The World of Bond and Maigret E-Book

Ian Fleming

• Herausgeber: ERIS
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: ERIS Gems
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 19

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

"I invent the most hopeless sounding plots; very often they are based on something I've read in a newspaper. And people say, 'Oh, this is all nonsense'—and then the Russians come along in Germany and shoot people with potassium cyanide pistols."Between them, Ian Fleming and Georges Simenon created two of the best-known heroes of modern fiction. In this illuminating dialogue, the authors who gave us James Bond and Jules Maigret discuss (among other things) their approaches to the craft of writing, the origins of their characters' names, and the critical reception of their novels. It is essential reading for admirers of either man's work.

Leseprobe

THE ENSUING DIALOGUE BETWEEN Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, and Georges Simenon, creator of Jules Maigret, had gone to press when the sad news came of Fleming’s death. This, their only meeting, was arranged and recorded by Gordon Young.

Fleming’s low-slung black Avanti—black leather upholstery, crimson-lettered dials on its dashboard, a top speed of 220 m.p.h.—had just driven up to the ancient Château d’Echandens outside Lausanne.

The talk takes place in Simenon’s study. High-vaulted castle windows look out on a quiet park; white walls are sparsely decorated with a few family photographs and a painting by Fernand Léger. Simenon, young at sixty, sits back at his desk in a white open-necked silk shirt and flannel trousers. The fifty-five-year-old Fleming, ostentatiously casual, in a crumpled gray sports shirt and black woolen cardigan, looks like Bond on a holiday. Perched on a stool is Denise, Simenon’s French-Canadian wife.

FLEMING I read your first books in 1939 on my way to Moscow. I stopped in either Amsterdam or The Hague and there on the bookstall was a whole collection of those very good jackets you had in those days, those graphic jackets. I bought three or four to take to Moscow, and I absolutely adored them. And I think, of course, that if it hadn’t been for those jackets I probably shouldn’t have bought them for years. I think jackets are very important for books. But the publishers don’t seem to think so.

SIMENON Oh, yes, now they care a lot about jackets, especially in America. They study a jacket for weeks, sometimes, and try five, six, seven jackets.

FLEMING Do they give you a chance to comment on your jackets?

SIMENON They give me the chance, but I don’t bother. I never care about a book when it’s finished.

FLEMING Really? Don’t you mind the way it appears and how it’s printed?

SIMENON Not at all.

FLEMING Oh, I’m very keen on that.

SIMENON As soon as the book is out of this room, I don’t care about it.

FLEMING What about correcting? I mean who does the correcting for you? Does your publisher correct and then send corrections back to you and suggest things or not?

SIMENON No.

FLEMING Nobody does?

SIMENON No.

FLEMING I find I make stupid mistakes which they correct for me.

SIMENON My publisher has not the right to change a comma—not even to suggest to change a comma.

FLEMING