"He could have dissembled, facilely agreed to everything she maintained, and thus improved his chances of bedding her later on. But he'd never operated thus; and he never would, especially when he liked this girl just as a person." (IV, p. 488)
That passage led to comparisons with Blomkvist, Bond and a Kurt Vonnegut character.
"Blomkvist's attitude had always been that if a woman clearly indicated that she did not want anything more to do with him, then he would go on his way. Not respecting such a message would, in his eyes, show a lack of respect for her."
-Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (London, 2010), p. 14.
I think that James Bond's attitude to women is odd but Nygel has found passages where Bond does respect his women companions. (For Nygel's review of a Trygve Yamamura novel by Poul Anderson, see here.)
Finally, somewhere in a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, a character says that the truth is what his neighbor says when he wants to be friendly with him. Thus, his neighbor says something and he wants to be friendly with him so he says, "Yeah, ain't it the truth?" - which is not how Poul Anderson's Philippe Rochefort operates.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And both Dominic Flandry and James Bond are said to have been very similar in how they treated or behaved with women. I don't entirely agree because we do see Flandry respecting women for their abilities as well, not simply because of being attractive. Lady Aline Chang-Lei being the example I thought of. I do agree both Bond and Flandry were promiscuous.
Sean
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