UBC #2: Goldfinger

[truepenny]

UBC #2:
Fleming, Ian. Goldfinger. 1959. Introd. Anthony Burgess. London: Coronet-Hodder & Stoughton, 1989.

omg I am so not the intended audience for this book.

Entirely leaving aside the racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and rampant bigotry, this is a book for people (unlike Mr. Fleming, I will not assume all of them are male) who like sports. Sports and cars and card games. Things you can win at. Things that make you feel macho.

And yet.

I did get caught up in the story, ridiculous as it is. Fleming made me, for the first time in my life, care about golf. He even made me understand golf, at least a little bit. And he writes lines like, "Mr. Springer had the glazed eyes of someone who is either very rich or very dead." So while there are things deeply, deeply wrong with the world view of this book, although it is as dated as a pint of whipping cream that's been in the back of the fridge long enough to develop an ecosystem and primitive culture, it was an enjoyable read.

There are still paragraphs that hurt, though. I won't quote them, because they are just brutally offensive, but trust me. I noticed. You'd notice, too. If James Bond survives much farther into the twenty-first century, it's going to be the movies that carry him, because in the movies, he can shed the baggage given him by his creator.

Comments

[floatingtide.livejournal.com]

Last time my grandmother visited she read, and left behind, an old Ellery Queen book. The King is Dead, if I'm remembering right. It was hideously compelling in similar ways.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm very fond of Ellery Queen, although I'm not going to leap to their (Lee and Dannay's) defense. They're dated, just as Fleming is dated.

[floatingtide.livejournal.com]

I think I find books that are dated or very foreign to be in some ways easier to read for enjoyment. In part because I feel like they've outlived any need to be defended. They are what they are. I don't mind unless the indefensible ranting is -really- bad, and even then it's interesting.

It's not my culture to live in or try to change.

I read Moby Dick recently. Though it's dripping with racism by modern standards, I had the impression it was scandalously liberal for its time -- much like Twain's Huckleberry Finn -- and the antique racist fight aginst racism was really fun.

I didn't have the same distance from that Ellery Queen book, but only because it was my grandmothers. She was/is a superhero fighter for equality and justice, and of course lived right in the middle of times when the opinions in these books were the norm.

She picked it up as an action-packed airplane book, but I ended up fasinated on many more levels than were intended.