Mister 8

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

I must admit that I thought we’d have about 20 posts overall in this series, so I’m very delighted that we’re on File 015 and haven’t even gotten to the films yet! I’m also fairly happy that we’ve stayed on schedule, but want to warn you that posts might be delayed or even non-existent over this weekend as my wife and I travel to Chattanooga, TN (home of the famed Choo-Choo, and Rock Mountain!)  to see my wife’s sister get married. I’m taking the notebook PC with me, and let’s keep our fingers crossed that the hotel has a wireless connection, but the real issue might be having time to post.

In any case, let’s proceed with the second of our series on areas where Bond/Palmer and Fleming/Deighton cross-over, shall we? Much of today’s post is taken from an enlightening conversation at the wonderful James Bond fan/news site Commander Bond.net, where, in a forum post, the user Silhouette Man asks the question:

In the 2000 Updated edition of ‘The Bond Files’ by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson, there is a piece which states that Fleming and Deighton had discussed co- ordinating their novels together. Here is the quote from page 394,

“Fleming enjoyed Deighton’s books, and once suggested (perhaps not entirely in jest) that they co-ordinate their books so that Bond was disparaging about ‘Palmer’ and ‘Palmer’ returned the favour at more or less the same time.”

Now I’ve never read this anywhere else and I was wondering whether anyone else at CBn knew any more. In Lycett’s biography it said that when Fleming was ill he returned Deighton’s ‘Funeral in Berlin’ when he was asked to review it.

User Atticus17 kindly obliges by reproducing the essay “Rendezvous with the Man From the IPCRESS File” from the book For Bond Lovers Only (my laziness led to my finding this series of posts — originally, I was just going to type up the account for you all, but I decided to Google to see if someone else had done the work for me!). This was written by Peter Evans, the journalist and friend of Deighton’s whom I’m sure you remember from The Truth About Len Deighton, and who was one of the first to interview Deighton even before the success of The IPCRESS File.

He selected a cigarette, placed it in his ebony holder and lit it with a gold lighter. It was all done with the studied rhythm of a man playing for time while thinking of exactly what to say.

“I look forward to meeting this fellow,” Ian Fleming said finally, tilting his head toward the ceiling and gently blowing smoke after his words.

With one finger he pushed aside the curtains of the private room over the restaurant not very far from Tottenham Court Road and looked down into the street.

“Yes, indeed,” he said after another long moment, “it should be a most fascinating encounter. Even perhaps memorable.”

Indeed. For the missing guest was Mr. Len Deighton, the author whose first spy book, The IPCRESS File, had made him the biggest threat to the suave Mr. Fleming and his equally suave hero James Bond since SMERSH.

Deighton’s unnamed agent has been acclaimed by the critics, snapped up by Bond’s own publishers, Jonathan Cape, and signed by the same producers who filmed Doctor No.

What is even more fascinating is that where Mr. Fleming is reputed partly to have modelled Agent 007 on himself, so Deighton’s fumbling, cheapskate hero has more than a touch of his illustrious creator.

Mr. Fleming, who himself nominated The IPCRESS File among the “Books of the Year”, said: “I simply have to meet him, you know. It is important to know the kind of fellow you are up against.”

Some fifteen minutes late, Deighton arrived — an untidy man in one of those 1963 suits with the 1957 price tags. He made it look lumpy. On his cufflinks were colour pictures of Littlehampton. He is a man who looks in a perpetual state of surprise.

“This is a bit posh, isn’t it?” he said, shaking Fleming’s hand. “They very nearly didn’t let me in downstairs.”

Mr. Fleming arranged his face into a bleak smile. “It is rather a pleasant little restaurant,” he said, searching his rival’s face like a map-reader searching for a bearing.

There was the kind of sharp silence that occurs in the first round of a boxing match, when the crowd is waiting for the first punch to be thrown.

Mr. Fleming got up. “My favourite restaurant is Scotts, actually. Almost got arrested there during the war, as a matter of fact. They suspected I was a German spy. Awfully amusing.

“I was working for Intelligence and giving some U-Boat commander a slap-up lunch. The idea was to pump him full of scotch and stuff, then pump him for information. Cost about £25 AND the blighter didn’t talk. Saw right through it, obviously,” Fleming admitted pleasantly.

“Anyway, the waiters heard us yapping away in German and in no time we were surrounded by police. I got a most frightful rocket when I got back to my office.”

Deighton’s head began to rock slowly backwards and forwards, as if mesmerised by Mr. Fleming’s story.

“You were in intelligence yourself, weren’t you?” Mr. Fleming put the question across like an angry schoolmaster who has caught one of his pupils dozing.

“Yes. Air Intelligence,” admitted Deighton.

“I guessed as much,” said Mr. Fleming, a look of satisfaction seeping over his face like a blush. “You get pretty near the knuckle in some parts, I must say. Anyway, I realised you knew what you were talking about — as indeed I do.”

“Your next book,” said Deighton slowly, “is set in Japan.”

“Correct,” said Mr. Fleming, his face a mask. “It’s called You Only Die Twice. I’ve just been to Tokyo actually. Ran over on the old willow pattern route. Very jolly. Sake and kimonos and all that damn bowing amuses me enormously. Ever been to Tokyo?”

“Yes,” said Deighton.

“Fly?”

“BOAC,” said Deighton.

“Pleasant?”

“I was a steward,” said Deighton.

Again that circling, first-round silence. “I have a rotten feeling,” said Deighton moodily, “that my car’s going to be towed away.”

“What do you drive, old boy?” asked Mr. Fleming, perhaps sensing a common bond in cars.

“A beaten up old Volkswagen actually,” said Deighton, adding brightly, “but I’ve installed a telephone. Yours?”

“I’ve just got one of those new Studebaker Avantes. Nought to 60 in 4.5 seconds, 175 miles an hour with four passengers up. Supercharged, of course. I must say I adore it,” said Fleming.

Silence. Then; “You know what we should do?” asked Mr. Fleming suddenly. “We should start a running joke in our books. Like those chaps Crosby and Hope. I’ll get Bond to knock your chap — you really should give him a name, you know — and you can get him to tear the hell out of Bond.”

“Super,” said Deighton. “I’d love to knock Bond. You remind me of him in many ways.”

A thin smile traced across Mr. Fleming’s face. “Really? Well, I do identify myself with him in a few things.”

Mr. Fleming smiled a sad smile. “But of course Bond has a far better digestion than I have, and his prowess with women is considerably greater than mine, unfortunately. Needless to say, he has more guts.”

Deighton asked: “Do you honestly like Bond?”

Mr. Fleming thought about this question for a minute, then: “I began by disliking him intensely. I’ve grown to like him. To be honest, I think your fellow is rather more solid — indeed, Bond is often quite cardboard — but I have put him through so much it would be too disloyal not to like him now.”

It was, as Mr. Fleming predicted, a most fascinating encounter.

The user spynovelfan follows up with an extended selection from An Expensive Place to Die, which we wrote about yesterday:

On a staircase, a wedge of people were embracing, laughing like advertising photos. At the bar, a couple of English photographers were talking in cockney and an English writer was explaining James Bond.

A waiter put four glasses full of ice cubes and a half-bottle of Johnnie Walker on the table before us. ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

The waiter turned away without answering. Two Frenchmen at the bar began to argue with the English writer and a bar stool fell over. The noise wasn’t loud enough for anyone to notice. On the dance floor a girl in a shiny plastic suit was swearing at a man who had burned a hole in it with his cigarette. I heard the English writer behind me say, ‘But I have always immensely adored violence. His violence is his humanity. Unless you understand that you understand nothing.’ He wrinkled his nose and smiled. One of the Frenchmen replied, ‘He suffers in translation.’ The photographer was clicking his fingers in time to the music. ‘Don’t we all?’ said the English writer, and looked around.

Byrd said, ‘Shocking noise.’

‘Don’t listen,’ I said.

‘What?’ said Byrd.

The English writer was saying ‘…a violent Everyman in a violent but humdrum…’ he paused, ‘but humdrum world.’ He nodded agreement to himself. ‘Let me remind you of Baudelaire. There’s a sonnet that begins…’

‘So this bird wants to get out of the car…’ one of the photographers was saying.

‘Speak a little more quietly,’ said the English writer. ‘I’m going to recite a sonnet.’

‘Belt up,’ said the photographer over his shoulder. ‘This bird wanted to get out of the car…’

‘Baudelaire,’ said the writer. ‘Violent, macabre and symbolic.’

‘You leave bollicks out of this,’ said the photographer, and his friend laughed. The writer put a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Look my friend…’ The photographer planted a right jab into his solar plexus without spilling the drink he was holding. The writer folded up like a deckchair and hit the floor. A waiter grabbed towards the photographer, but stumbled over the English writer’s inert body.

‘Look here,’ said Byrd, and a passing waiter turned so that the half-bottle of whisky and the four glasses of ice were knocked over. Someone aimed a blow at the photographer’s head. Byrd got to his feet saying quietly and reasonably, ‘You spilled the drink on the floor. Dash me, you’d better pay for it. Only thing to do. Damned rowdies.’ The waiter pushed Byrd violently and he fell back and disappeared among the densely packed dancers. Two or three people began to punch each other. A wild blow took me in the small of the back, but the attacker had moved on. I got both shoulder-blades rested against the nearest piece of wall and braced the sole of my right foot for leverage. One of the photographers came my way, but he kept going and wound up grappling with a waiter. There was a scuffle going on at the top of the staircase, and then violence traveled through the place like a flash flood. Everyone was punching everyone, girls were screaming and the music seemed to be even louder than before. A man hurried a girl along the corridor past me. ‘It’s those English that make the trouble,’ he complained.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You look English.’

‘No, I’m Belgian,’ I said. He hurried after the girl…

Silhouette Man returns with a bit from The Len Deighton Companion (I’m still waiting for this one to arrive via inter-library loan):

I recently got the hold of a copy of THE LEN DEIGHTON COMPANION by Edward Milward-Oliver and in his interview with Deighton, he mentions that HORSE UNDER WATER was published by Jonathan Cape. Deighton responds, “That’s right. And that enraged some people, who claimed I was now going to be trained as the successor to Ian Fleming, who Cape also published.”

And Atticus returns with a rare photo of Deighton, Fleming, and cover designer Raymond Hawkey who worked on both of their novels (more on him later this week!):

Lots of nice historical background today, much more than I would have had to offer, had I not been so lazy! My thanks go to all who uploaded this info in the first place at Commander Bond!

Next up in this series: When Deighton wrote Bond.