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The Man with the Golden Gun (novel)

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Fleming was an unwell man when he wrote The Man with the Golden Gun, and this affected his writing, cutting his energy from over four hours writing a day down to an hour or so. He died before the novel was published. This has been through a re-write recently with another FAC in mind (there are only three other Bond books to do after this to complete the series), so any comments in that light are much appreciated. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 06:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From Tim riley

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  • Plot
  • "a man claiming to be Bond appears in London and demands to meet the head of the Secret Service, M. Bond's identity is confirmed" – I seem to recall we've had this problem with M before: putting him at the end of a sentence and immediately before Bond's surname misleads the eye and one wonders momentarily who M. Bond is. Better here if you make it "and demands to meet M, the head of the Secret Service".
  • Background and writing history
  • "needed a lot of re-writing" – the OED doesn't hyphenate "rewriting".
  • "working on proof reading" – contrariwise "proofreading" is a single unhyphenated word in the OED.
  • "and paint the lily next year" – might be a kindness to your readers to explain in a footnote that Fleming is quoting from Shakespeare's King John (IV, 2):
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet.
This is usually misquoted as "To gild the lily", but Fleming gets it right.
  • "He became increasingly unhappy with the book, but was persuaded against it by Plomer" – persuaded against what exactly?
  • "Fleming's editors, Jonathan Cape" – Cape was his publisher rather than his editor.
  • Development
  • "The effects of the two Eon Productions Bond films released prior to the writing of the novel" – I don't know what "prior to" has got that "before" hasn't.
  • Characters
  • " The historian Jeremy Black noted that ..." – elsewhere you use the present tense: "Black describes how..." etc.
  • "For the first time in the Bond canon, M's full name of "Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG" – you can't really call "Admiral" and "KCMG" part of the man's name. You need something like "M's full name and title – Admiral Sir Miles Messervy KCMG". (Incidentally, as you explain the sources of other Fleming characters' names, I see there was a Frank Messervy at Eton not long before Fleming's time there. Do any of the sources mention him?)
  • "many of the Bond villains are monstrous - a definition " – you usually use an unspaced em-dash for such parentheses.
  • "the deficiencies of The Man with the Golden Gun - no decent villain" – ditto
  • Themes
  • "This was a return of the theme used in "Risico", of drugs being used" – this is the only mention of "Risico" in the piece, and we could do with a word or so of context: e.g. "...the theme used in Fleming's 1960 short story "Risico""
  • Critical reception
  • "Some reviewers viewed The Man with the Golden Gun in light of other works " – looks a bit odd to me without a definite article before "light".

That's all from me. Pray give me a shout when you go to FAC. Tim riley talk 09:57, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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