vodka , half a measure of Kina Lillet . Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel . Got it?' 'Certainly monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea. 'Gosh, that's certainly a drink,' said Leiter. Bond laughed. 'When I'm ... er ... concentrating,' he explained, 'I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold, and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I think of
1638-408: A neutral figure—an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department." After Fleming met the ornithologist and his wife, he described them as "a charming couple who are amused by the whole joke". In the first draft of Casino Royale he decided to use the name James Secretan as Bond's cover name while on missions. In 2018 the family of James Charles Bond, who had served under Fleming as
1729-465: A new car for Bond. Fleming wanted the car to be a cross between a Bentley Continental and a Ford Thunderbird . Straight pointed Fleming to chassis number BC63LC, which was probably the inspiration for the vehicle that ended up in the book. This car had been delivered in May 1954 to a Mr Silva as a Mulliner-bodied coupé. After he rolled the car and wrecked the body, Silva commissioned Mulliner to convert it to
1820-499: A personal selection of his favourite poems, grew out of his work for a London newspaper, in which he selected a poem a day and gave it a brief introduction. Amis was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, for Ending Up (1974) and Jake's Thing (1978), and finally, as prizewinner, for The Old Devils in 1986. In 2008, The Times ranked Amis 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. As
1911-559: A pint of I.W. Harper bourbon, Jack Daniel's whiskey, two double bourbons on the rocks, two whisky and sodas, two neat scotches and one glass of neat whisky; vodka consumption totalled four vodka and tonics and three double vodka martinis; other spirits included two double brandies with ginger ale, a flask of Enzian schnaps and a double gin: he also washes this down with four steins of German beer. Bond's alcohol intake does not seem to affect his performance. Regarding non-alcoholic drinks, Bond eschews tea, calling it "mud" and blaming it for
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#17327728280522002-439: A poet, Larkin had published two novels; Amis originally sought to be a poet and turned to novels only after publishing several volumes of verse. He continued throughout his career to write poetry in a straightforward, accessible style that often masks a nuance of thought. Amis's first novel, Lucky Jim (1954), satirises the highbrow academic set of an unnamed university through the eyes of a struggling young lecturer of history. It
2093-522: A rigorous daily schedule on himself, segregating writing and drink. Mornings were spent on writing, with a minimum daily output of 500 words. Drinking began about lunchtime, when this had been achieved. Such self-discipline was essential to Amis's prodigious output. Yet according to James, Amis reached a turning point when his drinking ceased to be social and became a way of dulling his remorse and regret at his behaviour towards Hilly. "Amis had turned against himself deliberately.... It seems fair to guess that
2184-567: A serious yet light-handed treatment of what the genre had to say about man and society. Amis was especially keen on the dystopian works of Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth , and in New Maps of Hell coined the term "comic inferno" to describe a type of humorous dystopia exemplified by the work of Robert Sheckley . He further displayed his devotion to the genre in editing, with the Sovietologist Robert Conquest ,
2275-490: A spy novel. It was not until 1952, however, shortly before his wedding to his pregnant girlfriend, Ann Charteris , that Fleming began to write his first book, Casino Royale , to distract himself from his forthcoming nuptials. Fleming started writing the novel at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica on 17 February 1952, typing out 2,000 words in the morning, directly from his own experiences and imagination. He finished work on
2366-462: A visiting lecturer in other north-eastern universities. On returning to Britain, he fell into a rut, and he began looking for another post. After 13 years at Swansea, Amis became a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge , in 1961, but regretted the move within a year, finding Cambridge an academic and social disappointment. He resigned in 1963, intent on moving to Majorca, although he actually moved no further than London. In 1963, Hilary discovered that Amis
2457-485: A way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold." Others, such as journalist Ben Macintyre , identify aspects of Fleming's own looks in his description of Bond. General references in the novels describe Bond as having "dark, rather cruel good looks". In the novels (notably From Russia, with Love ), Bond's physical description has generally been consistent: slim build;
2548-475: A wide knowledge of all kinds of English poetry. The New Oxford Book of Light Verse (1978), which he edited, was a revision of an original volume done by W. H. Auden . Amis took it in a markedly new direction: Auden had interpreted light verse to include "low" verse of working-class or lower-class origin, regardless of subject matter, while Amis defined light verse as essentially light in tone, though not necessarily simple in composition. The Amis Anthology (1988),
2639-585: A young man at Oxford, Amis joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and left it in 1956. He later described this stage of his political life as "the callow Marxist phase that seemed almost compulsory in Oxford". Amis remained nominally on the political left for some time after the war, declaring in the 1950s that he would always vote for the Labour Party . Amis eventually moved further to
2730-562: Is a Secret Service officer, code number 007 (pronounced "double-O[ / oʊ / ]-seven"), residing in London but active internationally. Bond was a composite character who was based on a number of commandos whom Fleming knew during his service in the Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War , to whom Fleming added his own style and a number of his own tastes. Bond's name may have been appropriated from
2821-523: Is a character created by the British journalist and novelist Ian Fleming in 1953. He is the protagonist of the James Bond series of novels , films , comics and video games . Fleming wrote twelve Bond novels and two short story collections. His final two books— The Man with the Golden Gun (1965) and Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966)—were published posthumously. The character
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2912-455: Is a measure of the disdain in which these fictions are held at the Ministry, that action has not yet—I emphasize the qualification—been taken against the author and publisher of these high-flown and romanticized caricatures of episodes in the career of an outstanding public servant. You Only Live Twice , Chapter 21: Obit: Fleming wrote On Her Majesty's Secret Service while Dr. No
3003-403: Is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986). His biographer Zachary Leader called Amis "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century". In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. He
3094-420: Is killed on their wedding day by Bond's nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld . In the penultimate novel of the series, You Only Live Twice , Bond suffers from amnesia and has a relationship with an Ama diving girl, Kissy Suzuki . As a result of the relationship, Kissy becomes pregnant, although she does not reveal this to Bond before he leaves the island. Fleming biographer Andrew Lycett noted that, "within
3185-485: Is orphaned at age 11 after his parents are killed in a mountain climbing accident in the Aiguilles Rouges near Chamonix . After the death of his parents, Bond went to live with his aunt, Miss Charmian Bond, in the village of Pett Bottom , where he completed his early education. Later, he briefly attended Eton College at "12 or thereabouts", but was expelled after two halves because of girl trouble with
3276-536: Is scrambled eggs." Fleming was so keen on scrambled eggs that he used his short story, " 007 in New York ", to provide his favourite recipe for the dish: in the story, this came from the housekeeper of Fleming's friend Ivar Bryce, May, who gave her name to Bond's own housekeeper. Academic Edward Biddulph observed that Fleming fully described seventy meals within the book series and that while a number of these had items in common—such as scrambled eggs and steaks—each meal
3367-624: Is similarly displayed in the ecclesiastical matters in The Alteration ; Amis was neither a Roman Catholic nor a devotee of any church. Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Amis regularly produced essays and criticism, principally for periodical publication. Some were collected in 1968 into What Became of Jane Austen? and Other Essays , in which Amis's wit and literary and social opinions were displayed on books such as Colin Wilson 's The Outsider (panned), Iris Murdoch 's début novel Under
3458-570: The Daily Express newspaper. There have been twenty-seven Bond films; seven actors have played Bond in the films . The central figure in Ian Fleming's work is the fictional character of James Bond, an intelligence officer in the " Secret Service ". Bond is also known by his code number, 007, and was a Royal Naval Reserve Commander . James Bond is the culmination of an important but much-maligned tradition in English literature. As
3549-801: The American ornithologist of the same name , although it is possible that Fleming took the name from a Welsh agent with whom he served, James C. Bond. Bond has a number of consistent character traits which run throughout the books, including an enjoyment of cars, a love of food, drink and sex, and an average intake of sixty custom-made cigarettes a day. Since Fleming's death in 1964, there have been other authorised writers of Bond material, including John Gardner , who wrote fourteen novels and two novelizations; Raymond Benson , who wrote six novels, three novelizations and three short stories; and Anthony Horowitz , who has written three novels. There have also been other authors who wrote one book each: Kingsley Amis (under
3640-483: The Canton de Vaud . The book was the first to be written after the release of Dr. No in cinemas and Connery's depiction of Bond affected Fleming's interpretation of the character, to give Bond a sense of humour that was not present in the previous stories. Bond spends much of his early life abroad, becoming multilingual in German and French because of his father's work as a Vickers armaments company representative. Bond
3731-525: The RCA Building at Rockefeller Center (then housing the headquarters of British Security Co-ordination – BSC) in New York City and a Norwegian double agent who had betrayed two British agents; it is suggested by Bond scholar John Griswold that these were part of Bond's wartime service with Special Operations Executive , a British Second World War covert military organisation. Bond is made
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3822-660: The Vietnam War . He spoke at the Adam Smith Institute , arguing against government subsidy to the arts. By his own admission and according to his biographers, Amis was a serial adulterer for much of his life. This was a major contributory factor in the breakdown of his first marriage. A famous photograph of a sleeping Amis on a Yugoslav beach shows the slogan (written in lipstick by wife Hilary) on his back "1 Fat Englishman – I fuck anything." In one memoir, Amis wrote, "Now and then I become conscious of having
3913-510: The political right , a development he discussed in the essay "Why Lucky Jim Turned Right" (1967); his conservatism and anti-communism can be seen in works like the dystopian novel Russian Hide and Seek (1980). In 1967, Amis, Robert Conquest , John Braine , and several other authors signed a letter to The Times entitled "Backing for U.S. Policies in Vietnam", supporting the US government in
4004-433: The "swinging" atmosphere of late-1960s London, in which Amis certainly participated, though neither book is strictly autobiographical. Girl, 20 , for instance, is set in the world of classical (and pop) music, in which Amis had no part. The book's noticeable command of music terminology and opinion shows Amis's amateur devotion to music and almost journalistic capacity to explore a subject that interested him. That intelligence
4095-625: The Dreamy Pines Motor Court in The Spy Who Loved Me . Bond was a car enthusiast and took great interest in his vehicles. In Moonraker , Fleming writes that "Bond had once dabbled on the fringe of the racing world", implying Bond had raced in the past. Over the course of the 14 books, Bond owns three cars, all Bentleys. For the first three books of the series, Bond drives a supercharged 1930 Bentley 4½ Litre , painted battleship grey, that he bought in 1933. During
4186-627: The Golden Gun and Octopussy and The Living Daylights —were published posthumously. Fleming based his creation on a number of individuals which he came across during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, admitting that Bond "was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war". Among those types were his brother, Peter , whom Fleming worshipped and who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during
4277-510: The Net (praised), and William Empson 's Milton's God (inclined to agreement). Amis's opinions on books and people tended to appear, and often were, conservative, and yet, as the title essay of the collection shows, he was not merely reverent of "the classics" and of traditional morals, but more disposed to exercise his own rather independent judgement in all things. Amis became associated with Ian Fleming 's James Bond novels, which he admired, in
4368-684: The UK, and Bond was "the ideal antidote to Britain's postwar austerity, rationing and the looming premonition of lost power". This extravagance was more noteworthy with his contemporary readers for Bond eating exotic, local foods when abroad, at a time when most of his readership did not travel abroad. On 1 April 1958 Fleming wrote to The Manchester Guardian in defence of his work, referring to that paper's review of Dr. No . While referring to Bond's food and wine consumption as "gimmickery", Fleming bemoaned that "it has become an unfortunate trade-mark. I myself abhor Wine-and-Foodmanship. My own favourite food
4459-470: The War he kept the car in storage. He wrecks this car in May 1954 during the events of Moonraker . Bond subsequently purchases a Bentley Mark VI drophead coupé, using the money he won from Hugo Drax at Blades . This car is also painted battleship grey and has dark blue upholstery. Fleming refers to this car as a 1953 model, even though the last year for the mark was 1952. It is possible the 1953 year refers to
4550-622: The clubs near London. Moonraker , Chapter 1: Secret paper-work Only once in the series does Fleming have a partner for Bond in his flat, with the arrival of Tiffany Case , following Bond's mission to the US in Diamonds Are Forever . By the start of the following book, From Russia, With Love , Case has left to marry an American. Bond is married only once, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service , to Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo , but their marriage ends tragically when she
4641-439: The coachwork, which in this case would probably make it a Graber -bodied car. In Thunderball , Bond buys the wreck of a Bentley R-Type Continental with a sports saloon body and 4.5 L engine. Produced between 1952 and 1955, Bentley built 208 of these cars, 193 of which had H. J. Mulliner bodies. Bond's car would have been built before July 1954, as the engines fitted after this time were 4.9 L. Fleming curiously calls this car
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#17327728280524732-533: The cultural complexion of the United States, Amis had this to say: "I've finally worked out why I don't like Americans ... . Because everyone there is either a Jew or a hick." Amis himself described his antisemitism as "very mild". Amis's first, 15-year marriage was to Hilary Bardwell , the daughter of a civil servant, by whom he had two sons and one daughter: Philip Amis, a graphics designer; Martin Amis ,
4823-459: The demands of any cosmological scheme. Amis's religious views appear in a response reported in his Memoirs . To the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko 's question, "You atheist?", Amis replied, "It's more that I hate Him." During this time, Amis had not turned completely away from the comedic realism of Lucky Jim and Take a Girl Like You . I Want It Now (1968) and Girl, 20 (1971) both depict
4914-542: The downfall of the British Empire . He instead prefers to drink strong coffee. When in England and not on a mission, Bond dines as simply as Fleming did on dishes such as grilled sole, oeufs en cocotte and cold roast beef with potato salad . When on a mission, however, Bond eats more extravagantly. This was partly because in 1953, when Casino Royale was published, many items of food were still rationed in
5005-439: The first few pages [of Casino Royale ] Ian had introduced most of Bond's idiosyncrasies and trademarks", which included his looks, his Bentley and his smoking and drinking habits. The full details of Bond's martini were kept until chapter seven of the book and Bond eventually named it " The Vesper ", after his love interest Vesper Lynd . 'A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet .' 'Oui, monsieur.' 'Just
5096-412: The glass merchant Joseph James Amis, owned a mansion called Barchester at Purley , then part of Surrey . Amis considered J. J. Amis – always called "Pater" or "Dadda" – "a jokey, excitable, silly little man", whom he "disliked and was repelled by". His wife Julia "was a large, dreadful, hairy-faced creature ... whom [Amis] loathed and feared. His mother's parents lived at Camberwell . Her father George
5187-622: The heroine. With The Anti-Death League (1966), Amis begins to show some of the experimentation – in content, if not style – that marked much of his work in the 1960s and 1970s. His departure from the strict realism of his early comedic novels is not so abrupt as it might first appear. He had been avidly reading science fiction since a boy and developed that interest in the Christian Gauss Lectures of 1958, while visiting Princeton University . These were published that year as New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction , giving
5278-466: The improbability of the existence of any benevolent deity involved in human affairs. In The Anti-Death League , The Green Man , The Alteration and elsewhere, including poems such as "The Huge Artifice: an interim assessment" and "New Approach Needed", Amis showed frustration with a God who could lace the world with cruelty and injustice, and championed the preservation of ordinary human happiness – in family, in friendships, in physical pleasure – against
5369-553: The kind which also took small boys, before they became pubescent and dangerous", he then moved to nearby Norbury College. In 1940, the Amises moved to Berkhamsted , Hertfordshire , and Amis (like his father before him) won a scholarship to the City of London School . In April 1941, after his first year, he was admitted on a scholarship to St John's College, Oxford , where he read English. There he met Philip Larkin , with whom he formed
5460-484: The late 1960s, when he began composing critical works connected with Bond, either under a pseudonym or uncredited. In 1965, he wrote the popular James Bond Dossier under his own name. The same year, he wrote The Book of Bond , or, Every Man His Own 007 , a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual about being a sophisticated spy, under the pseudonym "Lt Col. William ('Bill') Tanner", Tanner being M's chief of staff in many of Fleming's novels. In 1968 Amis wrote Colonel Sun , which
5551-700: The life, charm and decline of his father. Amis was knighted in 1990. In August 1995 he fell, following a suspected stroke. After apparently recovering, he worsened and died on 22 October 1995 at St Pancras Hospital , London. He was cremated and his ashes laid to rest at Golders Green Crematorium . Amis is widely known as a comic novelist of life in mid- to late-20th-century Britain, but his literary work covered many genres – poetry, essays, criticism, short stories, food and drink, anthologies, and several novels in genres such as science fiction and mystery. His career initially developed in an inverse pattern to that of his close friend Philip Larkin . Before becoming known as
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#17327728280525642-456: The manuscript in just over a month, completing it on 18 March 1952. Describing the work as his "dreadful oafish opus", Fleming showed it to an ex-girlfriend, Clare Blanchard, who advised him not to publish it at all, but that if he did so, it should be under another name. Despite that advice, Fleming went on to write a total of twelve Bond novels and two short story collections before his death on 12 August 1964. The last two books— The Man with
5733-653: The most important friendship of his life. In June 1941, Amis joined the Communist Party of Great Britain . He broke with communism in 1956, in view of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev 's denunciation of Joseph Stalin in his speech " On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences ". In July 1942, he was called up for national service and served in the Royal Corps of Signals . He returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. Although he worked hard and earned
5824-635: The protagonist in The Lifeline , Mark Chalmers, and Bond have been highlighted by spy writer Nigel West . Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist Dr James Bond , an expert on Caribbean birds based at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies , first published in 1936. Fleming,
5915-422: The pseudonym Robert Markham), Sebastian Faulks , Jeffery Deaver and William Boyd . Additionally, a series of novels based on Bond's youth— Young Bond —was written by Charlie Higson and later Stephen Cole . As a spin-off from the original literary work, Casino Royale , a television adaptation was made, " Casino Royale ", in which Bond was depicted as an American agent. A comic strip series also ran in
6006-524: The reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time". He suggests this reflects a naïve tendency in readers to apply the behaviour of his characters to himself. He enjoyed drink and spent a good deal of time in pubs. Hilary Rubinstein , who accepted Lucky Jim for Victor Gollancz , commented, "I doubted whether Jim Dixon would have gone to the pub and drunk ten pints of beer.... I didn't know Kingsley very well, you see." Clive James commented: "All on his own, he had
6097-561: The same name (or similar names). If an internal link incorrectly led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commander_Bond&oldid=1214493791 " Category : Set index articles Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata All set index articles Monitored short pages James Bond (literary character) Commander James Bond CMG RNVR
6188-498: The science-fiction anthology series Spectrum I–V, which drew heavily upon 1950s numbers of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction . Though not explicitly science fiction, The Anti-Death League takes liberties with reality not found in Amis's earlier novels. It introduces a speculative bent that continued to develop in others of his genre novels, such as The Green Man (1969) (mystery/horror) and The Alteration (1976) ( alternative history ). Much of this speculation concerned
6279-462: The start of Live and Let Die , Bond has had a skin graft to hide the scars. In Fleming's stories, Bond is in his mid-to-late thirties, but does not age. In Moonraker , he admits to being eight years shy of mandatory retirement age from the 00 section—45—which would mean he was 37 at the time. Fleming did not provide Bond's date of birth, but John Pearson 's fictional biography of Bond, James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 , gives him
6370-464: The tales of Bond's actions, led journalist Yuri Zhukov to write an article in 1965 for the Soviet daily newspaper Pravda , describing Bond's values: James Bond lives in a nightmarish world where laws are written at the point of a gun, where coercion and rape are considered valour and murder is a funny trick ... Bond's job is to guard the interests of the property class, and he is no better than
6461-399: The troubled grandee came to disapprove of his own conduct." His friend Christopher Hitchens said: "The booze got to him in the end, and robbed him of his wit and charm as well as of his health." Amis had an unclear relationship with antisemitism , which he sometimes expressed but also claimed to dislike. He occasionally speculated on the commonly advanced Jewish stereotypes. Antisemitism
6552-470: The war. Aside from Fleming's brother, a number of others also provided some aspects of Bond's make up, including Conrad O'Brien-ffrench , a skiing spy whom Fleming had met in Kitzbühel in the 1930s, Patrick Dalzel-Job , who served with distinction in 30 AU during the war, and Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale , station head of MI6 in Paris, who wore cuff-links and handmade suits and was chauffeured around Paris in
6643-473: The weekly drinks bill of a whole table at the Garrick Club even before he was elected. After he was, he would get so tight there that he could barely make it to the taxi." But Amis was adamant that inspiration did not come from a bottle: "Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work." This matched a disciplined approach to writing. For "many years" Amis imposed
6734-489: The writers known as the Angry Young Men . Lucky Jim was among the first British campus novels , setting a precedent for later generations of writers such as Malcolm Bradbury , David Lodge , Tom Sharpe and Howard Jacobson . As a poet, Amis was associated with The Movement . In 1958–1959 Amis made the first of two visits to the United States, as visiting fellow in creative writing at Princeton University and
6825-413: The youths Hitler boasted he would bring up like wild beasts to be able to kill without thinking. Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis CBE (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist , poet , critic and teacher . He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism . He
6916-613: Was Fleming) by Hannes Oberhauser, who is later killed in " Octopussy ". Bond joined the Secret Service in 1938–as described by a Russian dossier about him in From Russia, with Love . He spent two months in 1939 at the Monte Carlo Casino watching a Romanian group cheating before he and the Deuxième Bureau closed them down. Bond's obituary in You Only Live Twice states that he joined "a branch of what
7007-516: Was No. 30, and the latter No. 25. His flat is looked after by an elderly Scottish housekeeper named May . May's name was taken from May Maxwell, the housekeeper of Fleming's close friend, the American Ivar Bryce. In 1955 Bond earned around £2,000 a year net (equivalent to £66,000 in 2023); although when on assignment, he worked on an unlimited expense account. Much of Fleming's own daily routine while working at The Sunday Times
7098-436: Was an enthusiastic collector of books and Baptist chapel organist who was employed at a Brixton gentleman's outfitters as a tailor's assistant, being "the only grandparent [Amis] cared for". Amis hoped to inherit much of his grandfather's library, but his grandmother Jemima – whom Amis already disliked for her habit of mocking her husband when he read his favourite passages to Amis, making "faces and gestures at him while his head
7189-411: Was being filmed in Jamaica and was influenced by the casting of Scottish actor Sean Connery to give Bond Scottish ancestry. It was not until the penultimate novel, You Only Live Twice , that Fleming gave Bond a more complete sense of family background, using a fictional obituary, purportedly from The Times . The novel reveals Bond’s parents were Andrew Bond, of Glencoe , and Monique Delacroix, of
7280-421: Was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, [James Bond] is the dullest name I ever heard. — Ian Fleming, The New Yorker , 21 April 1962 On another occasion Fleming said: "I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers'. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be
7371-403: Was different from the others. Bond is a heavy smoker, at one point smoking 70 cigarettes a day. Bond has his cigarettes custom-made by Morland of Grosvenor Street, mixing Balkan and Turkish tobacco and having a higher nicotine content than normal; the cigarettes have three gold bands on the filter. Bond carried his cigarettes in a wide gunmetal cigarette case which carried fifty; he also used
7462-504: Was having an affair with the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard . Hilary and Amis separated in August and he went to live with Howard, divorcing Hilary and marrying Howard in 1965. In 1968 he moved with Howard to Lemmons , a house in Barnet, north London. She and Amis divorced in 1983. In his last years, Amis shared a house with Hilary and her third husband, Alastair Boyd, 7th Baron Kilmarnock . Martin's memoir Experience contains much about
7553-440: Was lowered to the page" – permitted him to take only five volumes, on condition he wrote "from his grandfather's collection" on the flyleaf of each. Amis was raised at Norbury – in his later estimation "not really a place, it's an expression on a map ... really I should say I came from Norbury station ." Having been educated first at St Hilda's, an "undistinguished, long-vanished local school ... an independent girls' school of
7644-476: Was one of the factors that led to the US entering the war. Facially, Bond resembles the composer, singer and actor Hoagy Carmichael . In Casino Royale , Vesper Lynd remarks, "Bond reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless." Likewise, in Moonraker , Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is "certainly good-looking ... Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in
7735-550: Was published to great acclaim. Critics felt it had caught the flavour of Britain in the 1950s and ushered in a new style of fiction. By 1972, its impressive sales in Britain had been matched by 1.25 million paperback copies sold in the United States. It was translated into 20 languages, including Polish, Hebrew , Korean, and Serbo-Croat. The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction and Amis became one of
7826-552: Was published under the pseudonym " Robert Markham ". Amis's literary style and tone changed significantly after 1970, with the possible exception of The Old Devils , a Booker Prize winner. Several critics found him old-fashioned and misogynistic. His Stanley and the Women , an exploration of social sanity, could be said to instance these traits. Others said that his output lacked his earlier work's humanity, wit and compassion. This period also saw Amis as an anthologist, displaying
7917-532: Was sometimes present in his conversations and letters to friends and associates, such as "The great Jewish vice is glibness, fluency ... also possibly just bullshit, as in Marx , Freud , Marcuse ", or " Chaplin [who was not Jewish] is a horse's arse. He's a Jeeeew you see, like the Marx Brothers , like Danny Kaye ." It is a minor theme in his Stanley and the Women novel about a paranoid schizophrenic. As for
8008-555: Was subsequently to become the Ministry of Defence " in 1941, where he rose to the rank of principal officer. The same year he became a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve , ending the war as a commander. At the start of Fleming's first book, Casino Royale , Bond is already a 00 agent, having been given the position after killing two enemy agents, a Japanese spy on the thirty-sixth floor of
8099-550: Was the father of the novelist Martin Amis . Kingsley Amis was born on 16 April 1922 in Clapham , south London, the only child of William Robert Amis (1889–1963), a clerk – "quite an important one, fluent in Spanish and responsible for exporting mustard to South America" – for the mustard manufacturer Colman's in the City of London , and his wife Rosa Annie (née Lucas). The Amis grandparents were wealthy. William Amis's father,
8190-480: Was widely perceived as part of the Angry Young Men movement of the 1950s, in reacting against stultification of conventional British life, although Amis never encouraged this interpretation. Amis's other novels of the 1950s and early 1960s likewise depict contemporary situations drawn from his experience. That Uncertain Feeling (1955) features a young provincial librarian (perhaps with an eye to Larkin working as
8281-456: Was woven into the Bond stories, and he summarised it at the beginning of Moonraker : ... elastic office hours from around ten to six; lunch, generally in the canteen; evenings spent playing cards in the company of a few close friends, or at Crockford's ; or making love, with rather cold passion, to one of three similarly disposed married women; weekends playing golf for high stakes at one of
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