RECALLING BOND

When the movie was your imagination.

I wasn’t a big reader as a kid, I’m sad to say. But there was one book series I spent money on, even if it was a relative pittance by today’s standards.

I’m talking about the James Bond books. Before there were movies, there were paperbacks (I couldn’t afford the hardcover editions). So here I am in old age, and I’m thinking: why not take another look at 007?

So I take advantage of the Peoria Public Library’s computer ordering system. That allows you to summon up books from surrounding libraries when they don’t have the title you want in-house.

I find a few different Bond things, including two volumes of newspaper comics that ran in the British press. Reducing Ian Fleming’s stories down to three panels a day seems like the long way around what I found to be fast-moving tales, but I thought they might be worth a look. I also ordered a copy of Fleming’s Diamonds Are Forever.

Imagine my surprise when I turned up at the downtown library to claim my prizes and found that the Bond novel exactly as I remembered it: a colorful Signet paperback from the 1960s priced at 50 cents with Ian Fleming’s name dominant on the cover. Upon opening, I found a post-it note with the warning, “Handle with care! Well Worn & Old!” That message coming from the library in Blandinsville (75 miles west of Peoria) that apparently carries old paperbacks.

No kidding. To riffle these pages, you’d have confetti. I decided to take my satisfaction from just holding a reminder of the past in my hand. No need to read it.

After all, the Bond legend is old news, by now. Let’s run the reel: “Bond. James Bond.” “No, Mr. Bond, it’s supposed to kill you.” “Shaken not stirred.”

How about some of the characters? You know them without explanation: M, Miss Moneypenny, Q, Felix Leiter, Oddjob.

What marked a Bond novel? Exotic locations, games of chance (anyone for chemin de fer?), specific brands of liquor and tobacco (Moreland cigarettes?), women with distinctive names (Solitaire, Tiffany Case, and, of course, Pussy Galore), international criminal organizations (SPECTRE, SMERSH), and loads of intrigue (certainly in the mind of a 14-year-old boy).

That Signet paperback, by the way, had the standard little bio of Fleming on the back cover. He’s pictured brandishing a pistol in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Fleming died at age 56 in August 1964, just as the tidal wave of Bond movie mania was coming to shore.

Subsequent books have explored Ian’s own life in some depth, but I think brother Peter probably deserves more attention as someone even more actively involved in international subterfuge than old Ian was.

The other part of my library score was the collection of comic strips. They were okay, although they didn’t exactly hold me spellbound. In one of them, the preface was written by Tania Mallet, the woman who played Tilly Masterson in Goldfinger, the girl who sought to avenge the death of her sister, painted gold. The preface was headed, “Notes from a Bond Girl,” yet another reminder of the many aspects of the Bond legend.

Bond’s enduring success is largely due to the film series even though the top shows, in my mind, were all made in the 1960s. I can’t imagine a lot of folks still read Fleming these days (they are a little dated), now that the movies have blown the whole thing up so big.

It annoyed me that my stepfather, Princeton-educated and a man who fancied himself as well-read, denigrated Fleming’s style back in the day. It reminded me of the people who couldn’t abide the Beatles when they first became sensations. Some people just don’t like something when it becomes popular. He was always pushing me to read The Hobbit instead, a book I resisted for years due to his insistence.

I’ll take the paperback back to the library (carefully) and return the comic strips. There may be some folks who want to read about a spy before he became so well known.