Let me first get two things out of the way. One, objectively speaking, Sebastian Faulks’ James Bond story is hardly the worst Bond novel ever written. Two, it is not a particularly bad thriller either – I have read many which are infinitely worse. Having said that, I must confess that Devil May Care was a drag to plough through. It put me to sleep, something that even Fleming’s worst efforts never did. (I am a die-hard Bond fan but I have never been dewy-eyed about Fleming as a writer.) It was not just the weak plot. It was not just the sheer tiredness of the villain and the heroine. It was the cumulative effect of all the little irritants that were present in each and every page of the book.
The problem with the latest Bond story is that Faulks tried too hard to ape the originals. He didn’t update Bond. He didn’t try and rectify the hundreds of mistakes that Fleming made as an author. He didn’t try to add any new dimension to Bond’s character. But infinitely worse, having decided to stick so closely to the original, Faulks then deviated quite a bit when it came to the other characters created by Fleming. Felix Leiter is completely different from what I remember him in the Fleming stories. That Leiter was laconic, had a sardonic sense of humour, and was intensely capable. He was the American version of Bond. Faulk’s Felix Leiter is completely different. He talks too much. He is slow on the uptake. He has a poor sense of geography. He is more Peter Sellers than Felix Leiter.
If Felix Leiter has changed, what has been done to Rene Mathis is much worse. Mathis seems a bumbling fool preoccupied completely with his mistress in Faulks’ novel. In the Fleming books, Mathis had a mistress but he never chose her over work… he was a fairly intelligent Bond counterpart, not the ineffective character who is present in Devil May Care.
Meanwhile, if the good men have changed dramatically, the villains and the situations remain completely unchanged. The tennis game between Bond and Julius Gorner is a mix of the card game and subsequent golf match between Bond and Auric Goldfinger. Julius Gorner also shows shades of Dr No. His sidekick reminds one forcefully of Oddjob. The scene when the fight takes place in the airplane and the window is shattered leading to a couple of villains being sucked out because of the sudden drop in pressure is straight out of Goldfinger. Even the way Bond and Scarlett are tortured is not particularly new. Déjà vu, chapter after chapter.
Then there are the technical mistakes. Sure, Fleming made a lot of them in his novels – Bond always carried the wrong guns and made all sorts of other silly mistakes as well. But with research much easier than it was in Fleming’s time – after all, the World Wide Web was not something Bond’s creator could count on. Faulks shouldn’t have made so many errors. While training, Bond gives up liquor but continues smoking like a chimney. Hard to believe that he could still do the pushups Faulks says he did, unless of course, Bond never inhaled. Similarly, Bond spoils perfectly good whisky by drowning it in soda apart from putting in lots of ice. An Englishman should have known better. These are trivial mistakes but they add to the irritation factor.
No I didn’t like Devil May Care. I had no great expectations when I bought the book. And unfortunately, Faulks did not prove me wrong.
Prosenjit Datta, editor of ABP Digital, is an indiscriminate reader. He goes through anything he can lay his hands on. And he enjoys pulp fiction and serious books equally.
Personalities 
Let me first get two things out of the way. One, objectively speaking, Sebastian Faulks’ James Bond story is hardly the worst Bond novel ever written. Two, it is not a particularly bad thriller either – I have read many which are infinitely worse. Having said that, I must confess that Devil May Care was a drag to plough through. It put me to sleep, something that even Fleming’s worst efforts never did. (I am a die-hard Bond fan but I have never been dewy-eyed about Fleming as a writer.) It was not just the weak plot. It was not just the sheer tiredness of the villain and the heroine. It was the cumulative effect of all the little irritants that were present in each and every page of the book.
Meanwhile, if the good men have changed dramatically, the villains and the situations remain completely unchanged. The tennis game between Bond and Julius Gorner is a mix of the card game and subsequent golf match between Bond and Auric Goldfinger. Julius Gorner also shows shades of Dr No. His sidekick reminds one forcefully of Oddjob. The scene when the fight takes place in the airplane and the window is shattered leading to a couple of villains being sucked out because of the sudden drop in pressure is straight out of Goldfinger. Even the way Bond and Scarlett are tortured is not particularly new. Déjà vu, chapter after chapter.
