That’s the Neat Thing About Fiction

James Bond: Alcoholic.

Vodka martini, “shaken not stirred” – often said as part of a bad Sean Connery impersonation – is one of the most quotable lines from Bond.

Yet Her Majesty’s top secret agent’s love of the bottle would leave him impotent and at death’s door.

Doctors analysing the Ian Fleming novels show James Bond polishes off the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine every day.
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“He’s a very glamorous person, he gets all the girls and that’s totally incompatible with the lifestyle of an alcoholic.”

Patrick Davies paediatric intensive care consultant

They say he is not the man to trust to deactivate a nuclear bomb.

Doctors in Derby and Nottingham sat down to read the 14 Bond novels in their spare time.

With a notebook at hand they charted every day and every drink.

Excluding the 36 days Bond was in prison, hospital or rehab, the spy downed 1,150 units of alcohol in 88 days.

It works out at 92 units a week – about five vodka martinis a day and four times the recommended maximum intake for men in the UK.

James Bond also Smoked like a chimney, at three-and-a-half packs of smokes a day in the Flemming Novels. The later iterations of Bond by more contemporary novelists have turned Bond’s drinking, smoking, and drug use down to reflect the times. In Carte Blanche the post 9-11 007 is not a non-smoker, and while he enjoys a stiff drink a little more than the next guy, he doesn’t seem to be dropping the stuff as madly as the Flemming books suggest.

Also all one needs to do is look at images Flemming commissioned, and how Bond is described in the books. Tall, lean, with dark hair and sharp features, really James Bond is a idealized Ian Flemming. Both of them share similar paths, and worked as a spy. Bond first was seen carrying a Beretta .25 because that’s what Flemming carried on his intelligence work. If Flemming wanted to go the plastic surgery route and correct his more unattractive features, I would be amazed if he didn’t choose to change his face to look more like that of James Bond.

Of course Flemming’s work in the military wasn’t nearly as exciting as Bond’s because Flemming was a real man. Also Flemming was a well-documented drunk and was almost always seen with a lit cigarette. Flemming died from complications of too much smoke and drink.

James Bond meanwhile gets shot, stabbed, and tortured on an alarmingly frequent schedule, and keeps bouncing back. That’s why its called “Fantasy”.

Of course this is a greatly common instance. We have stories of massive accountant who is also a skilled shooter fighting monsters.

We have a retired air force marine engineer who is tall, with dark hair and green eyes who carries a 1911 and loves classic cars.

I was going to type more, but I could spend all day talking about pulp novelists who write about characters who could be considered idealized versions of themselves. James Bond is no different.

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5 Responses to That’s the Neat Thing About Fiction

  1. Eck! says:

    I read that kind of stuff when I need to enjoy a bit of separation from the world and choose to partake if suspension of disbelief.

    With that all I can say is… Is fiction!

    but its fun.

    Eck!

    • Weerd Beard says:

      Yep, fiction makes EVERYTHING more exciting than reality. Look at the Rocky Movies! We have heavyweight fights where more punches are landed in the first round than in 12 rounds of every fight in history.

      Look at cop movies. Most officers never draw their weapon for an entire career. Those that do draw rarely fire. Those that fire rarely hit anything, and those that do actually kill a suspect, that will likely be the only kill in their career. Meanwhile Detectives Murtaugh and Riggs have a higher body count than the battle of Fallujah!

      Back when I was still entertaining the idea of a side career in writing fiction (I’ve since settled for writing non-fiction on this website) I thought about making a story about a lawful Conceal Carry person who had adventures. The idea being a fun pulp-novel that also painted the lawful “Sheepdog” types in a positive light.

      Unfortunately I couldn’t come up with a premise that didn’t involve SUPER unrealistic circumstances, or a character who was the type of vigilante that I despise. Hell I loved the movie “Gran Torino”, but let’s face it, Walt is an asshole who commits multiple violent felonies before the film’s close. Made for a good story, but not a story I’d like to write or stand behind.

      Probably the biggest issue is that my life is pretty boring, and I like it that way, so I don’t picture what it might be like if my life was more exciting. Hell when I was out to sea, 90% of my life was STUPID boring. That 10% of the time when things got exciting, I was praying things would get boring again soon.

  2. TS says:

    Still, Sterling Archer would drink 007 under the table.

  3. Waldo says:

    Give Roughneck by Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me, Population 1280, The Getaway) a spin sometime, it’s semi-autobiographical and a fun read. Also, bear in mind that Dashiell Hammett was a Pinkerton for a few years, but was a good enough author to know that nobody wanted to read a realistic detective novel in which the protagonist sits through numerous stake-outs where nothing at all happens. Pulp fiction is escapist fantasy, sometimes both for the author and the reader, and for that reason it makes for great entertainment. If you want to read a surprisingly candid and unvarnished autobiography of a pulp author, I’d recommend James Ellroy’s My Dark Places.

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