Spike It!

On the ferry-ride, I've been spending too much time writing. Too much Output and not enough Input. I was starting to see the 30 minute break of the ferry-ride as work, too. I had to break the monotony or else the ferry-ride wouldn't be any fun, writing on the ferry wouldn't be any fun...nothing would be fun.

Plus, I'd stopped reading "Undaunted Courage." Funny, it was right at the point where Lewis met up with Clark, they'd enlisted a Corps of Discovery and were about to set off...and I stopped reading. I do this on vacations, too. I put it off and put it off. The actual travel happens later in the day and I'm lucky if I get where I want to go by nightfall. I have to convince myself to go. And now, here I am putting off reading about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. How dumb is that? (Well, not so dumb, really, as L and C were long-delayed getting started as well, it turns out)

So, I grab a book I can read fast. "Casino Royale." Ian Fleming's first James Bond story. Movie's coming out in November.* Easy, I can read that in a week of ferry-rides.

How about two days? I'd forgotten this is a slim book and not much happens. It's not an epic. The whole thing revolves around a night of cards. Boy Meets Girl. Boy Loses a Fortune. Boy Wins a Fortune. Boy Loses Girl. Girl Gets Kidnapped. Boy Follows Girl, Gets Captured and Gets Pee-pee Whacked. Girl Feels Guilty. It All Ends Horribly. That's it. Bond doesn't fire a shot (except in flashback). No world domination. No villains in a volcano. Cards. And chermin de fer, at that.

But there is Fleming's exact detail about everything. Like that martini...

“My name’s Felix Leiter,” said the American. “Glad to meet you.”
“Mine’s Bond---James Bond.”
“Oh yes,” said his companion. “And now, let’s see. What shall we have to celebrate?”
Bond insisted on ordering Leiter’s Haig-and-Haig “on the rocks” and then he looked carefully at the barman.
“A dry martini,” he said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
“Just 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 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 very large and very strong and very cold and very well made.” P. 045 © Glidrose Publications Ltd., 1953

And very repetitious. On an episode of “The West Wing,” President Bartlett confessed that James Bond confused him—“He orders a watered-down drink and gets all SNOOTY about it.”

Bond weighs in.

“You must forgive me,” he said. “I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and
drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking
a lot of trouble over details. It’s very pernickety and old-maidish really, but
then when I’m working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them
more interesting when one takes trouble.” P.055 © Glidrose Publications Ltd.,
1953

Great. So he names the martini for the woman in the book, so every time he orders his favorite drink...well, I can't tell you. It's fast-paced, extraordinarily un-PC, in a way that makes folks who fancy themselves politically incorrect...uncomfortable (or should), and Bond, freshly double-0'd, spends an entire chapter talking himself into quitting, and then...he's locked in forever. He's still a human being in this one, albeit as misogynistic as all 'git-out--it'll be the third one-- "Moonraker"--before he survives having the White Cliffs of Dover thrown down on him. Not everyone's cup of vodka.

So now, on up the Missouri.

*Update on 09/08/06 - The "teaser" has now been upgraded to a "trailer."
Here it is. The "Carmina Burana" version of "The James Bond Theme" is a hoot.
I hope it's meant to be funny.