Thursday 15 November 2018

Old Friends

OK:

Holmes on Watson;
Poirot on Hastings;
M. on Ian Fleming;
van Rijn on Falkayn.

"...the good Watson had passed almost beyond my ken." (See here.)

"'You, my good, my honest, my oh so honourable Hastings - so kindly, so conscientious - so innocent!'"
-Agatha Christie, Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (Glasgow, 1980), POSTSCRIPT, p. 179.

M. writes that the publicity around some of James Bond's adventures:

"...made him, much against his will, something of a public figure, with the inevitable result that a series of popular books came to be written around him by a personal friend and former colleague of James Bond. If the quality of these books, or their degree of veracity, had been any higher, the author would certainly have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. It is a measure of the disdain in which these fictions are held at the Ministry, that action has not yet - I emphasize the qualification - been taken against the author and publisher of these high-flown and romanticized caricatures of episodes in the career of an outstanding public servant."
-Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice (London, 1966), 21, p. 180.

"'Ja! Ja! Friend! So nice, so kind, maybe so far-sighted - Who, what I thought of like a son, broke his oath of fealty to me? Who broke kinship?'"
-Poul Anderson, "Lodestar" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 631-682 AT p. 680.

I noticed a similarity between Poirot's and van Rijn's words, then had to include Holmes and M. as well. Fleming is clever: Bond has indeed become "...something of a public figure..." but because of the books, then the films, and the poor "...veracity..." covers the many inconsistencies.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

M's comments about the Bond stories and how they were sufficiently "jumbled" that it was not thought necessary to invoke the Official Secrets Act reminded me of this bit from the last of Sterling Lanier's Brigadier Ffellowes tales: "The Brigadier In Check--And Mate" (pages 190-91 of THE CURIOUS QUESTS OF BRIGADIER FFELLOWES): "I've known those printed stories of yours since the first one came out, Parker. Very good, too. As long as you kept my title and real name and rank out of 'em and scramble the dates and areas as you do so neatly, I haven't the slightest objection."

Sean