Shaken, not stirred

Good a writer as Sebastian Faulks is, bringing Ian Fleming's hero back to life is a task that might daunt even James Bond himself.
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His word was his Bond: Lt-Cdr Patrick Dalzel-Job, the true-life original of Ian Fleming's hero.

My first reaction on hearing the news that Sebastian Faulks had been asked by the Ian Fleming estate to write a fresh James Bond novel was the same as any thriller writer. Why didn't they ask someone who handles twisty plots, high body counts and fetishistic gun lore in their novels? Someone like me. The last time they tried to get all literary, look what happened. We got Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis, a kind of Lucky Jim Bond.

My second reaction? Thank the Lord they didn't ask me. What a poisoned chalice. I have had a small taste of the whirlwind Sebastian will reap. My next novel features Lawrence of Arabia, another iconic Englishman, and I have already experienced the disapproval of devotees when I told them my TEL wouldn't be buggered by the Bey. That is as nothing compared to the deluge of double-0 fanatics who are about to engulf Faulks.

My third reaction was that it might be an inspired choice. I find Charlotte Gray anodyne (and she won the Bad Sex Award for him), but Faulks knows his second world war spycraft - Fleming's training ground - his louche heroes (see The Fatal Englishman) and has a suitably posh background (Wellington and Cambridge). His decision to go for the sixties and the post-glamour, burned-out husk the author left us with at the end of Man With the Golden Gun bodes well.

But just how wise is he to take on another man's creation? Personally, I don't have any problem with other people's characters taking on a new life under another pen, especially when it is done well. Think of Flashman. Who now recalls he once belonged to Thomas Hughes, not George MacDonald Fraser? Or the brilliant (graphic novel version) of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where it was a thrill to meet Allan Quatermain and Captain Nemo again.

The trouble is, Bond might just be too big for such a successful resurrection, having transcended even the original novels. Faulks will never actually own the character - the best he can hope for is stepfather - just as, no matter how hard they have tried, the scores of Sherlock Holmes continuists have never wrested him from Conan Doyle. Devil May Care is likely to be just another footnote in Bond's career, regardless of whether it is a milestone or millstone in Faulks'.

Even so, I wish Sebastian well, but I am still relieved not to have been asked. However, although the author is still alive, if anyone ever wants the further adventures of a chippy working-class secret agent (who gained a short mac, black-rimmed spectacles, and a name, for the movies), I'm your man.

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