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| Ian Fleming's own sketch of James Bond (Wikipedia) |
Note: No fictional spy is more famous than the debonair "Bond. James Bond," former spy Ian Fleming's masterful creation.
Get Ready: Have you seen a James Bond movie? Did you know the movies were based on a series of novels?
In 1953, former British spy (well, "naval intelligence officer") Ian Fleming published Casino Royale, the first of his 12 novels (plus two books of short stories) featuring a character who introduced himself as "Bond. James Bond." Since Fleming's death in 1964, over 35 novels by other authors have featured the man with a "license to kill" and the code number 007 ("double-oh-seven").
In 1962, the sixth novel in Fleming's series--Dr. No--was made into the first James Bond film, and starred Sean Connery. Connery made a total of seven Bond films; since then, six other men have played the role, and there's talk of a future Bond being a woman.
So who exactly is James Bond? He's a public servant in his mid-to-late thirties, who never seems to age. Born in Scotland of a Scottish father and a Swiss mother, as a boy he spent time abroad, where he learned German and French. He was orphaned at age 11 when his parents died in a mountain climbing accident, and he then lived with an aunt.
He joined the secret service around age 18--shortly before the start of World War II--and rose in the ranks of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, ending the war as a commander. (In the films he is sometimes addressed as "Commander Bond.") The story in Fleming's first book starts around this time.
The adult Bond lives alone in London (except for a short time in the fourth novel, Diamonds Are Forever, when a woman named Tiffany Case shares his flat). He is married once, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (the 11th book), but very briefly: his bride is killed on their wedding day by one of Bond's nemeses, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Bond also fathers a child with a Japanese pearl diver. While he is living with her undercover, he suffers amnesia, and really believes that he is a fisherman. She doesn't tell him about the child before he leaves to find his true identity.
The film version of Bond is smirky, gadget-loving, and debonair. Fleming’s version is more staid. He wanted his character--and the name--to be dull: "Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure." He couldn't imagine that his creation's name would become synonymous with the "international man of mystery."
--------- Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond
- Borrow Casino Royale, the first James Bond book, FREE online (free registration at Archive.org required)
Practice: Match the term to its definition below:
- amnesia
- debonair
- exotic
- gadget
- nemeses
- orphaned
- smirky
- staid
- synonymous
- undercover
- having sophisticated charm
- loss of memory
- a device
- attractively foreign
- serious; boring
- using a different identity
- smiling offensively
- meaning the same as
- left without parents
- long-term enemies
Answers are in the first comment below.
Submitted to the Shenzhen Daily for June 10, 2022
Answers to the Practice: 1. b; 2. a; 3. d; 4. c; 5. j; 6. i; 7. g; 8. e; 9. h; 10. f
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